Radio Wave Effects Dalliter Fuzz Review & Demo

Sustaining warm fuzz tones in a big bright blue box, what’s not to like?

Visit Radio Waves Effects website – Cost $125 USD – or grab one on Reverb using my affiliate link!

Our first pedal review of the 2025 season is here and it’s a big box fuzz from Radio Wave Effects, a Lexington Kentucky-based independent builder. The Dalliter Fuzz is described by the builder as providing a thick, wooly wall of fuzz, and we’ll plug it in and see if it lives up to the hype on my electric guitar.

The Dalliter is based on the Fuzz Face and uses two low gain silicon transistors that allow it to clean up well when you roll off your volume knob. A bias knob does most of the heavy lifting to provide a range of fuzz tones here, though you also have traditional volume and fuzz control knobs as well. It is recommended you place this first in your chain, or you will get a drop in output volume.

Demo Time

In this demo you’re hearing my Fender Mexican HSS Stratocaster running into the Dalliter which is then hitting my a relatively clean Fender Deluxe Reverb-flavored amp (UAFX Dream Amp Sim).

My Thoughts

Here’s the thing, the Dalliter Fuzz is quite fun, but not particularly innovative. But that’s okay, not every pedal needs to rival Chase Bliss to be worth the price of admission. There’s a big range of fuzz tones in the Dalliter, from warmer and more amp-like vintage fuzz to sputtery, glitchy, velcro fuzz. The real trick here is messing with bias knob, that’s the feature that keeps this interesting and likely to stick on your board long term.

It does clean up nicely when you roll the guitar volume down, as promised. I was also really impressed with some of the cleaner fuzz settings, where the fuzz knob is rolled down and I’m fingerpicking at the end. There’s some real musical content there, as it just thickens up the guitar tone a bit, until you really dig in and engage the circuit. I wouldn’t say it is quite as thick or wooly as I expected, but it is more amp-like, which is really a great accomplishment. When I hear “wooly” I think more Big Muff or saturated territory, and there’s not any over saturation here. In fact, I really like how open and uncompressed this pedal can feel at times.

There’s really good attention to detail here, and you can tell Radio Wave Effects really knows a good fuzz. I’d also argue that $125 is a pretty appetizing price for a handmade, boutique fuzz. It’s not a reach by any means, there’s some versatility, and it sounded great to my ears. Quite frankly, I can’t discern any lack of harmonic content or range relative to the dozens of $200+ fuzz clones out there. That’s a winning combination, even if it is just another take on the fuzz face. It may not blow you out of the water, but the Dalliter Fuzz could fit on most anyone’s board who is looking for a vintage voiced fuzz right now.

TLDR: Good range of fuzz tones, low price for handmade USA fuzz, great sounds, but not innovative.