"Maestro..., master Your Fuzz and You Shall Get...Your Satisfaction"

Ladies and Gentlemen, silicons and germs, the moment we have all been waiting for. For the first time on the list of successful projects after laying on the operation table for nearly a year of searching and digging all over the ethereal cyber space. The psych monster, the acid master, the fuzz maister, the fuzz-a-delic, satisfuzzy, buzziest, Maestro Fuzz Tone.

probably the first stomp box that was designed to sound like a distorted amp, or in that specific case, a burned-out recording channel. It's funny that this pedal was promoted as a novel sound technique to imitate the timbres of reed, wood and brass wind instruments like a sax, a tuba or a clarinet, string instruments like a cello or a violin, and could also create a new never-before-heard "Fuzz Tone" sound.

The Fuzz Tone Patent (1965)

The story goes that it took 3 people to invent this crazy world-shattering sound during a recording in Nashville back in 1960. Country artist Marty Robbins recorded a song called "Don't worry" which featured a solo part played by Grady Martin on a 6-string bass. Grady Martin was known for playing guitar country music like crazy through amps, often reaching high level of distortion. Other blues artists did that as well probably much earlier. Nevertheless, Grady was lucky enough to play the bass solo on Robbin's recording into a busted recording channel which was operated by a session engineer called Glen Snoddy. The solo recording came out heavily distorted (and imagine that on a peaceful country prairie love song), but quite miraculously it was kept and released as is. I can't help thinking that it was Grady who liked the way it sounded and convinced the producers to keep it. And what a distorted sound it was. It was a sweet reedy buzzy solo that proved to be a good gamble as the song became an immediate hit. Snoddy decided to keep the busted channel on the mixing board and recorded more tunes using it. Realizing the potential of the sound technique he goes to the Gibson Guitar Corp. and sells them his idea of a Fuzz Tone effect unit. They probably investigated the busted channel and two years later, in 1962, the Fuzz Tone was available as the first Fuzz or Distortion effect box. So it too three people to discover the fuzz, really, and then a forth dude, Revis Hobbs, the co-author and co-inventor who shared the patent with Glen Snoddy, applied for in 1962, probably, and approved by 1965.

The original Fuzz-Tone

The story also goes that in spite of its early success in country music, it took something else to turn this tone shaping monster into a world-wide fuzz mania. By 1962 over 3000 units were manufactured By Gibson through the Maestro brand in Kalamazoo, MI. By 1965 only a few hundreds were sold and it seemed it was over for the Fuzz era. Only they didn't know that the British invasion, which started a year earlier, brought the one and only Rolling Stones' Keith Richards to Los Angeles, to record a second version for the Stones' new single, Satisfaction. Richards was looking for something new to flavor his guitar tone and the session technician ran over the corner to get a new little box which would make his guitar sound like a brass section which they planned to include later in the recording. He came back with a Maestro Fuzz Tone in his hand and they forgot all about the brass section they planned....When Satisfaction hit the streets the entire Maestro Fuzz Tone stock was sold in a few months. It quickly became the staple tone of the garage scene in the US, rock'n roll on both sides of the Atlantic and then the defining tone of psychedelic, acid and hard rock around the world.

Already in 1965 manufacturers like Sola Sound (Macari's Ltd.) Baldwin-Burns, Sam Ash and Mosrite started issuing their own versions of a fuzz pedal, each using different architecture to achieve fuzz sweetness. The Tone Bender MKI from Sola-Sound is probably the only one which really relies on a similar design. The Fuzz-Tone was also known as the FZ-1 using 3V and soon afterwards was relased again as FZ-1A using only 1.5V on a single AA battery. Other variants followed like the FZ-1B and the Maestro MFZ fuzz , but they were already different beasts operating on 9V batteries and sounded quite different than their predecessors. 

Relying on germanium transistors, 3V batteries (1.5VX2) and a very tricky design which was heavily dependent on the transistors' unique characteristics, it is no surprise that the design soon proved to be inefficient in producing a massive rocking sound, and new versions quickly topped the original, leaving the original design in the shadows for decades. The story behind the evolution of the Tone Bender is another interesting story.... but, we'll leave it to the Tone Bender post.

Check out the YouTube video below for the original Fuzz Tone commercial which actually makes more use of a bass guitar for fuzz tone than for the electric guitar.

