00:00on today's episode i'm going to teach
00:03a company that i love called fox rocks
00:05and the man behind a dave fox
00:07he's a legend you're going to learn a
00:09ton we're going to play all of his new
00:11and you just need to get comfortable
00:24dave fox has been working in electronics
00:27and making pedals for a long long time
00:30he is a hero to me in this industry
00:32because of these amazing circuits that
00:34he's developed over the years
00:35so i asked him if i could call him and
00:37learn a bit about how he got started
00:39well i went to the institute of audio
00:41research in 1983 and 84.
00:44and and when i was there i wasn't really
00:46into being a recording engineer
00:48you know after like about six months of
00:49it but what i'm really into was the
00:51circuit maintenance and stuff like that
00:53working in a studio doing maintenance
00:55and so i took some extra courses
00:56in that and actually actually went a few
00:58more extra months to take more courses
01:00after i graduated and that led to me
01:02getting a job at crest audio i got it
01:03through their job placement the job at
01:06fall of 84 which was being a qc
01:09technician for their new line of mixing
01:12a couple years later dave is repairing a
01:14mixer and he needs some parts so he goes
01:16back to the warehouse to find them
01:18and stumbles into a proverbial gold mine
01:21that launches him into the pedal
01:22industry yeah i was working on i was
01:24working on a mixing console and i needed
01:26uh get some parts from the warehouse so
01:28i went to this other room where they had
01:30these shelves that nobody would go back
01:31to you know there's dustin and all these
01:34and there was a couple of fuzz faces and
01:35there was also a couple boxes full of
01:37faces so i grabbed one of those fuzz
01:38faces and we had this demo room where
01:40you could set up an amp and stuff so i
01:42brought in my aunt my guitar
01:43and i plugged into the fuzz face and it
01:45sounded awful it was a dud
01:47there i think there were two or three of
01:48them there they were duds and
01:50they all sounded awful they barely
01:51passed the signal you know just like the
01:54sound i remember thinking wow hendrix
01:55was really good to get a sound like this
01:58you know how does he sound like that i
01:59sound like this so i was messing around
02:02around the same time there was a an
02:03article in guitar player magazine by
02:06about the flood space the technology of
02:08the fuzz face so i had that
02:09that article it gave me a little bit of
02:11background you know i didn't have the
02:12internet so i had a little background i
02:13was reading about it and
02:14i came up with the idea of making them
02:16again seemed like a cool idea
02:18and i went to the president of the
02:19company john lee and told him what i
02:21wanted to do and he said yeah go ahead
02:22started here are a couple of examples of
02:26actual mid-80s crest fuzz faces
02:30uh that dave is responsible for so two
02:33colors here that i'm aware of they have
02:36and they're really really cool fun to
02:38have these in the collection
02:39he stopped making these crest let that
02:42whole idea go but in 1992
02:44he starts his own pedal brand called fox
02:47rocks so let's jump into his current
02:50i'm going to walk you through what i
02:51like about those these pedals that
02:53they've built in the early 90s are part
02:57original lineage of boutique pedals in
03:01early full tone george trips with way
03:04the klon centaur things like that and
03:07they're really really cool and really
03:09important and extremely hard to find so
03:12today i'm only going to focus on the
03:14modern versions of his pedals the things
03:16he's producing today that you can go buy
03:19right now from his website and let's
03:22the cc hybrid 2. the cc hybrid 2
03:26is his take on what a really good fuzz
03:29face should sound like
03:31as a matter of fact it first came to be
03:33as the fuzz face in one of his very
03:35early pedals called the captain coconut
03:37that's what cc stands for and what's
03:40really cool about this
03:41it is the first ever produced hybrid
03:44transistor fuzz face meaning
03:46there's not two germaniums or two
03:48silicons it's actually one of both
03:51and it makes it really stable it has a
03:53great characteristics it's very tunable
03:56it's just a really fantastic fuzz pedal
03:59and it carries on that lineage from his
04:01so i like it for that we're going to jam
04:05what i like most about this is its
04:10nuts like you can have some overdriven
04:13mid gain fuzz tones and that's what
04:15we're gonna do with it right now
04:16i'm gonna play the 335 style collings
04:20and to show you how well it responds to
04:23your guitar's volume knob and how it
04:26i'm going to leave the bridge pick up
04:27full blast volume all the way up so it's
