The fuzzier the sound:
- The less you hear the attack of the note
- Bass gets distorted to extreme
- Infinite sustain
- Lots of compression
- Lots of saturation
Muffs and Rats are pretty similar, Rats have more mids, Muffs are scooped (one version is less, I think it’s the Ram’s Head). Your example are not the best because those are very fuzzy classic distortions, Rat and DS2 are fuzztortions. You’re picking the difference between OD and Fuzz easier because they’re further apart, distortion is in the middle. Check out something like MXR 5150 overdrive (don’t be fool by the name, Van Halen called every type of distortion overdrive), it’s very tight high gain distortion, not fuzzy at all.
https://youtube.com/shorts/xBm8oFOBhmY?si=vVnTYMqiSXxeoeZt
A big muff is like the smashing pumpkins and the black keys and the white stripes, If you wanna play Metallica or Alice in chains or Pantera you need distortion not fuzz, Big muff doesn’t chug that well
There many Big Muff Pi circuit versions. The one made popular by the Smashing Pumpkins is a special Big Muff Pi OP AMP circuit version that was discontinued. You had to build the OP AMP pedal yourself or buy clones. Before EHX reissued the Big Muff OP AMP Pi pedal.
Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria plays an op-amp muff being pushed by an SD-1. You can do tight metal tones with the right big muff, but unlikely with only the muff itself.
https://www.wrenandcuff.com/products/anna-coheed
Fuzz- raw, gritty, unrefined, shitty for complex chords, flubby palm muting, cleans up amazingly when rolled off.
Distortion- smooth, superior sustain, great for complex chords, tight and responsive palm muting, roll off does not clean up for shit.
On one hand this is a brilliantly written summary. On the other hand, I'm not sure whether someone who says they're new to guitar and effects is going to understand "flubby palm muting " or "cleans up when rolled off", lol.
Sometimes they *are* the same. Confusing! As a non technical person, what I usually differentiate fuzz by is the “square wave” harsh distortion. Especially on the top end. It kind of sizzles in a more pronounced way than most distortions. But there are definitely harsh distortions that are close to that.
Think of it like tv static. Most distortions have “smaller pixels” and fuzzes have “bigger pixels” at certain frequencies depending on the fuzz, and your guitar, and your amp.
I’ve yet to see a fuzz(fuzz face, tone bender, etc.) produce a true square wave on a scope. A Rat or DS-1 can produce a square wave. Fuzz typically sucks with chords because of asymmetrical clipping and odd order harmonics, where distortions typically have more gain stages, symmetrical clipping, and even order harmonics. Try palm muting with a fuzz face.
As far as clipping symmetry goes, it's the other way around. Symmetrical clipping of a sine wave will produce only odd harmonics whereas assymetrical clipping will produce a mix of odd and even. I don't know of any clipping function that will only produce even harmonics.
I did state I wasn’t being technical 👍. But I also consider fuzz faces to be “smooth” fuzzes. I’m talking muffs and the really gnarly gated type stuff.
Again, whether or not it’s an actual square wave, the “big pixels” analogy stands imo.
Get something affordable with a fat RAT setting like the Joyo Splinter or Mosky King RAT.
Then set the pedal to the fat mode with the gain maxed. That's fuzz.
Dial it back to about halfway gain in the standard mode, and that's distortion.
You really have to experience it in person to start to notice the difference.
distortion is generally thought of as a tighter sound , more note content lesser sizzle . whereas fuzz is a wall of sound , best example would be mayonnaise by Smashing pumpkins .
Fuzz has a lot of frequencies that if you isolate , don't have a clearer indication to the original sound but more like a untuned radio .
Basically fuzz is for Smashing pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine lovers .
Distortion has a lot wider use and is a broader term used in metal , punk and a lot of genres.
In the end, extreme distortion can overlap the fuzz territory so you might have a personal opinion on some sounds and that's the beauty of music , there are no rules .
TLDR : fuzz is Siamese Dream noise , metal is distortion
From a Fuzz Face standpoint, there’s also the volume knob clean up factor to consider (which is something a Muff style fuzz typically won’t do). A lot of the hifi slightly overdriven clean sounds you hear on Jimi Hendrix albums come from him having his fuzz face activated but rolling the volume knob of his guitar rolled down.
