The Vox Tone Garage Trike Fuzz is an octave fuzz pedal: a fuzz that also generates notes above and below what you play. It delivers three different, additional octave sounds, one octave up and one and two octaves down, so a single note can become a stack of four. It belongs to the Tone Garage series, a line of tube-analog guitar pedals Vox added to its lineup in July 2013.1
What it does
The Trike Fuzz's octave engine is its whole point. The three extra voices can be used together or separately, and the combinations change the character of the fuzz considerably2.
- All three octaves together: MusicRadar's reviewer Trevor Curwen found this provides a complex sound to beef up leads and riffs, with plenty of variation on offer.2
- One octave up: selected on its own for an upper-octave voice.2
- One and two octaves down: selected on their own for a lower-octave voice.2
Controls
The pedal keeps things simple, with one selector doing the octave work.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Octave selector switch (three-way) | Selects which octaves you're after: all three, or either the upward or downward octaves2 |
What reviewers said
MusicRadar's review describes the Trike Fuzz as a versatile octave fuzz with a wide variety of nice and nasty tones and good build, but with a clear caveat about the lower-octave setting: it can be quite glitchy, and chords turn to white noise. The reviewer's advice was that it is definitely one to try before you buy, and that noiseniks need only apply for the lower-octaves-only setting. The overall verdict: "A versatile octave fuzz that can get quite extreme - try it out first!"2
"A versatile octave fuzz that can get quite extreme - try it out first!"
Where it sits in Vox's fuzz range
The Trike Fuzz is one of several fuzzes Vox has made over the years. If you are comparing octave fuzzes, the Vox Trike Fuzz is the same name without the Tone Garage prefix, and Vox's broader fuzz family includes the Vox Tone Bender, the Vox Tone Bender Professional MKII, the Vox UL730, and the recent VOX VFZ-1 and Vox VFZ-1 MK 1.5 silicon-transistor fuzzes. For more on the effect type itself, see Fuzz Pedals and Octave & Pitch Pedals.
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Questions
What does the Vox Tone Garage Trike Fuzz do?
It is an octave fuzz pedal from Vox's Tone Garage series. On top of the fuzz itself, it generates three additional octave sounds: one octave up and one and two octaves down. A three-way switch selects all three octaves together, the upward octave alone, or the downward octaves alone. MusicRadar's reviewer found that all three octaves together give a complex sound that beefs up leads and riffs, with plenty of variation on offer.
Sources (2)
- Vox Announces Tone Garage Series of Tube/Analog Effect Pedals, Guitar World, 2013-07-18
- Vox Tone Garage Trike Fuzz review, MusicRadar, 2013-11-14
