Fulton-Webb Textosterone: The Pedal That Provides Fuzz And Creamy Overdrive
So what's the big deal about Germanium diodes? Bill Webb explains as he reveals that Fulton-Webb Amplification is more versatile than their name would imply. They also make quite a variety of guitar pedals, however, they were sold out of all but one model when we stopped by their base at Austin Vintage Guitars.
Bill was more than happy to show us their Textosterone Overdrive which also produces a nice fuzz tone as well. Hear more about its construction as Mr. Ogle investigates.
BILL WEBB: This is our -- a pedal that we build here.
PATRICK OGLE: Is this the only one you have?
BILL WEBB: Well, this is the only one I have right now. We just sold all the other ones. I got to make some more, you know. It’s a Textosterone. It’s an overdrive, you know, the distortion pedal, but it can be like -- it’ll act like a fuzz pedal but it’ll also give you that kind of creamy overdrive sound and we make these here. It’s a real simple circuit. It’s got a --
PATRICK OGLE: What do these sell for?
BILL WEBB: Pardon me?
PATRICK OGLE: What do you sell them for?
BILL WEBB: That’s a good question. Let me find out. [PH] Leslie, what do we sell these for?
LESLIE: $219.
BILL WEBB: $219, and we build these here in the shop, and they’re -- it uses a germanium for your overdrive so you get that --
PATRICK OGLE: Kind of old-style, very old [SOUNDS LIKE] germanium.
BILL WEBB: Yeah, they’re old-style, you know, instead of silicon, using germanium for your diode circuits, and --
PATRICK OGLE: They’re hard to find.
BILL WEBB: Huh?
PATRICK OGLE: They’re hard to find those.
BILL WEBB: No. Not really. I can still get them, and we just kind of -- you have to kind of pick and choose which ones go in the circuit, and what happens is the germanium distorts, you know, more softer, it has a softer clipping than silicon, and it gives you a more of a little bit more of a tube saturation type distortion, so we build these here and it’s they’re true bypass, you know, there’s no buffer in it so it doesn’t cloud your signal when you’re not using it, and it just runs on -- It’ll run on like 9 to 18 volts, and there’s a little socket in there. If you want to try different chips, you can plug in different chips and listen to it and pick which one do you like and then off you go.
It’s you plug it into a Fender and it’ll give you kind of that just got paid today sound, you know.
PATRICK OGLE: Uh huh.
BILL WEBB: It will also do kind of a good fuzz-type tone, and it’s real -- It’s with some pedals, if you turn them up, you know, there’s just too much for the front end of your amp. This one won’t do that. You know, this is, you know, nice to amplifiers to do the front end gain of your -- whatever you’re playing.
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