Warm Audio gets into the guitar pedal world with their first offering, the Foxy Tone Box. This is a fuzz tone pedal that is a “part-for-part” copy of the Foxx Tone Machine as used by Billy Gibbons, Peter Frampton, Adrian Belew, Nine Inch Nails, Beck and others. It’s even covered in bright orange fuzzy velour like the original.
Besides copying the circuit, Warm is using period correct NOS Fairchild 2N3565 germanium NPN transistors and old 1N34A diodes. There are three controls and two switches: Volume, Sustain, and the Fuzz tone control and a true, hard-wired bypass stomp switch and an Octave toggle adds an octave up note. We found the octave effect especially noticeable and good when playing higher up the neck.
The octave’s sound is directly dependent upon the settings of the Sustain and Fuzz controls with a lot of interaction that is typical of the ‘lovable’ analog world of yesteryear. Foxy Tone is powered by a single 9V battery inside (not included) or a standard DC wall-wart power supply (included); it conforms to modern center-negative 9-VDC pedal power.
We tried both a vintage Gibson SG and a 1980s Fender Stratocaster. The first of three of my guitar players said was “this is fun playing through a fuzz tone—it makes each note sustain and distinct.” I thought the SG sounded fat yet with that SG mid-range “honk.” The Strat was a little clearer and more like the fuzz tone guitar sounds of the ‘60s.
The Warm Audio Foxy Tone Box sells for $149 MSRP and makes a great addition to any electric guitar pedal board for instant, all-analog fuzz. Awesome!
