What is it?
DOD FX76 Punkifier from FX series. Made in USA late 1995.
I find the back catalog of DOD FX series to be very interesting. There are a lot of great designs and original ideas in there. And there are a number of boring and dull designs. FX76 Punkifier is not dull. At all. Got mine for a fair price in original box and papers. And additional bottom plate with velcros on it. This way the original plate with rubber mat and serial number wasn’t harmed. For that, i want to express my biggest thank yous for the seller.
The main feature of this design is blendable fuzz/distortion. Not too many of good ones in this dual effect genre around. So my initial feeling was that this may be good, but epectations weren’t too high. I rarely check demos out, because those may skew my view of sound and feel. I need to play with a box to know how it behaves. Demos with unknown players, unknown guitars with unknown pickup setup and unknown amplifiers doesn’t really cut it for me. Even if you knew the name of all the variables above, you’d still have to be acquainted with all the gear to make a educated estimate of how everything works. Sure, the youtube demos will show you the ballpark, but not where you are seated.
Build quality is per all the other FX serie boxes of the era. Neat and somewhat beautiful. Carbon resistors, mylar caps and so on. Quite standard thing to look at. There is a floater schematic online, but it may be incorrect (at least it seems that way to me when comparing it against the actual board), so i won’t be posting it or even a link to it. I hate erroneous schematics. You can find it using your favourite internet search engine. I believe it has most of the topology correct, but devil in the details. Anyway. The base topology (minus the electronic switching) goes as follows; From the input – Input buffering, splitter amp to send the signal two ways. Path one is for a controlless fuzz that could have been designed by Devi Ever, but with a few elaborate and weird ideas on it. Most interesting part may be the reference voltage fed to the transistor bases via 22M resistors. Path two takes the signal to OD250 on steroids style overdrive/distortion circuit that has its own gain control. The outputs of these two paths are then blended together with a pot and this signal is passed to a tone control. Which is followed by volume control and output buffering.
This design has many great ideas on it and it is far from just recycling standard fuzz/distortion ideas. If i was to redesign this, i would probably hook up a fuzz texture control for the fuzz circuitry and have that as a dual pot in conjuction with the OD/Dist side distortion control. That could make it even better, but this is f*n amazing as it is.
Controls are name in the DOD’s 90’s methods. Making them next to unintelligle. Punk, Spikes, Slam and Menace. Yup. Way to go. There were others in that time who did similar things when naming their controls. Creative, yes, but not very useful. Little use gets you accustomed to these names though. So it’s not that big of deal. There’s a bit more reading about this unit on America’s Pedal website. Check it out.
How does it sound?
Just perfect. It doesn’t sound much like any other box you’ll ever hear. I’m giving absolute all praise for personality in tone. When distortion side is maxed and fuzz side toned down, there is something reminding me of OD250, but not much. The fuzz side has it all. It is loud and the tone is the same what you get from blowing a nuclear warhead in your bedroom. While the fuzz is just sick, it still has some aspects that act like vintage Tonebenders. No. I’m not comparing it to Tonebenders. That wouldn’t be right at all. It is modern and powerful, with its roots on vintage tones. In addition to those features, the tone control is usable and can peak the highs in ear piercing manner.
This is not the pedal for blues players. This is a pedal for those who want a personal, weird, piercing tones. One of my all time favorites for a dirt box. Superb. I don’t know what more to say.
Just discovered your blog, love all the DOD stuff, keep up the good work.