The great story of country music and the Fuzz Tone, as well as many sound clips of country tunes incorporating fuzz guitar can be found here:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/11/country-fuzz-sp.html

John Lennon with the Maestro at his feet

While 1962 was not the year that marked the birth of the Fuzz era rock, 1965 indeed marked the birth of evolution from rock'n roll to all out rock. After the Stones it was the Beatles turn to stick the Maestro fuzz (and other fuzz pedals too) on Paul's bass line on the 1965 hit "Think For Yourself" from the Rubber Soul album. 1965 saw other bands like the Yardbirds (with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page) put the fuzz to good use (although it was a Tone Bender usually). From 1966 it was a race to the top as almost every band on both sides of the Atlantic used a fuzz on guitar or boss or both. The Doors used the Maestro FZ-1 exclusively into an acoustic amp to get their unique splattering trumpet-like sound (Hello I love you, When the Music's Over, Spanish Caravan and many others), and even Hendrix used it on Voodoo Chile slight return. In fact, it seems that the whole garage psych revolution was heavily based on the Maestro beast and bands like the 13th Floor Elevators, The Seeds, The United States of America, Strawberry Alarm Clock and others had their staple sound based heavily on the Maestro Fuzz Tone, though many think that some of those sounds were achieved using fuzz guitars like the Vox teardrop. The debates about who used what are still goin' on these days and the mystery will probably never be completely revealed.     

Now, when I started Fuzz Quest this was what I wanted. I got shivers listening to The Seeds, Roky Erickson, Strawberry Alarm Clocks, Ennio Morricone spaghetti western classics, and I couldn't understand what was so different about these tracks that made me loose sleep over. Later on I also realized that prog legends like Hackett and Howe also used the FZ-1. After building the Fuzzrite I was pretty happy but I knew my mission would not be complete without a true piece of germanium history. The Balwdin Burn Buzzaround was a fantastic build and a true gem but it was really modern sounding circuit and didn't have that delicate muffled buzz so typical of the Maestro Fuzz Tone. Maybe the closest is the Tone Bender MK1 which shares similar architecture but this one was even harder build, bias and tweak without having the right germs. 

A typical stock FZ-1 schematic

The circuit in itself is no secret and many schematics are available, most of them correct nowadays. The only magic going on in the circuit are the germanium trannies. It seems that they got to be leaky and low gain and I had a bunch of AC128 running around the table from my early builds (Fuzz Face, Fuzz Factory, Buzzaround etc.) and after measuring them I had a pretty good idea which ones would fit the circuit. My first attempt was building a circuit with many trimmers for biasing all the germs and I did get it to sound pretty good but it was just to hard to bias right so I ditched it. I researched the forums some more and waited until the DIY community shared some more info and after a while I went and did it again. This time I didn't have any trimmers at all. Just the right germs. Well, almost. I guess the leakage of my germs were a little out of spec, cause it didn't work...AT ALL.

So I went in again and dug little deeper and found out that it was Q2 that didn't open up right. I added a trimmer on the 1k5 biasing resistor and once I lowered the value down to about a hundred Ohms.....VOILA.... I heard what my ears so longed to hear....Fuzz heaven. I tried a lot of amps, reverbs and pickup scenarios and indeed this pedal is the psychedelic time capsule. It is sweet and aggressive at the same time, it's soft and mean, buzzy and smooth, opened and compressed, clean and dirty and all the contradictions you want in a single pedal. The ATTACK pot goes from almost clean but a little gated to smooth and mean. The VOLUME gets you above unity but not a whole lot more. The VOLUME also has some effect on the sound itself with a fuller body as you dime it. I really wanted to use a 9V power supply so I added the TagboardFX layout for the inverter from 9V to 3.3V and then to -3.3V. I added a STARVE knob to get the voltage tweaked between -2V and -3.3V. At -3V and above the sound is better, stronger, fuller. Below -3V you start getting that nasal buzzy compressed sound that made me build it in the first place.

So the recipe is - build the pedal add a 2k trimmer for Q2. Pick out germs that have above 400uA of leakage. and gain between 60-90. Actually I have Q2 at 600uA leakage and it sure increases the hiss noise but the biasing can really help clean it a lot.

Now....it was time to box it.

There aren't many fuzz pedals with boring names. FZ-1 or Fuzz Tone is probably one of the most boring uninspiring names in pedal history. The graphics of the pedal is also quite lame. It is all negligible next to the awesome wedged enclosure.....which I don't have. I have a regular 125B enclosure which is small and straight. So I had to have a good name and good graphics. A long time ago I decided to name it Chocolate Fuzz (Fudge...got it?) and now that the space is so small I shortened it to Choc'late Fuzz. Good name, I think. I changed ATTACK to TASTE in light of the chocolate thing. For the graphics, I tried to completely recolor the black enclosure to chocolate brown. It came out so bad so I wanted it off. I used a rought sand paper to wear it down and the effect was so great that I left it as it is. Amazing vintage look. When I painted it I added some glitter sparkle to the color which didn't look good at all. After the sandpaper work the glitter became so vintage looking and so inspiring that I just completely fell for the design. I really have to thank my wife for helping me out with this one. She's a designer and all and she knew that the vanilla white with the pale turquoise would work perfectly with the rusty vintage brownish background. She also gave me the glitter powder. 