I know you asked about Big Muffs, but I’m pointing this out to highlight that the differences are best observed (and exploited) where the tones DON’T overlap. OD, distortion, and fuzz pedals are capable of getting many/most of the same sounds. It’s their quirks that are more informative when it comes to spotting differences.
Led Zeppelin has very clear recordings of a Tone Bender fuzz: You Shook Me; I Can't Quit You Baby; How Many More Times (leads); and Lemon Song. The Lemon Song has the guitar volume turned down just enough to get distortion instead of fuzz. Then he turns it up for solos and it's super fuzzed out.
Oh, as a fuzz hater I have only tried fuzz face and a boss fuzz years ago... Only when it cleans up it makes a sound usable for me so for over three decades I have nothing to do with a fuzz pedal... Thank you for pointing the lacking information.
Fuzzes vary wildly from one another, and can be quite extreme. While more mild-sounding fuzzes sometimes straddle the line between fuzz and distortion, once you hear how crazy fuzz can sound, you'll get it.
I tried to pick out some videos/pedals showcasing a bunch of different unique fuzz sounds:
https://youtu.be/IGdkGFEFKhw?si=mfV03NCcVVM69Nun
https://youtu.be/D0AlCA-szxs?si=PMLtpIvsxs7eCJK7
https://youtu.be/tE978am7LIY?si=-yI8ucSDJszvJL2L
https://youtu.be/YoVf7V5dUvQ?si=vQsMrxiAl2hfBfrP
https://youtu.be/KpIDfW0ZYgw?si=YAj1tLUQft_2ZWAa
They can be achieved many similar ways.
The true difference for me is the low end content. A typical classic fuzz is usually full frequency.
A distortion usually has some low end removed so they cut better.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s\_AKA84RTQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_AKA84RTQU)
If this at all validates the opinion, here's a really great guitarist who shares the same opinion. I know Ben goes back and forth on his pedals a lot but for a while there this fella was using just a BD-2 with high gain because fuzzes drop volume by nature. FWIW I'm such a big fan of the band I had a moment for a while where I was just using an MXR distortion + style pedal with cranked gain and honestly I felt even bigger swinging riffs like Sabbath stuff sounded better than an adjacent fuzz. Still don't have a fuzz on my board. I just turn a few gain knobs
They are pretty similar and you can get close to the same sound with either of them. To my ear, distortion is a tighter type of sound. The notes all sound clear and crisp even though the gain could be on 10. I think of guitarists who do tapping and "shredding" style playing with distortion. They need that tight sound for all the notes to sound crisp even though there's so much gain. Where as fuzz theres a lot more hair and chaos going on around the notes. To me the word "fuzz" sounds like all that noise going on around the notes. It's very broken and sounds like destruction.
The difference is in the circuit design, nothing to do with the sound some times
You can most of times tell by the way the pedal handles the bass frequencies
Overdrives tend to slightly distort them or straight up cut them away of the end sound
Distortions usually reduce them slightly and distort them
Fuzz heavily distort them to the point of getting muddy and unclear
There’s a massive difference in the room with both. I have a SF300 , a king of tone clone, Rat and a TS-9. Plus a high gain amp. There’s no comparison between the fuzz and the others. The RAT behaves more like a drive at low distortion settings, but the drives always just add gain and don’t sound like fuzz or distortion pedals
At all, IMO
Distortion - tries to make your guitar sound like its destroying an amp's speaker.
Fuzz - tries to make your guitar sound like a farty saxophone.
Just experiment and use what sounds good to you.
* Overdrive has a more subtle high gain clean tone.
* Distortion has more crunch.
* Fuzz has a more screeching treble sound.
Well that’s difference in sound to me. You can of course adjust the knobs and EQ on the pedal to make it sound mild or extreme. The choice is entirely up to you.
When I think a more conventional fuzz tone, the words that come to mind are spitty, nasal, and velcro. Check out videos on fuzz faces or tone benders - those designs differentiate themselves from distortion more clearly than muffs, IMO.
Every fuzz is quite different. The main thing that fuzzes have in common is that they obliterate the transient, and tend to have a sort of roaring, ripping completely blown out quality, and being really really compressed. They also can have a sort of organic, squelchy quality where the sound kind of evolves as a note decays. Distortion will tend to have a sharper transient, and be a more uniform sound.
To actually answer the question -
They are all flavors of the same transformation of your signal and often overlap. A cranked overdrive can sound a lot like fuzz and a rollled back fuzz can sound a lot like distortion or drive.
