Post by bear on Mar 17, 2022 15:51:16 GMT -7
"(A note on circuit "design" credits - There is much debate on how much actual designing went on in the creation of these early fuzz circuits. It should be noted that basic amplifier circuits appeared in Mullard, Valvo, GE, and Phillips application books in the 1950's, '60's and '70's. These books offered examples of audio amplifier circuits designed to use transistors, specifically to help sell more of their transistors. Electronics engineers at the time often used these text book circuits in fuzz and booster pedal designs as clients usually wanted things fast and inexpensive. Sometimes they used nearly the exact book circuits or slightly modified forms, sometimes combinations of those different circuit stages, other times only the circuit architecture was used, but component values were changed to suit the application. That was how most circuit design was accomplished back then, and it is still done that way today. I would speculate that 90% of all pedal circuit design is based on something that previously existed. When a person is credited as the "designer" here, it is in reference to the person most directly responsible for putting the end circuit design in the pedal, regardless of whether or not it was based on something that existed previously.)
1950s - The Rise of Distorted Guitar in Blues, R&B, and Rock and Roll
Distorted guitar sounds have been around since the first electric guitar was created and cranked to maximum through an amplifier. No one accidentally 'discovered' it, although occasionally accidents caused amplifiers to distort, which were then intentionally recorded because people liked the sound. While initially musicians desired clean guitar amplification, thus distortion was frowned upon, in the growing rock and blues arena of the late 1940s through the 1950s distorted guitar was becoming something very intentional. This timeline focuses on the first electronic circuits created specifically to make a guitar sound distort, but there are many earlier examples of people doing this by driving amps to the maximum levels in order to make them distort. Fuzz boxes were specifically created to make it easier to achieve these sounds. Here are a few early, pre fuzz box examples of recorded guitar/amp distortion. It is worth looking them up on youtube:
1949 - Rock Awhile by Goree Carter. One of the first true rock and roll songs, and one of the first rock songs to feature an intentionally distorted guitar. Carter was doing distorted Chuck Berry riffs years before Chuck Berry.
1950 - Boogie in the Park by Joe Hill Louis. Guitar played by Louis.
1951 - Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats. Usually credited as the first true Rock and Roll song. Guitar played by Willie Kizart.
1951 - How Many More Years by Howlin' Wolf. Guitar played by Willie Johnson.
1953 - Cotton Crop Blues by James Cotton. Heavily distorted guitar played by Pat Hare. Hare's playing on Love Me Baby in 1953 was probably the genesis of the '50s rockabilly guitar style, and his playing here was the likely the genesis of British Invasion blues style guitar playing and power chords.
1956 - The Train Kept A Rollin' by Johnny Burnette and The Rock N Roll Trio. This the guitar is most likely played by session guitarist Grady Martin, not Paul Burlison (guitarist for the trio). Grady would later play fuzz bass on Marty Robbin's hit Don't Worry.
1958 - Rumble by Link Wray and his Ray Men. Guitar played by Link Wray.
1960
• Producer and song writer Lee Hazelwood, an early pioneer of fuzz tone who was writing and recording songs with Duane Eddy around this time, has a fuzz box created by a radio station technician for use in the recording studio. Guitarist Al Casey, a top session player and song writer who also worked with Hazelwood and Duane Eddy relates (in Exclaim.ca 2007): "Lee knew a guy who worked at a radio station and he built a little box for that. This happened before all the fuzz tones. We were trying to get a good, nice clean sound. Lee wanted the distorted sound.” Al Casey used this fuzz box in recording sessions for the Sanford Clark song Go On Home, released in March 1960. This is one of the first, if not the first recorded use of an electronic circuit specifically built to create a fuzz tone. Note that this is not the first recorded use of "fuzz", as many other methods of producing fuzzy, distorted guitar tones had been used prior to this, but this was likely the first use of a solid state electronic device to produce the sound.