So to sum things up, I never actually played an authentic Fuzz Tone FZ-1 before and I probably never will. Thanks to the invention of stereo recording and mixing in the 1930's and the first LP in stereophonic sound, released in 1958, many records in the 60's were released with a hard stereo panning which enables one to completely isolate certain tracks by playing only one channel. Check out the Doors as a great example for that (Hello I Love You has the fuzz guitar only on the right channel). After many hours of listening to separated stereo channels I've been able to find setups which sound very similar to many of my favorite recordings.

The pedal has 3 knobs, VOLUME, ATTACK and STARVE. The ATTACK goes from very mild boost which sounds amazingly similar to the "clean" punchy sound on Roky Erickson's early albums (Tried to hide comes to mind) to full on fuzz-a-delic mayhem. The STARVE is what really gives the pedal it's distinct tone. With the STARVE maxxed out the sound is very full and modern-like but not very garage-psych like. As the STARVE is decreased the pedal comes alive. The VOLUME is straightforward except it does change the sound a bit. The pedal is not very strong in volume and I usually have the VOLUME dimed or close to dimed. I bet that part of my experience and mods were a result of the AC128 germs I used. Obviously, others might get different results with different germs.

So that's it...do yourself a favor and build this one. If you are a garage psych fiend build this one, a Fuzzrite and the Orpheum. If you are a complete lunatic add the Buzzaround and a Tone Bender to the bunch. And this is only assuming you already have a germy Fuzz Face, of course. Did I say lunatic?

A real milestone on my part here. I think I would slow down my fuzz builds now....ha ha, not really.

Anyway, a great layout with a lot of feedback can be found on the TagboardFX blog:

http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/maestro-fz-1-fuzz-tone.html 

Below are some clips taken with single coils Tele and ES335-style humbuckers. You'll hear many riffs and pieces from known classic tracks by Captain Beefheart, The Doors, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Stones, Beatles and Ennio Morricone. I loved this pedal so much that I did 5 demos with it. 2 with bass guitar on a Bassman style amp and an old Ampeg amp (all emulations). The two guitar demos are played through the Brittania VOX AC30 pedal emulation and a cabinet emulation. For classic mid 60's psychedelia the pedal works best with the VOX style amps and Fender twin reverb style. The Man with a Harmonica is from the Ennio Morricone's classic soundtrack. I think that the pedal, nails the sound perfectly if played on the right setup.

Fuzzway '67: Revisited

Well it has been a long time since I last revisited the Original 1966 Arbiter PNP Germanium based Fuzz Face. I posted here a while back about my experience with the Fulltone '69 using AC128 trannies which is an enhanced PNP version of the original:

http://fuzzquest.blogspot.com/2012/04/once-i-had-few-germanium-tranny-lying.html

It was a short post and I didn't really use this pedal a lot, mostly because it didn't sit well with my band and because our lead guitarist (although a Hendrix fanatic) could not cope with the over-the-top nature of the pedal. On top of that he plays humbuckers and that made things even worse.

Next I explored the Silicon path and got into building several versions before settling on a slightly revised version of the Fulltone '70. While with the Germanium PNP version I only had a bag of AC128 which I tested for hfe and leakage, tweaking the Silicon NPN with many trannies was a lot of fun and easier due to the vast amount of options at hand. 

http://fuzzquest.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-pink-face.html

If you wanna understand the differences in sound between the Silicon and the Germanium versions try to think about the differences in sound between the early Hendrix Experience era (Ge) and the Gilmour '70s sound (Si), although using different amps and different playing style. Other comparisons are the Hendrix sound of the Experience vs. Band of Gypsys, or Gilmour's sound of '68 vs. '73. It's the rough, bloomy, creamy and deep fuzz of the Germanium trannys vs. the sharper, smoother and edgier sound of the Silicon. Both classic, fantastic and work well with single coil pups, wah pedals and British style cabinets.

Lately I felt that I have neglected the PNP version Fuzz Face and after tinkering with it a bit I decided that it was time to revisit the circuit and see what else could be done to really get that elusive sound and to achieve this critical milestone on my fuzz quest.

