Death By Audio Fuzz War Settings Guide
The Death By Audio Fuzz War is a high-gain fuzz pedal with a single-knob simplicity — Volume and Fuzz controls, with a hard-clipping circuit that produces massive, wall-of-noise fuzz. It targets noise rock, experimental, and heavy psych applications where complete saturation and maximum chaos are the goal. Highly compressed, aggressive, and capable of extreme sustain.
The best Death By Audio Fuzz War settings start with: Fuzz at 6/10, Volume at 5/10. Adjust from there based on your amp, guitar, and room volume. For Noise Rock: Fuzz 9/10, Volume 5/10.
⚡ Start Here — Recommended Settings
| Control | Starting Position | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Fuzz | 6/10 | Wild → Extreme |
| Volume | 5/10 | Unity → Loud |
These are universal starting points. Adjust based on your amp, guitar, and room. Scroll down for genre-specific settings and artist-documented positions.
What Each Control Does
Recommended Starting Settings
Safe starting positions for any style. Adjust from here based on your amp and room.
All values on a 0–10 scale. These are starting points — fine-tune by ear.
Settings by Genre
Maximum Fuzz — the Fuzz War at maximum saturation for noise rock and experimental applications where complete signal saturation and extended sustain are the goal. At Fuzz 9 the pedal produces a compressed, sustaining noise that bears little resemblance to the original guitar signal.
Moderate Fuzz — at Fuzz 6 the Fuzz War remains extremely saturated but retains some note definition. For heavy psych rock where fuzz is the primary texture but chord voicings still need to be distinguishable.
High Fuzz, controlled Volume — the Fuzz War for doom metal applications. High Fuzz produces extreme saturation; Volume controlled to prevent ear-splitting levels. The massive compression of the Fuzz War at high settings suits the slow, sustained doom character.
A slightly lower Fuzz than the full-noise setting retains just enough note definition for riff-based sludge playing, while still delivering the extreme saturation this circuit is known for.
Maximum Fuzz with Volume pulled well back produces a controlled wall of near-total saturation, useful as a sustained textural drone rather than a conventional riffing fuzz tone.
Tips & Common Mistakes
- This pedal is sensitive to input impedance — running it after a buffer or other buffered pedal changes its character significantly toward a more compressed, conventional fuzz. Running it first in the chain, directly from guitar to the pedal, produces the maximum interaction between guitar pickup inductance and the fuzz circuit, which is the intended character.
- Volume and Fuzz interact more than on a typical fuzz — because the gain stage is so extreme, small Volume adjustments produce large perceived loudness changes even at a fixed Fuzz setting.
- This circuit is genuinely one of the most extreme fuzz pedals available — players coming from a more moderate fuzz like a Big Muff should expect a significant jump in both gain and unpredictability, not a simple continuation of the same territory.
- Guitar volume-knob cleanup is limited on this circuit at high Fuzz settings compared to more moderate fuzz pedals — expect the tone to stay heavily saturated across most of the guitar volume range rather than cleaning up gradually.
- For band contexts, this pedal extreme compression can work against note-to-note clarity in busy arrangements — it suits simpler, riff-based parts better than complex chord voicings or fast lead lines.
FAQ
Death By Audio Fuzz War — Common Questions
Best starting settings for Death By Audio Fuzz War: Fuzz at 6/10, Volume at 5/10. Adjust from there based on your guitar, room, and playing style.
For Noise Rock: Fuzz 9/10, Volume 5/10. Maximum Fuzz — the Fuzz War at maximum saturation for noise rock and experimental applications where complete signal saturation and extended sustain are the goal. At Fuzz 9 the pedal produces a compressed, sustaining noise that bears little resemblance to the original guitar signal.
For Heavy Psych: Fuzz 6/10, Volume 6/10. Moderate Fuzz — at Fuzz 6 the Fuzz War remains extremely saturated but retains some note definition. For heavy psych rock where fuzz is the primary texture but chord voicings still need to be distinguishable.
Fuzz: Gain and clipping — even at minimum settings the Fuzz War is heavily saturated. Maximum is complete signal destruction. (Wild to Extreme). Volume: Output level — the Fuzz War is loud; keep Volume controlled. (Unity to Loud)
This pedal is sensitive to input impedance — running it after a buffer or other buffered pedal changes its character significantly toward a more compressed, conventional fuzz. Running it first in the chain, directly from guitar to the pedal, produces the maximum interaction between guitar pickup inductance and the fuzz circuit, which is the intended character. Volume and Fuzz interact more than on a typical fuzz — because the gain stage is so extreme, small Volume adjustments produce large perceived loudness changes even at a fixed Fuzz setting. This circuit is genuinely one of the most extreme fuzz pedals available — players coming from a more moderate fuzz like a Big Muff should expect a significant jump in both gain and unpredictability, not a simple continuation of the same territory. Guitar volume-knob cleanup is limited on this circuit at high Fuzz settings compared to more moderate fuzz pedals — expect the tone to stay heavily saturated across most of the guitar volume range rather than cleaning up gradually. For band contexts, this pedal extreme compression can work against note-to-note clarity in busy arrangements — it suits simpler, riff-based parts better than complex chord voicings or fast lead lines.
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