Legends of Fuzz
Okay, guys, today is a big deal. I’m releasing a brand new series of JHS pedals into the world. I need you to sit back, relax, grab your favorite Snuggie, and know that you are the first person in the history of the world to learn about these pedals.
Unless you’re the second person to read this. I don’t make the rules.
Without a doubt, the effect of Fuzz is one of the most important things that ever happened to the electric guitar and to popular music.
Is that a big statement to make? Sure. Do I stand by it? 114%.
You can track the influence of this iconic effect from its accidental invention in a 1960 Nashville recording studio, to the very first pedal ever manufactured in the 1962 Maestro Fuzztone, to 1965 London where the Tone Bender was created and added fuel to the fire of the British Invasion, to the Fuzz Face that faithfully sat at Jimi Hendrix’s feet all through the late ‘60s, with the invention of metal and hard rock through the ‘70s, and even the ‘90s at the forefront of the genres shoegaze and grunge. Through it all, Fuzz was right there creating the sounds that we love.
I have made Fuzz pedals for over ten years at JHS and I'm really proud of them, but I wanted to do something different. Something that paid a huge tribute backwards into the history and into what these vintage effects did for our culture and for guitarists. The Legends of Fuzz series is my way of making these rare, expensive, and super hard to find circuits accessible to all musicians. It bummed me out for too long that many people would never find or have access to these amazing, iconic circuits. I wanted to put them right in their hands, your hands!
I’m happy to say: we did it! To paraphrase Hannibal from the A-Team, “I love it when a series comes together.” And when I say we did it, I mean that we did it. We took it all the way. We made a custom bent metal enclosure. It's a wedge like those classic ‘60s and ‘70s pedals that we love to look at. It's a beautiful design. We did a full metal badge plate on the top for all the labeling. We did vintage style knobs and most importantly (and for the first time ever in the thirteen years of JHS history) the Legends of Fuzz series uses a battery clip, just in case you’re old school. You’re welcome.
But I’m especially proud of how these pedals each bring something uniquely Fuzz to the table. Let’s break this down pedal by pedal. Just think of me as an ecstatic Doc Brown ready to show his Delorean to Marty McFly.
No, I’m even more excited than that. Just insert the best metaphor you can think of here.
CRIMSON
Let's take a look at the first one. In 1969, Mike Matthews and Electro Harmonix created and released one of the most epic pedals ever made in the Big Muff. Even if you’re brand new to the pedal scene, you’ve probably heard of the Big Muff. This thing is the definition of iconic.
The version one, or “triangle version” as many call it. changed the scene with Fuzz pedals. But in 1984, Mike Matthews went through his second bankruptcy and Electro Harmonix folded. The mighty Big Muff lay dead for almost 10 years.
But then--
Come on, you knew there was going to be a happy ending to this story. It can’t just end with the Big Muff dead. That would be terrible.
But then Mike saw the prices of the 1970s Electro Harmonix pedals begin to skyrocket on the used market. Even though his company had folded, he saw that there was still a market for the pedals he loved to make. So, in the early 1990s, Mike found an ex-soviet military manufacturing company to produce that same original Fuzz circuit, the Big Muff, but make it in Russia. And the result was the Red Army Overdrive. It's similar to the late ‘92 Civil War version and it's a hidden gem. It's unique and all its own, but at the end of the day it's definitely a Big Muff.
The Crimson is our tribute and faithful replication of this classic Mike Matthews Red Army Overdrive. If you love the tones of the Smashing Pumpkins, Wilco, Sonic Youth, David Gilmour, and Dinosaur Jr, then this is the pedal for you.
BENDER
Picture it: 1965, a small Mom-and-Pop music store called Macaris on Denmark Street in London. This is where the second Fuzz pedal ever sold was invented. I’m talking about the Sola Sound MKITone Bender. It forever changed the British music scene, and (spoiler) it didn’t stay in Britain for long. That scene swept out across the whole world in the movement we know as the British Invasion.
By late 1966, we see the MKII or Version Two of the Sola Sound, and then from 1970 on we see the introduction of the MKIII and MKIV.**
**Who is Mark and why are so many of these pedals named after him? We may never know.
Without a doubt my favorite Sola Sound Tone Bender that I own in my collection (and there are a lot) is the one I call the “Onomatopoeia Version”. I love it, and I call it that because the Fuzz logo on the casing looks a lot like a comic book “Pow!” or “Bam!” Think along the lines of Adam West Batman and old school Spiderman, and you’ve got it. I absolutely adore this pedal. It has three germanium transistors. It's super smooth. It's like a distortion pedal meets a Fuzz pedal. It has a great tone control called “treble/bass”.
The Sola Sound Tone Bender MKIII is just an exciting pedal that has always inspired me. So I had to ask, could we design a version of this that used normal silicon parts that were available and affordable, but make it sound like this, make it feel like this, and make it react the same way under your fingers?
