Drag'n'fly DF-05

"Hybrid Fuzz Tones" What the hell does that mean? The Drag'n'Fly is a hybrid fuzz box, as in it uses both a germanium and a silicon transistor within its circuit design. The advantage of this being you have the rich low frequency textures of the germanium transistor and the tight focused high end bite of the silicon. The overall tone has more means to cut through the mix whilst retaining a warm full bodied flavour. The silicon/germanium combination is also beneficial in stabilising any temperature fluctuation problems you'd find with an all out germanium fuzz box. The Flys circuit design at heart is essentially a derivative of the Arbiter Fuzz Face with certain combined elements and trickery of the Vox Tone Bender circuit. In a nutshell, its my favourite elements of '68 silicon Fuzz Face and a '66 germanium Vox Tone Bender slightly tweaked for more gain, greater headroom and more tonal scope all rolled up in a compact user and Wah friendly package. For a Yaff* it's a pretty unique sounding fuzz box that has some very interesting sonic capabilities.

As we all know the Fuzz Face and the Vox Tone Bender can sound amazing but both units are not without there drawbacks in one way or another. Firstly, they can both sound pretty damn terrible when used with stock "Vox" or "Crybaby" style Wah pedals when the Wah is placed before the fuzz. An impedance mismatch occurs so the Wah either does not function correctly or will produce a strange howling sound. Secondly, the transistors in these vintage units didn't go through any overly intense screening processes so are at times not biased correctly making the fuzz tones produced sound constricted, overly gated and lacking in sustain. Also as both units are now very sort after by collectors it's not uncommon to pay upwards of £500-£600+ for an original Arbiter Fuzz Face so good examples are a little out of reach for most budding musicians. The Drag'n'Fly's advantages are as follow:

1. Filter control. You can dial the tone you need. Treble or bass. The Fly can cut through the mix even when running at full bore, it does not suffer from the dullness or any overly woolly tones that a stock Fuzz Face can occasional suffer from. This control also makes the Fly a pedal that is well suited to either single coil or humbucking pick-ups of varying output and gain levels.

2. Internal input impedance correction. The input gain is perfectly set up so it works with all Wah pedal types giving you the flexibility to run the Fly either in front or in back of your Wah.

3. Negative grounding. So the Fly can run from a standard multi plug power supply and even be daisy chained from other effects running from a single line power supply.

4. Adjustable biasing. Your Drag'n'Fly will leave castle D*A*M with the gain selected transistors correctly set up to produce a bold, clear dynamic tone with a good degree of sustain.

5. Low noise circuitry using high grade metallised polyester film capacitors, BC components Electrolytic capacitors, 1% tolerance metal film resistors, audio grade Omeg potentiometers, Eagle plastics control knobs, Neutrik jack sockets and a military grade germanium transistor.

6. Small, rugged, compact. The Fly's circuitry is built into a heavy duty die cast aluminium enclosure finished in a highly durable powder coated paint job with hand applied screen printed graphics.

The Controls

Level - sets the overall output volume.

Filter - passive tone control for either treble or bass tones.

Attack - controls the amount of fuzz and sustain available.

The Sounds