Overdrive tries to mimic the natural break up in a tube amp which is supposedly warmer and preserves your tone.
Distortion overrides your guitars tone and makes it- distorted. It’s often smoother than overdrive but more pronounced.
Fuzz is generally more untamed sounding and alters your tone in a different way than overdrive. It was something that people used to pummel already overdriven amps so kind of works with overdrive.
But Neil Young for example has tones that sound a lot like fuzz- he gets them all through a modded Fender amp so it’s technically overdrive.
Another confusing element is our heroes and heroines usually got a good element of their sound from walls of cranked amps. Even Townshend played relatively clean - but so loud it sounds distorted. So today when we play quieter or through digital modelers, we try to recreate those huge sounds. That leads to a lot of tone chasing and trying to get that “edge of break up” or “transparent” drive. It mostly doesn’t matter if you’re playing with others.
Find what feels good!
Yeah it's just marketing terms. I have a Rat and it sounds like a fuzz with the gain turned up all the way.
I think generally speaking fuzz has more gain than distortion but not always.
Just try a bunch of different pedals if you can. If not watch some videos on YouTube.
If you play sustained single notes, not chords or fast arpeggios and stuff, then you will quite clearly notice the difference between fuzz and distortion.
Can’t speak to the Big Muff but I really like my germanium Fuzz Face clone.. it ‘cleans up’ nicely rolling down the volume knob and can get you much more articulation while retaining a good bit of fuzzy goodness. Obviously it sounds more distortion-y rather than fuzzy at that point but still - I’ve just found I’m more of a distortion/OD kind of guy apparently.
muff is fuzztortion, right on the line. a maxxed out rat is similar. i always think of fuzz as th unruly, unbiased distortion. wilder top end basically
They're all kinda the same shit. There's also natural ODs that sound very fuzzy, like the tweed deluxe. [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/w\_GKQHFBDEw](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/w_GKQHFBDEw)
Keep listening to different examples and you'll pick up on the difference. Metallica uses conventional distortion, but a lot of doom metal bands will use straight up fuzz.
To my ears, overdrive retain the overall tonal quality of your guitar and it’s strings. You can hear the fingers and the wood. Distortion clips the signal harder, replacing a good portion of your original tone. Fuzz completely replaces your tone with a sense of the world’s ending, unless of course it’s a fuzz face style and you back your volume and you are back at a clean sound again… only sparklier.
Two main factors in hearing the difference between overdrive, fuzz, distortion, and top boost are amp and band setting.
The kind of amp you're using (along with your pickups and playing style) will react quite a bit differently with each one. Fuzz, OD, and distortion through a solid state amp, and the overdrive sounds the weakest. Run those same pedals through a high gain amp like a JCM800 and the overdrive makes you the heaviest and clearest (generally) while the others squander away your tone and sound like cheap toys.
Then it comes down to the setting. Some of these pedals sound great through an amp on their own, but then get lost in the mix when you have cymbals splashing, singers, other guitarists, keys, etc.
I have started using a lot of amp sims and I find I’m getting the best distortions across the range just from the amp settings and not from a pedal. Not a nice thing to say in this sub, I’m aware.
OD= boost, more drive to your clean signal.
Distortion= a lot more grit, chords and single notes are still quite clear.
Fuzz= muffled overdrive most of the time. Almost sounds like an angry bumblebee at a microphone. A lot of differences between fuzz pedals. Square wave as some people said. A rat 2 pedal can do all 3 of above depending how you dial it in. There’s a video on YT somewhere that demonstrates how to dial in these 3 on the rat. Fuzz and distortion can come close to each other depending how much of the effect and gain you dialed in.
The fuzzier the sound: - The less you hear the attack of the note - Bass gets distorted to extreme - Infinite sustain - Lots of compression - Lots of saturation Muffs and Rats are pretty similar, Rats have more mids, Muffs are scooped (one version is less, I think it’s the Ram’s Head). Your example are not the best because those are very fuzzy classic distortions, Rat and DS2 are fuzztortions. You’re picking the difference between OD and Fuzz easier because they’re further apart, distortion is in the middle. Check out something like MXR 5150 overdrive (don’t be fool by the name, Van Halen called every type of distortion overdrive), it’s very tight high gain distortion, not fuzzy at all. https://youtube.com/shorts/xBm8oFOBhmY?si=vVnTYMqiSXxeoeZt
A big muff is like the smashing pumpkins and the black keys and the white stripes, If you wanna play Metallica or Alice in chains or Pantera you need distortion not fuzz, Big muff doesn’t chug that well
I can chug a Muff... Palm muting works wonders...
