All around me are fuzzy faces...
Let's talk about the Fuzz Face. Maybe at one time a mic stand base-sized box of silicon transistors favored by the likes of Hendrix, maybe at another a Dick Tracy rogues gallery member left on the cutting room floor, the Fuzz Face today is a legendary circuit.
The fabled smiley device has made an indelible mark on rock history. An early arrival to the proverbial fuzz circuit party of history, the Fuzz Face has earned its place among the pantheon of timeless fuzz circuits. Today, among the endless deluge of fuzz circuits popping up, the Fuzz Face still has its devotees, its evangelists, its clones, and its evolutions. The legendary circuit, never out of vogue it seems, rounds the track for another victory lap today from California's finest in digital – and now – analog design. Let's talk about it.
This is the Strymon Canoga Vintage Silicon Fuzz.
Putting a Smile on That Face
Introducing the Strymon Canoga Vintage Silicon Fuzz
Like we said, the Fuzz Face truly needs no introduction. An unmistakable design appearing in the limelight as early as the late '60s, the Fuzz Face's cheery smile and blistering silicon tone have been icons all their own for decades. This forefather of fuzz circuitry proliferated throughout the ensuing decades as the amps got bigger, the sounds dirtier, and the music gnarlier – though never losing its undeniable edge.
This endless conga of Fuzz Face designs put it in a timeless place. Today, we've got a new stop on the Fuzz Face expedition from Strymon. California's finest in digital-forward effects, the brand has since widened their effect wizardry further to include analog-centric designs in their Series A line of pedals. This line has since cropped up great, analog-forward pedals like the Fairfax Class A Output Driver to make close friends with your old tube amps and well-traveled humbuckers. Today's Canoga Vintage Silicon Fuzz follows up in this series for a thoroughly modern Fuzz Face. Two dials, a footswitch, and a dream is where we're at with the Canoga – just like how it was in ye olden days. Let's talk about that.
All Fuzzed Up
Strymon Canoga Vintage Silicon Fuzz Controls and Tones
If you can believe it, the Strymon Canoga Vintage Silicon Fuzz is a blissfully simple Fuzz Face in classic Strymon fashion. Coming together with two fuzz control dials, a single footswitch, and mono routing, the Canoga plays right into the Fuzz Face legacy as an unencumbered, uncluttered, and uncomplicated fuzz to stomp on and fly away with. There's not too much to the Canoga*, so we can be brief as we run down its design.
Part of its beauty, if you ask us
- Level – The overall output level for the effect. Rolling around at very least a consistent boost throughout its sweep, the Level control lands at plenty of accurate, responsive shelves for skillfully placing the fuzz in a mix.
- Drive – The amount of distortion in the effect. Like the many, many Fuzz Faces to come before it, the Canoga's distortion effect is locked to a blissfully simple single dial. Roll the dial backwards for a cleaner effect, push it forward for a dirtier, more scrambled voice.
Strymon Canoga Vintage Silicon Fuzz Tones and Playability
Across the entirety of the Canoga, the simple dance between its Level and Drive controls summons massively expressive fuzzy and distorted voices. Fire up the Canoga and start each dial at noon for a punched-up, distorted profile at square one. Like many other Fuzz Faces, the Canoga is a marvelously effective tool at pairing up with your favorite old tube amp to introduce a sizzling bite or a loving kick in the pants to the overall equation. Plenty of amplified oomph sits behind the Canoga to make it make quick friends with amps with a pension for authentic tube crunch.
Coupling the Canoga with your best tube amp is surely a path you'll want to take, but what about getting to the classic brass tacks of Fuzz Faces? That's right – full-blown silicon-driven fuzzstortion. Sit the Canoga in front of any amp that suits your fancy and crank that Drive dial all the way ahead. Here, the pedal blooms into the Fuzz Face fuzzstortion so beloved by so many Hendrix devotees and blowtorch-soloing hopefuls. The Fuzz Face's iconic sizzling silicon style comes into full view with the Canoga's Drive dial maxed where woofing distortions and searing fuzzes pop up left and right in relation to your Level control and your guitar's volume controls.
The Canoga works wonderfully for guitarists who like to put a little English on their guitar's knobs. Max out the Canoga's two settings and you've got yourself a marvelously fuzzy flame to stoke and silence at will with your guitar's volume controls. Ever responsive to changes in input coming to the pedal, the silicon-forward tone of the Canoga changes responsively for on-the-fly gear shifts from voices more cool and collected to those more cantankerous and calamitous.
Strymon Canoga Vintage Silicon Fuzz Final Thoughts
An effortlessly expressive fuzzstortion just like mom used to make, the Strymon Canoga is a champ of silicon fuzz tones. The no-questions-asked simplicity of classic Fuzz Face designs serves the pedal's playability and musicality swimmingly for a thoroughly modern vision of a classic effect. Strymon's Series A line of analog designs welcomes a winner with the Canoga, and with the Fuzz Face's reputation as an effect to prove the test of time, the classic, distorted tone doesn't miss a beat. In its time or any other, the Fuzz Face is a beloved effect – and with the Canoga, Strymon proves it all over again.