So as you know or heard before, the fuzz effect was first accidentally obtained during recording a country song in 1960 by Marty Robbins. Check out this outstanding page for some cool country fuzz recordings including the legendary 1960 bass fuzz using a fried pre-amp channel:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/11/country-fuzz-sp.html . In 1962 the first Maestro Fuzz Tone was sold to achieve all kinds of voicing effects for the guitar, but nobody really got the idea. Once the Rolling Stones released "Satisfaction", fuzz-mania hit the streets and everybody were buying fuzz pedals. Maestro Fuzz Tone (FZ-1, FZ-1A and FZ-1B), Mosrite Fuzzrite and Sam Ash Fuzz Box were the first commercial units on the west side of the atlantic while the Sola Sound (Gary Hurst) and Vox Tone Benders, The JHS Zonk Machine and the Baldwin Burns Buzzaround were the first to emerge on the British island. A year later, in 1966, Arbiter released the first Fuzz Face which was really a clone of the early 1966 Vox Tone Bender (MK1.5) and from all the units around, this was the simplest one. I think this was the first fuzz unit to use a double transistor feedback loop rather than multiple gain stages to achieve the saturated fuzz tone. The Fuzz Face's round shape was conceived by Arbiter while looking on the base of a microphone stand....ok....

Now, it's a simple circuit and because of that each element is critical. Every value makes a difference. 2 coupled transistors working in a voltage feedback biasing mode. Only 3 caps: in, out and the third on the feedback loop. 4 resistors: 2 for biasing the trannies, 1 for the feedback and 1 for the output and biasing together. The basic 2 pots controlling FUZZ and VOLUME are further enhanced by 2 more giving some extra functionality like BIAS which is a pre-gain control and a CONTOUR which controls the body of the output signal.

  

If you wanna read about the various Fuzz Face designs:

http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/fuzzface.php

If you wanna read about the cicuitry of the Fuzz Face you should really check this link: 

http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/fuzzface/fffram.htm

More about the history of Fuzz pedals:

http://www.kitrae.net/music/Fuzz_Big_Muff_Timeline.html

For the circuit I used and tweaked here's the best schematic out there:

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_ff5_sc_b69.pdf?phpMyAdmin=78482479fd7e7fc3768044a841b3e85a

A great verified and compact layout is given by mark and mirosol at:

http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.il/2013/01/fulltone-69.html

My Psych '67 Fuzz Face clone

I played around with a lot of the values on this one and ended up using the basic Fulltone design as shown on the GGG website. I really enjoy the overwhelming possibilities given by the addition of the BIAS and CONTOUR controls. While the FUZZ pot sounds best at it's max, the true versatility of the sound comes from these extra controls. The BIAS is similar to rolling down your guitar volume which is the most elusive and sweetest spot of the Fuzz Face. It is what Hendrix sounds like when you think he's playing clean but it's so sparkly and biting that you know it ain't clean. The CONTOUR is like a tone or a body control which gives you more control over the spectral envelope of the sound. I like to keep it low so that the fuzz doesn't get too boomy.

What really got me going again with this pedal was changing trannies and re-biasing the 10k pot which had a huge impact on the sound. Low leakage trannies with Q1-70 hfe and Q2-110 hfe gave me the best results which in my opinion is a milder and smoother tone (far away as possible from a muff sound). The 10k pot was tweaked to get about 5.5V at Q2's collector-to-drain with the CONTOUR knob at halfway. 

Other options for tweaking were using a PNP 2N3906 Silicon tranny at Q1 which really gave me surprisingly good sound, lowering the VOLUME pot to 250k which sounded brighter, adding 33pF caps from collector to base on Q2 as suggested by R.G. Keen, and lowering the 100k feedback resistor to get milder effect. None of these options lasted on my build but they are good and are working. I would, however, add a STARVE pot for a dying battery emulation effect and a BRIGHT switch to change the input cap. Maybe later this year....  

Among the many myths around the Fuzz Face some are true, namely, single coil pickups do seem to work best with this circuit. Also, Marshalls, Vox and HiWatt amps sound better than Fenders as far as I can judge. I also found that the Fuzz Face stacks rather well with overdrive pedals behind it and, surprisingly, sounds even better and tighter when I used a treble booster in front of it, although driving it too hard will change the fuzz character. I always thought it was a no no thing, but, it really adds focus and crunch that the original pedal lacks. It made me think of the Keeley Fuzz Head which looks like a Fuzz Face with an added treble booster stage pumping it.

So that's that. Listen to it and build it if you still haven't. It's the real deal. The classic combination 

of Single coils-Fuzz Face-Marshall sounds even better when using a Marshall overdrive pedal like the Runoffgroove Thor. The cabinet emulation is a HiWatt 100W which is really the most transparent classic rock cabinet out there. I tried to cover all bases with the knobs at various positions and playing around with neck and bridge pickups and various volume levels on the guitar. You'll get the idea.