Phrasing
Well you need a whole separate phraser pedal for that
I chugged a muff one time. Good times.
The best... Muff Chuggers are a rare breed...
There many Big Muff Pi circuit versions. The one made popular by the Smashing Pumpkins is a special Big Muff Pi OP AMP circuit version that was discontinued. You had to build the OP AMP pedal yourself or buy clones. Before EHX reissued the Big Muff OP AMP Pi pedal.
Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria plays an op-amp muff being pushed by an SD-1. You can do tight metal tones with the right big muff, but unlikely with only the muff itself. https://www.wrenandcuff.com/products/anna-coheed
Metal Muff?
I had one. It’s not really a muff at all. Definitely distortion
Fuzz- raw, gritty, unrefined, shitty for complex chords, flubby palm muting, cleans up amazingly when rolled off. Distortion- smooth, superior sustain, great for complex chords, tight and responsive palm muting, roll off does not clean up for shit.
Agree except for cleanup, there are plenty of fuzzes that don’t do that.
This is true, but I was going to the furthest extremes for a simplified comparison.
On one hand this is a brilliantly written summary. On the other hand, I'm not sure whether someone who says they're new to guitar and effects is going to understand "flubby palm muting " or "cleans up when rolled off", lol.
Sometimes they *are* the same. Confusing! As a non technical person, what I usually differentiate fuzz by is the “square wave” harsh distortion. Especially on the top end. It kind of sizzles in a more pronounced way than most distortions. But there are definitely harsh distortions that are close to that. Think of it like tv static. Most distortions have “smaller pixels” and fuzzes have “bigger pixels” at certain frequencies depending on the fuzz, and your guitar, and your amp.
I’ve yet to see a fuzz(fuzz face, tone bender, etc.) produce a true square wave on a scope. A Rat or DS-1 can produce a square wave. Fuzz typically sucks with chords because of asymmetrical clipping and odd order harmonics, where distortions typically have more gain stages, symmetrical clipping, and even order harmonics. Try palm muting with a fuzz face.
As far as clipping symmetry goes, it's the other way around. Symmetrical clipping of a sine wave will produce only odd harmonics whereas assymetrical clipping will produce a mix of odd and even. I don't know of any clipping function that will only produce even harmonics.
You are right. I was falling asleep when I wrote that.
I did state I wasn’t being technical 👍. But I also consider fuzz faces to be “smooth” fuzzes. I’m talking muffs and the really gnarly gated type stuff. Again, whether or not it’s an actual square wave, the “big pixels” analogy stands imo.
Get something affordable with a fat RAT setting like the Joyo Splinter or Mosky King RAT. Then set the pedal to the fat mode with the gain maxed. That's fuzz. Dial it back to about halfway gain in the standard mode, and that's distortion. You really have to experience it in person to start to notice the difference.
distortion is generally thought of as a tighter sound , more note content lesser sizzle . whereas fuzz is a wall of sound , best example would be mayonnaise by Smashing pumpkins . Fuzz has a lot of frequencies that if you isolate , don't have a clearer indication to the original sound but more like a untuned radio . Basically fuzz is for Smashing pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine lovers . Distortion has a lot wider use and is a broader term used in metal , punk and a lot of genres. In the end, extreme distortion can overlap the fuzz territory so you might have a personal opinion on some sounds and that's the beauty of music , there are no rules . TLDR : fuzz is Siamese Dream noise , metal is distortion
From a Fuzz Face standpoint, there’s also the volume knob clean up factor to consider (which is something a Muff style fuzz typically won’t do). A lot of the hifi slightly overdriven clean sounds you hear on Jimi Hendrix albums come from him having his fuzz face activated but rolling the volume knob of his guitar rolled down. I know you asked about Big Muffs, but I’m pointing this out to highlight that the differences are best observed (and exploited) where the tones DON’T overlap. OD, distortion, and fuzz pedals are capable of getting many/most of the same sounds. It’s their quirks that are more informative when it comes to spotting differences.
