There are so many pedals out there now, some of the old "tricks" (i.e., techniques) are being forgotten.  Here's one of them.

When we had so few footpedals to choose from, and very few amps with built-in effects (in the early-to-mid '60s especially), we had no choice but to develop some ways of squeezing more subtlety out of the amps and pedals that we could get our hands on.  One such easy trick is to run your fuzztone normally, but back off the guitar volume as much as 2/3s.  This can give a tone that's more like overdrive (which we didn't have yet), crunchy without being really fuzzy, and more controllable on the fly.  It can get noisy though, depending on the pedal, so you might have to back off the attack or "fuzz" control until you find an agreeable compromise.

I found one more, although it's not exactly a Ventures cover.  But then, it's not exactly NOT one, either.     The Ventures did, after all, do a version of Telstar.  I was unable to find a version of them doing More (Theme from Mondo Cane), though.

I always thought these songs had enough in common that they should meet somehow, someday.  After many years, I got tired of waiting and did it myself.

http://www.hardytalent.com/music/More-Telstar.mp3

That's correct.  If that seems too much, there's another product that's not quite the same, but does sound kind of similar.

The Catalinbread Merkin Fuzz has some of that "Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida" quality too, and costs less.  I have both, so I can make comparisons fairly readily.   

The Voodoo Labs SuperFuzz is somewhat in the same bag too.

I do prefer the Nu-Fuzz, myself!  I got one of the last green ones.

-- Bob

When The Ventures struck up their symbiotic relationship with Semie Mosley, along with the Ventures model guitars, they also started using the FuzzRite, which you hear plenty of, starting around the time of "Knock Me Out", "Walk Don't Run Vol. 2" and "The Fabulous Ventures".  These are now highly collectible and outrageously expensive, but you can get a nice new Nu-Fuzz from Hallmark that's an update on the old FuzzRite, and not 50 years old.  It sounds like this, using one of its less subtle settings:

http://www.hardytalent.com/music/TheCreeper-test2b-T-RackS.mp3


http://www.hallmarkguitars.com/pedals/nu-fuzz.shtml