THE FUZZY BEAR!

I stumbled upon an idea so gimmicky that it could not fail to make me rich: a fuzz pedal, in a teddy bear, called The Fuzzy Bear. Next on the list, incidentally, is a compressor called Huggy Bear. In my fever dreams of filthy lucre, this series of stuffed animal effects pedals come with small male-male 1/4" adapters, so that when you chain them together they look like they're all holding hands. Eh? Who would not buy them?!

Lara and I found the perfect bears at Walgreen's, which - as I had suspected - had marked down many a stuffed bear after Feb 14th. We bought this set of two, where when they touched noses (okay, "kissed"), one of them would emit a digitized kissing sound and start flapping its motorized cupid wings. I'm really sorry I didn't make a video of this, or even take any pictures of the pre-disassembly bears. For something like $5, I got two good-sized teddy bears, one of which already even had a battery pouch and a space for a box of electronics! The photos explain the construction pretty well, I think, so I'll leave it at that.

The Sound

Demo time:


You can also hear fuzzy used on the song Make It True Or Crush, by The Parents. The guitar line that comes in before the last chorus is Fuzzy Bear'd.

Potential Improvements

If someone were to try to do this The Right Way, here are a few things they'd do differently. First, they'd use a more robust circuit (i.e. not the wonderfully-quirky, unbuffered, perfect beginner's project Bazz Fuss). Second, they'd either use sealed jacks or perhaps use some heat-shrink to seal the standard switchcraft-style jacks. Yes, I've actually had to jam a stick in the jacks to push the cotton out of the way. Third, they'd want to figure out some shielding. It hasn't buzzed all that badly for me, but since the pots and the jacks are basically just dangling on unshielded wires, it'll certainly get hummy in certain situations.

As for why these aren't at Guitar Center yet, or even on Etsy or somesuch, I just kind lost interest. I love ol' Fuzzy dearly, but he's pretty finicky: he buzzes, sometimes he's oddly silent, and this despite my being very gentle with him. And though I should probably just make an etchable layout of the circuit, my layout skills are nil, and I didn't relish the thought of making more crude perfboard monstrosities to reproduce a flaky pedal. But if you, dear reader, are good at this kind of hustle, and want to help me live in a solid gold house, let me know!

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Addendum:
I just reread this, and was shocked to find that this tasking is nearly a year old! I held off partly because I kept forgetting to make a demo video at neighbor-friendly hours, partly because I kept meaning to make a nice-looking schematic, and partly because I've just had some trouble finishing things lately (perfect vs. good, neurochemical imbalances, etc). In the back (well, maybe the middle) of my mind, I also thought I should get my act together in terms of somehow trying to sell this idea — y'know, making them myself, pitching some company to make them, or some other such scheme I'm not really cut out to realize. But even warm fuzzy open source Make Magazine -style capitalism is hard, and it's time to be doing! Ergo, "posted".