Akihabara, a neighborhood in Tokyo, Japan, is know for its electronics, video games, and all things nerdy. I had the pleasure of visiting in March and April 2024. It was great to shop for electrical components, enclosures, knobs, and other parts in person after being mostly forced to buy online in the states. At one shop, mixed in with aisles of vintage cameras and radios was a display case proudly marked "PEDAL FREAKS" in English letters. This immediately piqued my interest. Turns out it was a collection of guitar effects kits, and I knew I had to get one. I went with the boldly named "FUZZ BOY FROM HELL", a kit based on the ZVEX Fuzz Factory, itself based on the Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face, one of the first commercially available guitar effects. The Fuzz Factory takes 3 of the normally fixed-value resistors in the Fuzz Face and trades them out for potentiometers, bringing the total number of front-panel controls from 2 to 5, and greatly opening up the sonic possibilities of the pedal. The Fuzz Factory is known to be a wild beast of an effect, capable of screaming noise, spitty gated fuzz, and self-oscillation. It is truly up to the user to bring it under control. The Pedal Freaks kit is faithful to the ZVEX Fuzz Factory, including its clever vertically mounted PCB, which uses 90 degree potentiometers to eliminate all of the off-board wiring that would normally be required for 5 potentiometers (up to 15 wires). This clever decision made installing the board and pots into the enclosure a breeze, but does require the pedal to be used in a non-standard horizontal orientation. I took inspiration from the pedal's name and gave it a bright red finish before applying the included decals. I fired it up, and it certainly lives up to its reputation! It has a steep learning curve, and the various knobs interact very strongly with one another, leading to a nearly endless search for new tones. A Fuzz factory is not a challenging kit to build for a first timer, but it is a tough pedal to diagnose and troubleshoot if you are not familiar with it. I would recommend going with a kit from an American manufacturer if you're located in the USA, as customer support for this brand is nonexistent. I recommend AionFX or PedalPCB.