04:30super distorted towards the end of the
04:32and up front i'm gonna have it on the
04:34neck pickup and the volume
04:36barely on so it's super clean you'll see
04:38me flip the switch and you'll hear a lot
05:33the next petal and one of my favorite
05:37is the octron there is a version two and
05:40there's a version three i mean
05:41technically there's a one somewhere but
05:43i don't have that one
05:44and the two is what i'm going to demo
05:47the main difference here is size and
05:50feature set on stomp switches
05:52so let's talk about the two and then
05:55the three the two basically has an
05:58on a foot switch direct on a foot switch
06:01meaning clean signal
06:02and then octave down on a foot switch
06:04and you have a bypass button
06:07the three you just have one setting you
06:09kind of put your knobs where you want
06:10them octave up optic down
06:12direct stuff like that so this is really
06:14simple and this is a little more
06:17user-friendly in a live scenario now the
06:20up is a take on this but it's not really
06:24at all like this it's an op amp
06:26version of an octavia which is really
06:30and then the octave down is inspired by
06:34the fx35 if you know about this
06:37then you're in a secret club of really
06:39cool people who know things about really
06:42all that's in here it's great
06:45gonna lay this next to this just to keep
06:48and we're going to play some like robot
06:52i don't know jetson's blues
07:37the next petal here the third petal it's
07:40much to talk about that i can't get it
07:44i'm not that's a good statement i can't
07:46get it all out right now so
07:48we're gonna do a live episode wednesday
07:50if you're watching this right now friday
07:52wednesday we're just gonna cover this
07:56it looks fairly simple but then there's
08:00the backs off for a reason because this
08:05one side of this or you could say this
08:07is two of these put together
08:08now here's the magic you take the back
08:10off there's a little screw here
08:13i've always wanted to do this and i
08:15think every other pedal builder in the
08:17universe has but he actually did it
08:20you just pull the main circuit out
08:23and replace it with any of these
08:27and they're like super cheap i think
08:29they're like 20 30 bucks or something
08:31you can trade your old ones back into
08:34look at this look at this it's crazy
08:38you just it's like a modular
08:42perfect petal a modularly
08:45perfect petal anyway i'm using his big
08:49muff style circuit which is cool and
08:52it's definitely a big enough
08:53but it's different and i like that let's
09:45next up is a brand new fox rocks pedal
09:48i actually can't find it on his website
09:51or anything but we talked about it on
09:53that we had going he sent it in it's
09:56really cool it is called the two boost
10:00a boost here controlled with a boost
10:04and then you have this top switch so you
10:08a second boost now this gets
10:12really wild because this is a
10:15phase shift tunable boost
10:19so instead of like your normal tone
10:22control he's actually using
10:24a phase shift type circuit to find
10:26exactly where you want the frequency to
10:29it's wild it's really wild i've never
10:31seen anything like this
10:33i'm gonna set it up with this cool sound
10:36where it's almost like when i engage
10:41kind of low-fi very very cool
10:44flabby treble booster i don't know how
10:48else to describe it it's really fun so
10:50i'm going to start the jam just the amp
10:52i'm going to turn on the boost and
10:54you're going to notice that
10:55this is slamming into the front of the
10:58overdriving it and then by the time i
11:00hit this which would be stage
11:02three it's going to be crazy it's like a
11:05really nice crunchy overdrive so i'm
11:07excited for this just go check it out
11:09email him look on his website
11:11it's probably for sell now now that this
11:53next up is the fr 100 overdrive this is
11:57ending up on a pedalboard near me very
12:01because of the form factor being so
12:05and having a really versatile control
12:07set so you have the overdrive here
12:10on this footswitch and then you have
12:11controls for that now
12:13it has the clipping section of a tube
12:16screamer and i say that cautiously
12:20i can hear people's thoughts oh a tube
12:22screamer well no this is
12:24really cool it has a totally different
12:27there's definitely some adjustments
12:28going on here and then when you engage
12:31you engage a lead channel which is
12:34super useful and way better
12:38than traditional formats like this so
12:40we're all familiar with the full drive
12:41but i've never been a fan of that
12:43you hit the boost there's not a lot of
12:46volume and it can honestly just sound
12:48happened in certain settings this does
12:51do that this is very very cool i could
12:53see this being the only drive
12:55pedal on your board or a board of mine