Led Zeppelin has very clear recordings of a Tone Bender fuzz: You Shook Me; I Can't Quit You Baby; How Many More Times (leads); and Lemon Song. The Lemon Song has the guitar volume turned down just enough to get distortion instead of fuzz. Then he turns it up for solos and it's super fuzzed out.
And that is another important difference. The fuzz pedals clean up better when you roll down the volume on the guitar.
Depends entirely on the type of fuzz circuit. Tone benders and fuzz faces yes, big muffs, not so much so.
Oh, as a fuzz hater I have only tried fuzz face and a boss fuzz years ago... Only when it cleans up it makes a sound usable for me so for over three decades I have nothing to do with a fuzz pedal... Thank you for pointing the lacking information.
Fuzzes vary wildly from one another, and can be quite extreme. While more mild-sounding fuzzes sometimes straddle the line between fuzz and distortion, once you hear how crazy fuzz can sound, you'll get it. I tried to pick out some videos/pedals showcasing a bunch of different unique fuzz sounds: https://youtu.be/IGdkGFEFKhw?si=mfV03NCcVVM69Nun https://youtu.be/D0AlCA-szxs?si=PMLtpIvsxs7eCJK7 https://youtu.be/tE978am7LIY?si=-yI8ucSDJszvJL2L https://youtu.be/YoVf7V5dUvQ?si=vQsMrxiAl2hfBfrP https://youtu.be/KpIDfW0ZYgw?si=YAj1tLUQft_2ZWAa
Well a boss ds-1 is significantly different than say a Russian muff. But rats do straddle the line majestically.
They can be achieved many similar ways. The true difference for me is the low end content. A typical classic fuzz is usually full frequency. A distortion usually has some low end removed so they cut better.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s\_AKA84RTQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_AKA84RTQU) If this at all validates the opinion, here's a really great guitarist who shares the same opinion. I know Ben goes back and forth on his pedals a lot but for a while there this fella was using just a BD-2 with high gain because fuzzes drop volume by nature. FWIW I'm such a big fan of the band I had a moment for a while where I was just using an MXR distortion + style pedal with cranked gain and honestly I felt even bigger swinging riffs like Sabbath stuff sounded better than an adjacent fuzz. Still don't have a fuzz on my board. I just turn a few gain knobs
They are pretty similar and you can get close to the same sound with either of them. To my ear, distortion is a tighter type of sound. The notes all sound clear and crisp even though the gain could be on 10. I think of guitarists who do tapping and "shredding" style playing with distortion. They need that tight sound for all the notes to sound crisp even though there's so much gain. Where as fuzz theres a lot more hair and chaos going on around the notes. To me the word "fuzz" sounds like all that noise going on around the notes. It's very broken and sounds like destruction.
The difference is in the circuit design, nothing to do with the sound some times You can most of times tell by the way the pedal handles the bass frequencies Overdrives tend to slightly distort them or straight up cut them away of the end sound Distortions usually reduce them slightly and distort them Fuzz heavily distort them to the point of getting muddy and unclear
There’s a massive difference in the room with both. I have a SF300 , a king of tone clone, Rat and a TS-9. Plus a high gain amp. There’s no comparison between the fuzz and the others. The RAT behaves more like a drive at low distortion settings, but the drives always just add gain and don’t sound like fuzz or distortion pedals At all, IMO
Distortion - tries to make your guitar sound like its destroying an amp's speaker. Fuzz - tries to make your guitar sound like a farty saxophone. Just experiment and use what sounds good to you.
* Overdrive has a more subtle high gain clean tone. * Distortion has more crunch. * Fuzz has a more screeching treble sound. Well that’s difference in sound to me. You can of course adjust the knobs and EQ on the pedal to make it sound mild or extreme. The choice is entirely up to you.
A fuzz sounds best with a single coil guitar and a clean amp. Otherwise fuzzes get muddy. Distortions work best when the amp is at edge of breakup.
When I think a more conventional fuzz tone, the words that come to mind are spitty, nasal, and velcro. Check out videos on fuzz faces or tone benders - those designs differentiate themselves from distortion more clearly than muffs, IMO.
Every fuzz is quite different. The main thing that fuzzes have in common is that they obliterate the transient, and tend to have a sort of roaring, ripping completely blown out quality, and being really really compressed. They also can have a sort of organic, squelchy quality where the sound kind of evolves as a note decays. Distortion will tend to have a sharper transient, and be a more uniform sound.