Long story short: we could and we did. After a lot of experimenting, a lot of designs, trying new stuff, and trying to figure out what made the original Tone Bender so awesome, to begin with, we came up with the Bender. The end result is a pedal that gives you the touch, feel, and response of the vintage germanium Fuzz but with accuracy and consistency of carefully chosen modern silicon transistors. If you want a Fuzz that can go from middle of the road crunch distortion to full out aggression, the Bender is for you. The tone control is extremely flexible and allows for dozens of sonic variations that most Fuzz users only dream about.
If you love the Fuzz sounds of Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, The Beatles, Mick Ronson (David Bowie), and My Bloody Valentine, then the Bender is for you.
SUPREME
In the late 1960s, Japan exploded with electric guitar innovations and electric guitar effects inventions. Think of it like a twentieth-century Renaissance focused on electric guitar (but without Leonardo da Vinci), and you’re darn close.
One company stood at the forefront of this, a brand called Honey. Here was a group of engineers who left a previous manufacturer called Teisco and wanted to branch out on their more radical ideas and add something incredibly new to the market. One of those engineers, a brilliant creator, invented a multi effects head unit that was actually shaped like a guitar head. It was filled with effects like Uni-Vibe and featured a brand new Fuzz circuit that he had designed.
Honey split up these into separate pedals. They took the Uni-Vibe and made it a standalone unit. They also took the Fuzz and released it as the Honey Crying Baby effect, and it did really well. Around that same time, Honey joined and changed its name to a company called Shin-Ei.
Think of them as an a la carte pedal manufacturer. Shin-Ei would make you a pedal line out of their creations and circuits, put your name on it, and you could sell it all over the world. They made pedals for everyone, but one of the very first companies to take advantage of this was an American company called Univox.
In 1968 Univox released the Honey Crying Baby Fuzz effect as the Super-Fuzz. They put it in a plain gray enclosure just like all of the other Shin-Ei versions, and this pedal did really well straight away. But it exploded in popularity in the early ‘70s when Pete Townsend (The Who) began using the new cosmetic version that they released, which was literally the same exact circuit, but it looked way cooler.
My personal favorite is still the black and gray model. They all sound the same, aside from some very, very, very, very slight differences, but I think I’m drawn to the black and gray because it’s so rare. Mind games are real. The original black and gray Super-Fuzz is what we used for the legends of Fuzz Supreme, and I think we nailed it. Imagine an Octavia Fuzz that woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and that’s what you're plugging into here: a loud, screaming, full, and vibrant octave Fuzz that is always at eleven.
If you want to replicate the classic octave Fuzz sounds of Pete Townsend, the Black Keys, Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, and Mudhoney, this is it.
SMILEY
In 1966, a salesman named Ivor Arbiter (founder of Arbiter Electronics) decided his company was missing out on the big sales boom of Fuzz pedals.
To quote Dylan Thomas, Ivor was not about to “go gentle into that good night.” Ivor didn’t want to put out another generic Fuzz. He took inspiration for his Fuzz design from a truly unique place: the base of a circular mic stand. He decided, “I'm going to make a Fuzz, and I'm not going to make one of those wedges or boxes. I'm going to make it a circle.”
Okay, Ivor. I see you. Do what you gotta do.
But the circular enclosure wasn’t the craziest feature of the famous Fuzz Face pedal. As the name suggests, he literally gave his Fuzz a face. He took two knobs for eyes. He put in the switch for a nose. The Arbiter brand stood in as the mouth with a white label. It sounds like I’m describing the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, and that’s the genius of this pedal. It feels human. It feels personal. It's brilliant.
The same year this was invented, a guy named Hendrix left America and arrived in London, right where this pedal was born. He picked it up as his pedal of choice throughout his entire career, making the Fuzz Face the most iconic and well-known Fuzz pedal ever made.
And, honestly, for good reason.
I have several versions in my collection, and I can honestly say that I prefer the silicon versions over the germanium ones. The Legends of Fuzz Smiley is my attempt to capture those first years of incredible silicon Fuzz Faces that were manufactured there in London, the ones that Hendrix loved, the ones that kind of started off the late ‘60s into the early ‘70s, the ones that completely changed music. The Smiley is clear and defined, straddling the line between distortion pedal and a searing sustain, sustaining low end and crisp mid-range bite that you expect from a vintage Arbiter unit. One of the most revered characteristics of a good Fuzz Face is its ability to clean up when the guitar's volume is rolled back, and the Smiley does this effortlessly.
If you want a Fuzz that covers coveted classic tones, look no further. Legends like Jimi Hendrix, Jack White, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, and Eric Johnson have used this circuit on countless albums. Now it's your turn.
This Legends of Fuzz series is a passion project that started a little over a year ago. In the beginning, I just wanted to take some of the classic Fuzz circuits that are so full of history and make them accessible to everybody. It kills me that these amazing pedals are so hard to find on the used market and how, when you do find them, the prices are astronomical. I'm excited that we got this series into a form factor that looks amazing, sounds amazing, and is more affordable than our normal line of pedals. That's super awesome to me.
But the best part? This is a series, and these are just the first four. I have ten of these pedals completely ready and I'm excited to put them out as the time is right. Stay tuned.