• Recording session engineer Glen Snoddy records Marty Robbin's hit Don't Worry in Nashville, Tennessee USA. So the story goes (there are several versions), an accident causes a Langevin tube amp module in the mixing console to blow a transformer, making Grady Martin's bass guitar on the song have a fuzzy, distorted tone. The decision is made to keep this unique "fuzz" bass solo as part of the final song, supposedly recorded in late 1960, but not released as a single that year. It first appeared in January 1961 on a greatest hits album. It shot to the #1 spot in the country charts in February. This is generally accepted as the first recorded "fuzz tone" circuit, although Sanford Clark's Go On Home also featured a fuzz box and was actually recorded earlier that year. Grady Martin continued to use this fuzz tone effect in his recordings, including an instrumental called The Fuzz in January 1961. Country musicians, mostly from the Nashville area, picked up on the fad and featured fuzz tone guitar on various recordings for the next few years. These included songs recorded by Carl Butler, Claude Gray, Darrel McCall, and Glen Garrison.
1961
• California pedal steel player, session musician, and electronics technician Orville 'Red' Rhodes creates a fuzz circuit for use in the recording studio, housed in a small metal box with a distortion level knob and bypass switch. No production version of the pedal was ever made, although Red made several of these Rhodes fuzz boxes for fellow musicians, including Nokie Edwards of The Ventures and Billy Strange. Rhodes also made other effects, such as the Rhodes compressor, used by Nokie Edwards and the guitarist for The Carpenters, Tony Peluso (who incidentally was also one of the first guitarists recorded using a Big Muff!). Rhodes later created the Royal Amplifier Shop in California where he made amplifiers and guitar pickups, working with David Schecter and Michael Tobias, who each went on to start their own guitar companies.
1962
• The Ventures use the Red Rhodes fuzz box to record the song 2000 Pound Bee. Billy Strange is credited with playing the fuzz tone guitar. This is generally accepted as the first recorded use of a fuzz pedal in a 'rock and roll' song. According to Ventures guitarist Nokie Edwards, he used the effect for several years, and it can be heard on such Ventures tracks as Walk Don't Run '64 and the Live in Japan '65.
• Maestro Fuzz-Tone (FZ-1). In the US, engineer Glen Snoddy, seeing fuzz tone becoming increasingly popular since it appeared in the bass solo (caused by a faulty tube preamp) on Marty Robbins song Don't Worry, creates a transistor circuit to replicate the fuzz tone. Glen states (in the book Fuzz and Feedback by Tony Bacon) : “Later when I found out what it was, I set about trying to develop that sound using transistors. We fooled around with it and got the sound like we wanted. I drove up to Chicago and presented it to Mr. Berlin, the boss at the Gibson company, and he heard that it was something different. So they agreed to take it and put it out as a commercial product." Gibson becomes the first to the market with a mass produced consumer fuzz circuit. The first production version was built into Gibson bass guitars, then later in a stand-alone floor pedal form (FZ-1). The design is credited to Snoddy and fellow Tennesseean Revis V. Hobbs, an engineer with the famous WSM Radio in Nashville. Many other fuzz pedals that would follow were knockoffs or modifications of this first transistorized fuzz circuit. The FZ-1 is generally accepted as the first production fuzz pedal ever made, and the pedal that would later spawn the British fuzz tone craze. Gibson expected the pedal to be very popular and made over 5000 units on the first run. It was a disappointingly poor seller, but sales would finally come later in 1965.
• (circa 1962) In the UK, Vox supposedly has a prototype clone of the Gibson Maestro Fuzz-Tone made by engineer Dick Denney (designer of the Vox AC-15 and AC-30 amps), but chooses not to bring it to market.
1963
• The Beatles are seen using the USA made Maestro Fuzz-Tone in the studio.
