Teaching Machines - Fuzzbillion

If the Wellspring was Teaching Machines’ ode to space and shimmer, the Fuzzbillion is their manifesto for beautiful analog distortion. From the outside, it looks almost polite — eleven neat little numbered switches, one volume knob, one footswitch. But behind that tidy facade lurks an unhinged analog playground capable of a theoretical ten billion combinations (yes, billion with a “b”) of distortion, fuzz, and sonic mayhem. The creators claim that’s the math — though we suspect the calculator exploded halfway through.

Let's take a closer look — think of this as a distortion device with the heart of a modular synth. Each of the eleven rotary switches reshapes the circuit in some way — changing clipping types, bias points, filtering, gain stages, and more. Move one switch, and the others suddenly behave differently. The signal runs left to right, like a tiny analog assembly line, and every twist changes what happens downstream. That means no two settings are quite the same — and no “oops, I lost my tone” panic either, because you can literally write down your numbers and recall them later. A photo on your phone becomes your preset manager — unusual and very cool, we're onboard :)

The Fuzzbillion pedal obviously doesn’t stop at guitars. Thanks to its transformer-balanced line-level mode, it happily devours synthesizers, drum machines, or even the mix bus if you’re feeling brave. Feed it a clean signal and you can get anything from subtle saturation to scorched-earth fuzz, octave madness, or broken transistor wheezing that sounds like an amp melting in protest. Not just a fuzz box, but a distortion laboratory with eleven knobs of consequence and zero digital safety nets.

Under the hood, it’s all analog — no DSP, no screens, just juicy germanium, silicon, light-emitting diodes, and a network of transistors that seem to disagree with each other in the most musical way possible. Every configuration is a different conversation between those parts, sometimes friendly, sometimes chaotic. Like all great fuzzes, it resists being tamed — but unlike most, it gives you the tools (and numbers) to chart your descent into glorious disarray.

You might already have gotten it at this point, but this device can make your synth sound like a crumbling radio transmission or make your guitar punch holes in the fabric of space-time. It's simply an amazing analog device for anyone craving an unusual take on distortion. Ten billion settings might be an exaggeration, but when every flick of those numbered dials opens up a new world of disintegration, who’s counting?

FuzzBillion not only looks like a piece of laboratory equipment from the 1960s, it also feels like it: simply indestructible and high-quality.

Features:

• A wonderful box of analog distortion magic
• Eleven rotary switches for full circuit reconfiguration — up to [a theoretical] 10 billion tonal combinations..!
• Switchable between guitar/instrument and transformer-balanced line-level input signals (1/4" TS — MONO)
• All-analog design using germanium, silicon, LEDs, and op-amp stages
• Left-to-right signal path which makes for intuitive tone sculpting
• Covers everything from clean boost and warm overdrive to octave fuzz and PLL-style chaos (Phase-Locked Loop)
• Recallable settings by simple numerical notation (write it down or snap a photo)
• Discrete surface-mount build for reliability and character
• Advanced tone-shaping filter that shifts response, not just cuts highs
• Designed in collaboration with Life Is Unfair Audio Devices
• Handmade in the UK by Teaching Machines

Controls:

• Wheel 1: Boost and input gain
• Wheel 2: Primary drive level
• Wheel 3: Positive waveform clipping type
• Wheel 4: Negative waveform clipping type
• Wheel 5: Tilt EQ tone control
• Wheel 6: Octave fuzz drive
• Wheel 7: Octave fuzz blend (mix)
• Wheel 8: Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) oscillator tracking
• Wheel 9: Bias adjustment for op amp stages
• Wheel 10: Output clipping stage
• Wheel 11: High-cut tone filter
• Volume knob: Master output level
• Footswitch: Effect bypass (with numerical recall capability)

Bonus curiousa — what's PLL?

A phase-locked loop or phase lock loop (PLL) is a control system that generates an output signal whose phase is fixed relative to the phase of an input signal.