Fairfield Circuitry ~900
The Fairfield Circuitry 900 is an overall very versatile fuzz pedal.
It stacks well with other pedals and is friendly to all sorts of instruments and signal levels. The INPUT especially will dictate how the pedal responds.
Similar Fuzz Circuit to Four Eyes Fuzz
At lower INPUT levels, the FUZZ will have a wide range of tones and interact heavily with the BIAS knob. When the INPUT is raised high, the FUZZ and BIAS will be a bit less responsive – but at that point, you will be experiencing a thick wall of distortion/fuzz.
The ~900 is a spiritual successor to our discontinued Four Eyes Fuzz, having a similar fuzz circuit.
This pedal has a very wide range of gain, brought to you by four interactive controls: INPUT, FUZZ, BIAS, VOLUME.
The INPUT section is a ‘mu-amp’ design. The INPUT knob controls the level going into this first gain stage – you can go from clean with lots of headroom, to completely slammed and distorted – and everything in between.
The FUZZ knob controls the level going into the second JFET gain stage. This section is very dependent on the level of the INPUT.
The BIAS knob adjusts the bias of the second gain stage. This gives control over the saturation symmetry, and can also allow gating when turned up high enough. The BIAS knob is especially interactive with the FUZZ knob.
The VOLUME controls the master volume output. This pedal has a lot of gain to offer and can get quite loud. Don’t take our word for it, see it demo’ed on bass and guitar here
About ~900 Features
Controls:
- INPUT – preamp input level
- FUZZ – interstage level
- BIAS – second stage bias and gain
- VOLUME – output level
Key Features
- Two cascading JFET gain stages with mu-amp input into JFET second stage
- Four highly interactive controls — INPUT, FUZZ, BIAS, VOLUME
- INPUT sets the mu-amp preamp level
- BIAS adjusts second stage saturation symmetry
- Spiritual successor to the discontinued Fairfield Four Eyes Fuzz
- Works on guitar, bass, and other instruments
- True Bypass
- Input impedance 1MΩ
- Output impedance under 5kΩ
- 9V DC centre-negative, 10mA — no battery
- 2-year warranty
- Handmade in Hull, Québec, Canada
FAQs
The ~900 (About Nine Hundred) is a two-stage JFET fuzz with a cryptic name! Not really sure why about 900 but cool fuzz using JFET gain stages rather than diode clipping circuit.
Thiis is all about the mu-amp design where the input level determines how the pedal responds downstream. At lower INPUT settings the FUZZ and BIAS controls are wide and responsive, at higher INPUT settings the pedal is pushed into thick, wall-of-fuzz.
It controls saturation by adjusting the bias of the second JFET gain stage. turn it up and the signal starts to cut off abruptly – very interactive with FUZZ control.
It has the same architecture – key difference is it adds the mu-amp INPUT section for more flexible gain staging.
Yes – take a look at the vid.
No
Yes
Gavin M (verified owner) –
Yeah it’s good, I like it. More gritty and distortion-like than a more traditional type fuzz but you can definitely get lots of interesting sounds from it.