1965 - Enter the Tone Bender
• MKI Tone Bender fuzz pedal (Mark I). The first British made fuzz pedal to market, to compete with the Gibson Maestro, which being an American made pedal was difficult to acquire in the UK. The three transistor circuit was based on the Glen Snoddy designed/American made Maestro Fuzz-Tone of 1962. According to electronics engineer Gary Hurst, he was the designer. Hurst's story of the origin is that Vic Flick (creator of the James Bond theme) brought a Maestro Fuzz-Tone to him at Macaris Music Exchange (where Gary worked in London) because he was not completely happy with the sound. Gary copied the Maestro circuit for him, tweaking it slightly and changing from 3v to 9v to increase the sustain. The Tone Bender (Mark I) was based on this three transistor prototype, and advertisements for it clearly state Gary Hurst was the designer. In the beginning the MK I was made in a wood case by Gary and his brother in their home in London, and sold out of Macaris Music Exchange shops. Gary then partnered with Larry Macari, who created Sola Sounds Ltd. of London, which handled all manufacturing and distribution through Macaris. The Tone Bender was one of the first pedals to feature true bypass switching.
•Jeff Beck uses a MKI Tonebender pedal in the Yardbirds single Heart Full of Soul, released in the UK June 1965 and in the US July 1965. This song was released nearly two months before the Rolling Stones Satisfaction in the UK, and a month after it in the US.
• Keith Richards records the Rolling Stones #1 hit (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction with the Maestro Fuzz-Tone (FZ-1) on May 10, 1965, marking the real beginning of the fuzz pedal era world wide. It was released in the US in June 1965 and the UK August 1965.
• Maestro Fuzz-Tone (FZ-1A). A revised version of the 1962 Maestro Fuzz-Tone, created after the Rolling Stones popularized the Fuzz-Tone in thier hit #1 Satisfaction. Over 40,000 of this lower powered version were made. Later an FZ-1B version was released, changing from Germanium transistors to Silicon.
•The patent for the Maestro Fuzz-Tone was granted on Oct. 19, 1965 (filed on May 3, 1962).
• Buzz-Around. Early two-knob fuzz pedal. Later made in a three-knob version after Baldwin buys Burns Guitars in 1965.
• Fuzzy, designed by Italian sound engineer Pepe Rush. A red, wedge shaped fuzz box, based on the Maestro Fuzz-Tone. The control knobs were for volume and "pep".
• Pete Townshend uses the MKI Tone Bender in 1965 and '66.
• Jeff Beck uses the MKI Tone Bender on the Yardbirds Heart Full of Soul. According to designer Gary Hurst, Jeff beck often broke the wood boxes the original MK I Tone Benders were housed in, inspiring Gary to have a stronger sheet metal enclosure made.
• Mick Ronson uses the MKI Tone Bender and it becomes his main fuzz box, later used in David Bowie's Spiders from Mars band.
• Paul McCartney uses a Tone Bender on Think for Yourself, during the Beatles' Rubber Soul recording sessions on November 8th, 1965. The pedal could either be a Tone Bender Mk I, which was already on the market, a Tone Bender MKI.5, as Gary Hurst has claimed it was, or a prototpe of the Vox version of the Tone Bender, as Vox designer Dick Denney has claimed. Both Denney and Hurst worked together briefly while Hurst was an engineer at Vox. Denney claimed he gave the Beatles the proto Vox fuzz in 1965. If true, the Vox prototype may be what later became the msyterious Mk I.V Tone Bender, possibly created as a special order for Vox. Hurst has stated he did repair work on the Beatles gear locally, and even brought them fuzz pedals to use in the studio. Regardless which story is true, or if both are, it appears some version of a Tone Bender was used.
• Jimmy Page uses a fuzz box in a January 1965 David Bowie session in London. Unknown which fuzz it was, but Roger Mayer did design a fuzz pedal for Jimmy in 1964 (according to Mayer), based on a Maestro Fuzz-Tone. This may have also been a standard Maestro Fuzz-Tone. He was also seen with a Maestro in 1966.
