Pedal time! 1967 Vox Tone Bender

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Another great vintage fuzz pedal (yes, I'm quite into pedals lately, and mostly in fuzz boxes), the Vox Tone Bender.

Even more than in the field of  early electric guitars, the dawn of effect pedal is both full of myths and poorly documented - though everybody has an opinion about everything it seems. Who came first, what are the original components and circuits, what is the genuine sound?

And people who possess original pedals are of course reluctant to tear them apart to check what's inside - as you can see here (and you can read the whole Fuzz Central website while you're at it) early circuits were protected by a layer of paint...

And also makers had no reason to be consistent in their buildings, there were no standards, everybody was experimenting with new sounds (is it a legend or the Kinks really recorded 'You really got me' after slicing the speakers of their amps to get their infamous fuzzy sound?) 

Anyway, I've been reading many things about the Tone Bender - sometimes contradictory - so this is my version of the facts: the Vox Tone Bender was built in Italy - like Vox's guitars - by a company  called Jen, using the Tone Bender circuit provided by Sola Sound to several companies for their pedals, such as Marshall or Rotosound.

The original Vox Tone Bender was based on the MKI.V - the second version of the circuit - but there's been several later versions of both the circuit and the pedal, but since this one doesn't sport any indication, I assume it's an early model, said to have inspired the Fuzz Face.

Bertram D
 
© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Pedal time! Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face

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Everybody is much probably familiar enough with the Fuzz Face so I don't have to recall that it's one of the earliest effect pedals, released by Ivor Arbiter in 1966, that the round case was inspired by the base of a microphone stand, that it somehow looks like a smiling bearded face (imagine the effect on musicians on LSD back in the days), that it comprises no more than 11 electronic components - including germanium transistors (normally when they read germanium, old school guitarists get short-breathed) and contributed to the sound of Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend and David Gilmour... 

OK, one thing I might be able to tell that you don't know: if someone loves this pedal so much that he couldn't live any longer without a 1969 one, it would just cost US $1 795,00... (Personally, I use a 95 € Boss FZ5 modeled fuzz that in these times of vintage, analog and boutique pedals praise, nobody cares to display on their pearlboards, and I think that it sounds terrific, but who am I to say?)   

Bertram

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1969 Marshall Supa Fuzz

guitarz.blogspot.com

Cannot find any exciting guitars around lately, and had a little tech geek phase these last days, so I decided to go for vintage pedals, and was happy to find this Marshall Supa Fuzz.

There are some people out there who have the same kind of love and dedication to effect pedals that you have for guitars (I suppose so if you read this blog!) People who know everything about every pedals, upgrade them with mod kits and can debate for ever about why the one that makes Grrrkkkkrssfzzzz is better than the one that makes Grzzzzrrfffffrzzz, etc... 

Anyway, the Supa Fuzz is one of the first effect pedals ever released (this one is not from 1967 as it is listed on eBay though, this design came up only in 1969) and I don't have much more anecdotes (I could tell that Pete Townsend used one in 1968 but quickly shifted to a Fuzz Face, then an Univox, but this just tells that the Supa Fuzz was probably not the best fuzzbox of the time!) 

Bertram


Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!