Secret Seasons: Snowdrift Fuzz (long demo)

http://www.myspace.com/secretseasonselectronics
http://www.fuzzhugger.com/pedal-snowdrift.html

The Snowdrift is a labour of fuzz love courtesy of Mike Brown, Fuzzhugger, Laura Bennett and Julie Dalton. It is the reinvented and improved upon legacy of the short-lived and relatively rare Fingerprint Fuzz, now a collectible stomp.

The Snowdrift has a lot of textures available and is worth taking time to get to know. As Mike suggests, it seems to enjoy tube rectified amps a little more than solid state rectifiers, but I have proven here that SS rectos work OK, too (the Laneys are both SS).

The 'Snowdrift Theme #1' (intro music) was written and played by BK2010. A Wampler Faux Tape echo did the delay duties.

There is tons more info you should know about the Snowdrift, so I'll take the liberty of lifting the blurb from Fuzzhugger's site and quoting it here for you.

The Snowdrift is a multi-gainstage hybrid fuzz pedal with an emphasis on touch-sensitive dynamics. Featuring a very unique set of controls, and an incredibly wide range of tones. From light and open to ripping and scrambled...pretty drives, distortion, full-on fuzz....all the way to crazy octaves and robot sounds.

A truly a collaborative design, it all began when Secret Seasons acquired the rights to Penny Pedals' Fingerprint (in order to save the much-loved pedal from extinction). With Laura Bennett on board to paint, the Snowdrift took on new life as Secret Seasons' Michael Brown and FuzzHugger(fx) began looking at the circuit. The question was, with such a great circuit, why not deliver on expectations and take things to the next level? After several prototypes, the final
Snowdrift was chosen. It's been a long wait--a year for some!--but now you can choose yours!

Modes:
• Right Footswitch (on/off) - Flurry: The top 3 leftmost controls. It is in this mode you will find your most traditional and controllable fuzz tones, light and airy all the way up to a ripping velcro-like scramble.
• Left Footswitch (mode two) - Blizzard: The 4th knob becomes active, the 2nd stage comes alive, and the internal feedback loop is squelched. This new portion of the circuit is pure silicon transistor driven fuzz, meant not to overpower the first stage of fuzz, but envelop it.

Controls:
• Accumulation (Master Volume) - Master volume.
• Snowpack (Drive) - Your primary gain control. It is a more nuanced control than most drive knobs, affecting the density of the drive moreso than the amount. This allows you to go from lighter, airy fuzztones to heavier, thicker tones.
• Shade (Texture) - This knob is directly linked to the internal feedback loop, and performs differently in the two modes. This knob is truly the key to finding all of the fuzz tones hidden inside the pedal. It is interactive with the Snowpack knob, giving you access to the more extreme sounds as you turn it clockwise. As you increase it, you begin to starve the voltage of the feedback loop, and it is here where the smallest adjustment may bring you entirely new and
sometimes unpredictable sounds. Volume adjustments may be needed at some settings.
• Whiteout (Secondary Volume / Texture in Blizzard Mode) - Active in mode two. One very important note about this knob--the taper of the control has intentionally been left very wide, to the point where at fully counter-clockwise it will mute the pedal much like the Accumulation knob
in the first mode! This was done so that you can fine-tune your sweetspots on this control to include the very minimum levels, which can create some very interesting sounds. As you turn this control clockwise more of the second gainstage fuzz is injected into the circuit, and the controls all become extremely interactive.This knob and the Shade knob especially will offer you a wealth of sounds that may not be found in any other pedal on the market

Snowdrift
• Hand-painted by Laura Bennett! No two are the same.
• Hand-wired by Julie Dalton.
• Two modes, four controls.
• True-bypass switching.
• 9v-tip adapter power only.
• Rugged aluminum enclosure (4.37" x 3.37)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Snowdrift
• Mike
• Brown
• Laura
• Bennett
• Julie
• Dalton
• Fuzzhugger
• Fingerprint
• Fuzz
• Secret
• Seasons
• Brett
• Kingman
• Sadie
• Telecaster
• Wampler
• Faux
• Tape
• Echo
• Laney
• VC50
• Shoegaze

[marvelboy04]

wow ive defintely been looking forward to this! theyre all sold out now, but how much will they cost when available again?

also burgs, do you know if they will revive the penny pedals lowfuzz? that always sounded like an amazing pedal to me.

lastly, i saw that theres also a kit for the traditional fingerprint fuzz, so would there be any point in getting both?

[Burgerman666]

@marvelboy04 He Marvelboy, how goes it? The Lowfuzz: Mike has not indicated whether or not he'll do that one. I'd like to think so as it's kind of cool and not many people know about it. I'll have to dig it out and shoot a better vid for it, actually, now that I'm a little more adept. A kit for the trad FP? I had no idea about that. Cool! You've got to build it though... The thing about the Snowdrift is that there is that second gain stage. And it's custom painted. And I love it. :)

[nadiyahz]

@Tom Dalton, thank you very much for building me a Bennett painted Snowdrift and shipping a Fuzzhugger Algal Bloom with it! @Everyone else. EP Boost--OCD V3--Yeti--VST-Twosome--Snowdri­ft-- Algal Bloom--SLOstortion--BudWah-- Martini--POG II--Empress Phaser-- Brigadier--El Capistan--Blue Sky-- 2 all tube amps, with 3rd all tube amp dry! Goerge L's all the way!! Powered V.L. PS2, T•Rex FT jr. & J.D. DC10 Brick. All plugged into a Monster Pro 3500.

[Tibbon]

We also did a video of it that we just released today: youtube.com/watch?v=4ZQlhKhGVy­Y

[thisjustin79]

Finally someone did a decent demo of this pedal. I couldn't tell if it was an accurate Penny Pedals Footprint recreation or not. Now I can see it is and even more. You rock burgerman!

[joegagan]

beautiful work. great video, great fuzz.

[BlackAdderLXX]

WOW! This is like a usable Fuzz Factory on steriods!

[tdal1706]

Beautiful!!! :)

[moustikdu91]

It's a firework, not a fuzz!

[tensaigamer0]

mmm im loving the tone in that snowdrift theme.. :(