T H E
F E Z
This drive box pays homage to the venerable Grey Box 250 Overdrive Preamp
In being faithful to the original circuit design and signal path, but
Then I completely toss out all the lame crap the original was
Constructed with and replaced it with all kinds of good components.
Metal film, polystyrene fast caps and tantalum capacitors, carbon comp and metal film resistors
even a NOS metal can 741 opamp in my little boutique tone stew. Smells soooo
good I can taste it (and I have)!
The sum of all These hi-fi analog goodies result in a superior version of the
original in my own ears. Plus finding a vintage original is tough and costs upwards of
over $200+ and they don’t even have an LED or True bypass let alone a socket chip
so you can swap in other variations of the LM741.
Okay I’m done blowing the horn, you bought one so I’m sure you
Want to know what the function of the controls are about….
Lets get dirty:
On the left side of the pedal is the “
output gain
” control
All the way to the left is off of course and all the way to the right is fully open.
This control interacts tonally with the drive control on the right
. The control on
The right is the output gain or overdrive level.
Let me explain the interaction between the two. As the overdrive knob starts moving past
12 oclock, the pedals tone will begin to sound brighter and anything above 2 oclock causes
the low end of the pedal to start thinning out. This is the Nature of the 250 overdrive and
to compensate you will have to bring the output volume of the pedal up past 12 oclock and 1 oclock
is optimal in my opinion wit the overdrive control about 2 oclock for a good rocking tubey overdrive
effect.
For using it as a reverb tank driver I like the overdrive knob at 10 oclock
and the output level knob at 2 oclock. YA.. it kicks ASS as a dirty
tube spring reverb tank driver. Garage Surf heaven in my book
. (yes a solid state reverb tank will
response nicely too, I’ve got that in my roland space echo)
There is no black and white settings on the FEZ pedal in my opinion because each knob affects
The other and all are yet still texturally affected by the amps settings.
FWIW, the louder and cleaner the amp The better sounding the FEZStomp. There are some example
Settings on the last page of this manual for those that are more visually orientated
Or bored out of their minds reading what I’ve written thus far!
