Cusack Scruzz

The Cusack Scruzz is a "Never-Off" screamer fuzz pedal made by Cusack Music. It is the Never-Off version of the Cusack Screamer Fuzz, which means it carries the Screamer's sound in a box built for a switcher system rather than for stomping¹. Cusack describes it as including all of the great tone of the Cusack Screamer, minus the actual Tone knob¹.

The circuit blends two gain flavors in one small box. According to the maker, with the Fuzz all the way down it is like a screamer with the tone at noon, and with the Drive all the way down it is a gnarly fuzz pedal; mixing amounts of the two gives a cool combination of sounds¹. A three-way toggle then selects the clipping character, so a single pedal covers a wide stretch of the fuzz to overdrive range.

A Screamer Fuzz with no Tone knob

The Scruzz comes out of Cusack's Screamer line. The Screamer Fuzz itself is a variant of the Cusack Screamer V2, including all of the aspects of the V2 sans the Tone knob, as Delicious Audio put it when covering the pedal at NAMM 2019³. Where the standard Screamer has a Tone knob, the Screamer Fuzz replaces it with one labeled Fuzz, which, in Guitar World's words, "acts almost like a tone control, adding extra teeth to the basic Screamer sound"⁴.

The Scruzz takes that idea one step further for players who run switcher-based boards. Cusack says it includes all of the great tone of the Cusack Screamer, minus the actual Tone knob¹. What you keep is the gain structure and the clipping options; what you give up is onboard tone shaping and the footswitch.

Guitar World's 2008 review of the Screamer family also noted the enclosure options of that era: the pedals were available either unfinished, for an industrial look, or with a Powder Coated Black finish, with embossed lettering and colored chicken-head knobs⁴.

The controls: Drive, Level and Clip Selector

The Scruzz keeps its front panel to three controls¹:

The Clip Selector is where most of the tonal range lives. Silicon, asymmetrical LED and Schottky diodes each clip the signal's waveform differently, which changes the character of the distortion: the maker lists the three positions plainly as silicon, asymmetrical LED and Schottky¹. Combined with the Drive knob, that gives you several distinct voices before you touch anything else.

Because there is no Tone knob, the pedal's brightness depends on where you set the gain controls and which clipping position you choose. Cusack's own description points this way: with the Fuzz down it behaves like a screamer with the tone at noon, and with the Drive down it is a gnarly fuzz¹.

Never-Off: no bypass switch and no battery

Cusack Music is direct about what Never-Off means: "Never-Off" pedals do not come equipped with true bypass switches, or battery power capability. These products are meant to work with a switcher system¹. In practice, the effect is always active in whatever loop it occupies, and you bring it in and out of your signal chain with your switcher rather than with a footswitch on the pedal.

Power comes from a standard center negative 9V DC supply, which is not included, and the pedal draws about 10mA¹, a light load for any pedalboard power brick. There is no battery option, so the pedal cannot run standalone.

The same Never-Off concept appears elsewhere in the Cusack range. The Cusack Music Scruzz Bass applies it to a bass version: like the Scream Bass, it is a Tube Screamer-inspired overdrive modified for bass, but with an additional fuzz circuit, and it blends the overdrive and fuzz circuits to taste, running the full gamut of gain from subtle grit to buzz saw⁵. Cusack marks that bass version as discontinued⁵. The guitar-oriented Cusack Screamer Fuzz Bass page describes a similar gain range, from subtle grit to buzz saw, with Scream and Level controls⁶.

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