Hungry Robot FZ

The Hungry Robot FZ is a fuzz pedal from Hungry Robot Pedals, built on a circuit the maker designed from the ground up rather than copying a classic design. Where most fuzz pedals on the market trace back to a Big Muff or Fuzz Face, the FZ is an original topology: as the maker puts it, "Not a muff, not a fuzzface, not a clone of any kind. It is a truly original fuzz design"¹.

The pedal was originally released and later discontinued, then brought back as part of the Hungry Robot Classics line, which revisits older, discontinued models from the maker's 10 year history. Classics pedals are direct-only and built one by one as orders come in¹.

An original fuzz, not a clone

Hungry Robot's designer states he approached the FZ without imitating a specific fuzz tone: "The circuit was designed from the ground up without trying to imitate a specific fuzz tone"¹. The maker describes the end result as "a radically unique and versatile fuzz pedal that may become a classic in its own right"¹.

On the sound, the maker says the FZ has "a guttural low end you can feel in your chest, a harmonically rich top end, and amazing note articulation" for both individual notes and complex chords¹.

The press agreed on the originality point. Pedal of the Day's 2017 review called it²¹:

Pedal of the Day, 2017²

The same review found it "a totally unique fuzz circuit that isn't based on anything, and just sounds fantastic," calling it "an original and welcomed fuzz pedal" rather than "your everyday Muff or Fuzzface clone"². The maker describes the FZ in similar terms, as "a truly original fuzz design"¹.

The controls and internal dipswitches

The FZ keeps its external interface deliberately simple. The maker describes it as having "narrowly focused, predictable external controls (fuzz, tone, volume)"¹, and Pedal of the Day noted "Fuzz, Tone and Volume popping up as the usual suspects" on the surface².

The deeper tone shaping lives inside the enclosure. Like its namesake pedals, the FZ has 6 internal dipswitches for tone shaping that let you fine-tune the fuzz to match your setup¹. Pedal of the Day listed what each switch controls:

• More Fuzz²
• Tame Harmonics²
• Dark Clipping²
• Upper Mids Boost²
• Bright Clipping²
• Compression²

The review summed up the idea: "Six internal dipswitches allow you to completely customize the sounds that pour out of the [fz]"².

Where the FZ sits in the Hungry Robot line

The FZ belongs to a family of Hungry Robot gain devices. The maker's own account of the lineage runs: "First came the [lg], then the [hg], and now The Hungry Robot [fz]," with the FZ following "in the footsteps of the very successful [lg] and [hg]" and holding to the same design philosophy¹.

The original Hungry Robot LG set the template the FZ inherits. On that pedal, "the key to The Hungry Robot's versatility comes from the six internal dipswitches. Each dipswitch modifies a section of circuitry," giving a wide range of sounds from one box³. The HG, in turn, is a distinct high gain circuit, not to be confused with the low gain original⁴.

Hungry Robot later combined the two circuits in the HG+LG, which "takes the two circuits, replicates them, and combines them"⁵, and offered an LG+LG with the same layout but two LG circuits in one enclosure⁶. Like the FZ, the HG was a discontinued model brought back under the Classics program as a direct-only, built-to-order offering⁴.

The maker has since expanded its fuzz range beyond the FZ, with pedals such as The Stampede and The Collective.

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