EWS Fuzzy Drive FD-1

The EWS Fuzzy Drive FD-1 is a fuzz pedal from EWS, short for Engineering Work Store, and it was the first pedal the company produced. Despite the fuzz name, it behaves at many settings more like a drive pedal: Premier Guitar's reviewer got a range of tones from warm overdrive to almost buzz saw, and found more "drive" than "fuzz" in much of its range.¹

More drive than fuzz

The reviewer's verdict was that the FD-1 works less like a one-trick fuzz and more like a general-purpose dirt box¹:

Premier Guitar's reviewer went on to say he would seriously consider it as the one box for a whole range of overdrive sounds, citing its overall versatility. That places it closer in use to the pedals on the Overdrive Pedals and Distortion Pedals pages than to a traditional Fuzz Pedals design, even though EWS markets it as a fuzz. The company had a clear reason to enter that market: its sister company, Xotic, offers no fuzz pedals, so by arriving first with the Fuzzy Drive, EWS carved out a niche of its own.¹

Controls

The FD-1 keeps its control layout simple. The Gain knob on the upper right determines how hard the incoming signal gets clipped, and as the dial is turned clockwise, the more "fuzz" you get.¹

Build and circuit

The pedal is housed in a cast aluminum box that is brushed, then clear coated, with a black retro-style graphic and white lettering silk-screened on the enclosure.¹

Inside, the circuit is straightforward. A simple circuit board carries 14 resistors, 13 capacitors, one diode, and one each of a dual op-amp and a single op-amp, with no discrete transistors. That op-amp based design, rather than the transistor-based circuits common to classic fuzzes, lines up with the pedal's drive-leaning character.¹

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