12:57so we're gonna jam on this
12:59uh low gain first i'm gonna smash this
13:03a lead sound and it's yellow i mean i
13:06feel good about yellow things as well
13:48the last pedal that we're doing here
13:50it's actually two pedals
13:51it's really to feature the aqua vibe
13:54let's talk about the aqua vibe
13:56and then we'll talk about the hot
13:58silicone first this guy so
14:00when he started fox rocks in 1992
14:03the very first thing he ever built was
14:07and this was his rendition and
14:10replication of an original univibe
14:13which at the time they were hard to find
14:15like they are now but
14:16they were broken when you find them and
14:18he just got into making his own
14:20and a lot of people were ordering them
14:22and it became pretty popular
14:23the aqua vibe is simply that concept but
14:27for 2020 said a great enclosure size
14:30sounds fantastic and one of the best
14:34his version of this circuit is the
14:38this is usually an internal trimmer
14:41fragile finicky something as a builder i
14:44don't even want people to mess with
14:45sometimes but he puts it on the outside
14:47and he binds the perimeters in where
14:49it's useful the whole way
14:51i love it it kind of changes that
14:54point at which the univibe i say thumps
14:57there's like a way that it goes it goes
15:00waveform comes back down very very cool
15:03i messed with that for a while love it
15:06so big knob you can move with your foot
15:08or you have an external expression
15:10and then there's the hot silicon too so
15:13the captain coconut fuzz earlier the
15:17truly pure silicon a little bit
15:20hotter tone more gain more fuzz because
15:24i'm going to combine them play a strat
15:27you know play like a bad hendrix thing
16:54these pedals are fantastic i hope you
16:56enjoy these demos go check out
16:58other demos and just know that dave fox
17:01is a really really fantastic designer
17:04these are made phenomenal one of the
17:06things that we discussed on the phone
17:08is that he takes his approach to pro
17:12building mixers and desks for people and
17:14he puts that level of detail
17:16into the construction of these pedals
17:18dave works on huge front of house rigs
17:21for massive tours and
17:22like a level bands and he's done that
17:25for decades and decades and you can tell
17:27that when you open these pedals
17:28the way they're built the way that they
17:30function it's very very
17:32high quality and again he's responsible
17:34for pushing the boutique thing forward
17:37and for companies like jhs even being
17:39around he's a big player in that
17:41and so i'm thankful for that and i love
17:42these pedals for that reason as well
17:45let's go to record time today's record
17:47time is brought to you by the year
17:53that's when fox shock started that's
17:56addison was born and pavement was
17:59forever born as a band
18:00with their album slanted and enchanted
18:03i'm a huge pavement fan and i want to
18:07this is a tough listen for me even as a
18:10there are 20 percent of you who are
18:13going to hear this record
18:14and your lives are going to be changed
18:16forever from this moment on
18:1880 of you are absolutely going to hate
18:20this you're probably going to put
18:22hate messages in the comments you're
18:23going to email you're going to show up
18:26you're going to be really mad that i
18:28even recommended this but for that 20
18:31it's worth it it's the 80 20 rule of
18:33music i just invented it right now
18:35people are going to talk about it in the
18:37it's a thing right now check this out
18:40let me know if you're part of the 80 or
18:41the 20 in the comments
18:43if you know about pavement and you love
18:45them let's talk about their music and
18:46what your favorite record is if you
18:48don't care about pavement and you think
18:50record time's stupid just put a comment
18:52because that'd be fun to know thanks so
18:54much for watching this episode
18:56i hope you enjoyed it just a big
18:57reminder that this coming wednesday
19:01we will go to town on these i'm going to
19:04all 11 cards i think i have a ton of
19:08we're gonna go through these we're gonna
19:10discuss them we're gonna do some jams
19:11and we will do a live
19:12q a might even give away something i
19:15don't know if i'm feeling right we're
19:17gonna give something away so
19:18check that out if you like this episode
19:20hit like subscribe to the channel
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19:37that basically helps us support what
19:40archiving of history there's all kinds
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19:44discounts i do lectures over there long
19:47form talks about pedal history
19:49if you're a nerd it's a must that link
19:51is in the description below
19:52that's all i have go check out more
19:56peruse their website email dave bother
19:58him annoy him i'm sure he'll love it