If you wanna turn your Fuzz Face '67 to an AnalogMan Sun Face just use the GGG Boutique '60s Fuzz Face schematic with the following 7 changes:
1. Replace 2u2 input cap with a 1uF one.
2. Replace the 100nF output cap with a 10nF one.
3. Replace 500kA VOLUME pot with a 250kA pot.
4. take the Q2 bias trimmer outside to an external knob for the Sun Dial. Use a 5k pot in series with a fixed 2k2 instead of the 1k fixed with the 10k trimmer.
5. You can leave the 50k input pot or use a trimmer internally like the one in the Sun Face.
6. You can leave the Contour pot or replace it with a fixed 470R instead of the 220R in series with the 1k pot.
7. Try to find the NKT275 germs instead of the AC128 which I normally use.

Tele-(Treble Booster)-Fuzz Face '67-Thor-HiWatt 1 by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

Tyme for some High Octave Fuzz

Ever since I have been reading and listening to various type fuzz circuits I was always intimidated a bit to build  an octave fuzz, mainly 'cause I don't really care to much for octave pedals. Sure they are interesting pedals to play with and toy around, and some great guitarists have made some great solos using octavers, both up and down, but it's not what I am usually after in my sound. Anyway what I'm trying to say is...boy...was I wrong.

My first attempt at an Octave fuzz pedal was made by tampering with a Jordan BossTone fuzz which had a pot for battery starving effect (a tip from freestompboxes.com). This yielded an Octave Down effect with a lot of buzzing which sounds a bit like the Motorcycle effect done by Brian May. Pretty cool, hu? but I'll post this one later on.

Then I read an interesting story about Hendrix playing the Purple Haze solo through the mysterious Octavia fuzz made by Roger Mayer. It is told that one of these pedals was stolen, and reappeared after Hendrix's death under the Tycobrahe brand. After listening to more tracks allegedly played through this Octavia pedal I realized that this pedal has a lot to do with what I call the Hendrix sound. Although he used the Maestro FuzzTone and various Fuzz Faces quite a bit, he also used a pedal called the Axis Fuzz and the Octavia. Both of these pedals sound fantastic and very versatile so I could n't sit still, of course, knowing that they are both in one medium difficulty circuit.

Wondering the web for circuits I ended up using the GGG circuit which had some new features like negative ground, PREGAIN knob, polarity protection and also featured the Octave On/Off switch, so that it's actually two pedals in one. The first part of the circuit is actually the highly acclaimed Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz and the second part is the Octave-up which used a coil transformer for frequency conversion. Mind you that the later Roger Mayer Octave Fuzz is a different circuit and does not have the transformer for the octave up thing. From what I understand the original pedal did include a transformer for the frequency doubling.

I ordered some parts from SmallBear and Mammoth, breadboarded the sucker and when I saw that it was all good I boxed it and called the pedal the "High Tyme" fuzz and for a very good reason. As soon as I plugged my guitar in I was back in Psychedelic Ladyland. This pedal is so sweet you wanna eat it. The Axis-fuzz circuit is musical, smooth and rich. It actually sounds much better and more defined than your usual Fuzz Face, and more vintage sounding than any BigMuff if you wanna go 60's. You can play around with the INTENSITY knob but it really sounds good anywhere on the clock. Once you engage the Octave everything goes berserk. You can roll off the guitar knob or use the PREGAIN and as you roll it down you can get a cleaner octave which can sound very interesting on the high notes on the neck pickup. What I love even more is the sound of the pedal on Bass. I spent an entire night playing bass using the pedal with a phaser right after it. The sound was so inspiring that I couldn't stop. It can get really nasty and quirky on the higher settings. Btw, for the Octave on/off switch just cut the transformer's primary channel diode from the ground and hook it on a SPST switch. Yes, it's that simple as shown here.

I don't know if this circuit is the exact circuit Hendrix played through but it is definitely out there. It's probably the closest I got so far to really reaching my goal on this quest. Lately I've heard of a band called T2 which released one album "It'll All Work Out In Boomland" in 1970 and boom they split. On the new CD release there is a bonus track called "Questions and Answers". 17 years old guitarist, Keith Cross, plays 3 amazing solos on this track which climb up the fuzzy scale throughout the track. The fuzz he uses has got to be the Octave Fuzz 'cause no other fuzz sounds quite like it. you can listen to it using this link. You won't regret it. If you wanna build it.and you need the schematic...here is the magical recipe for this Psycho potion.