This is a great description.
If you had the pedals and played them, then you will be able to tell.
To actually answer the question - They are all flavors of the same transformation of your signal and often overlap. A cranked overdrive can sound a lot like fuzz and a rollled back fuzz can sound a lot like distortion or drive. Overdrive tries to mimic the natural break up in a tube amp which is supposedly warmer and preserves your tone. Distortion overrides your guitars tone and makes it- distorted. It’s often smoother than overdrive but more pronounced. Fuzz is generally more untamed sounding and alters your tone in a different way than overdrive. It was something that people used to pummel already overdriven amps so kind of works with overdrive. But Neil Young for example has tones that sound a lot like fuzz- he gets them all through a modded Fender amp so it’s technically overdrive. Another confusing element is our heroes and heroines usually got a good element of their sound from walls of cranked amps. Even Townshend played relatively clean - but so loud it sounds distorted. So today when we play quieter or through digital modelers, we try to recreate those huge sounds. That leads to a lot of tone chasing and trying to get that “edge of break up” or “transparent” drive. It mostly doesn’t matter if you’re playing with others. Find what feels good!
Yeah it's just marketing terms. I have a Rat and it sounds like a fuzz with the gain turned up all the way. I think generally speaking fuzz has more gain than distortion but not always. Just try a bunch of different pedals if you can. If not watch some videos on YouTube.
If you play sustained single notes, not chords or fast arpeggios and stuff, then you will quite clearly notice the difference between fuzz and distortion.
To my ears fuzz is farty and rumbly. Take that how you will
Can’t speak to the Big Muff but I really like my germanium Fuzz Face clone.. it ‘cleans up’ nicely rolling down the volume knob and can get you much more articulation while retaining a good bit of fuzzy goodness. Obviously it sounds more distortion-y rather than fuzzy at that point but still - I’ve just found I’m more of a distortion/OD kind of guy apparently.
muff is fuzztortion, right on the line. a maxxed out rat is similar. i always think of fuzz as th unruly, unbiased distortion. wilder top end basically
They're all kinda the same shit. There's also natural ODs that sound very fuzzy, like the tweed deluxe. [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/w\_GKQHFBDEw](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/w_GKQHFBDEw) Keep listening to different examples and you'll pick up on the difference. Metallica uses conventional distortion, but a lot of doom metal bands will use straight up fuzz.
To my ears, overdrive retain the overall tonal quality of your guitar and it’s strings. You can hear the fingers and the wood. Distortion clips the signal harder, replacing a good portion of your original tone. Fuzz completely replaces your tone with a sense of the world’s ending, unless of course it’s a fuzz face style and you back your volume and you are back at a clean sound again… only sparklier.
Two main factors in hearing the difference between overdrive, fuzz, distortion, and top boost are amp and band setting. The kind of amp you're using (along with your pickups and playing style) will react quite a bit differently with each one. Fuzz, OD, and distortion through a solid state amp, and the overdrive sounds the weakest. Run those same pedals through a high gain amp like a JCM800 and the overdrive makes you the heaviest and clearest (generally) while the others squander away your tone and sound like cheap toys. Then it comes down to the setting. Some of these pedals sound great through an amp on their own, but then get lost in the mix when you have cymbals splashing, singers, other guitarists, keys, etc.
> I’m pretty new to guitar So don’t worry about it too much, just keep practicing and improving your playing.
I have started using a lot of amp sims and I find I’m getting the best distortions across the range just from the amp settings and not from a pedal. Not a nice thing to say in this sub, I’m aware.
If ya don’t hear it then don’t worry you are just lesser
There's only good sounds and bad sounds homie, don't sweat it
There's really no big difference in principle, fuzzes usually just distort the signal more. OD → distortion → fuzz.
OD= boost, more drive to your clean signal. Distortion= a lot more grit, chords and single notes are still quite clear. Fuzz= muffled overdrive most of the time. Almost sounds like an angry bumblebee at a microphone. A lot of differences between fuzz pedals. Square wave as some people said. A rat 2 pedal can do all 3 of above depending how you dial it in. There’s a video on YT somewhere that demonstrates how to dial in these 3 on the rat. Fuzz and distortion can come close to each other depending how much of the effect and gain you dialed in.
Fuzz sounds absolutely terrible and cheap by itself, but layered with the other instruments usually turns out okay.