Guitar Effect Pedals

Fuzz Face Stompbox

The Dallas Arbiter Company first issued the Fuzz Face in 1966, although the first fuzz faces were simply made by “Arbiter”, the second batch then introduced the “Dallas” arbiter addition. There is also a rather large and serious debate amongst Fuzz Face geeks as to which were the first transistors to be used in the unit. Most people generally agree that the AC128 transistor was the first, a few say that the NKT275 was the first and still others claim that the “Arbiter” Fuzz Face , (the first run of the unit) had SF363 transistors in it.

However, although this rather interesting debate rages, there is generally unanimous agreement as to which transistor sounds the best (the NKT275), made by the British company Newmarket. However to be fair, it seems that this is primarily because of the high quality consistency of this particular transistor, whereas other types had larger flucuations in consistency. The electronics are contained in a round, red, landmine-shaped metal housing. The pedal uses two knobs, one for volume, and one for the amount of “fuzz” the pedal produces. The distinctive sound of the Dallas Arbiter version of the Fuzz Face is said to come from the germanium transistors used in its manufacture.

The Fuzz Face is also notable among modern effects pedals for its lack of an input for a 9 volt power adapter; some have modified their Fuzz Face to accept adapters, or use adaptors that connect to the leads for the 9v battery. Many copies and reissues have been introduced and had little success due to different materials used in their electronic components. Jim Dunlop Manufacturing currently makes the pedal, but schematics and DIY plans to build your own Fuzz Face clone are abundant on the Internet; its simplicity lends itself to experimentation with different compenents to alter the sound.

Such guitarists as Jimi Hendrix (one of the best known Fuzz Face users), Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and others have used the pedal to make their legendary sounds. The Fuzz Face is sometimes confused with the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi fuzzbox due to the resemblance of their sounds on recordings; Jack White and Mudhoney (who named an album Superfuzz Bigmuff) have erroneously been said to use the Fuzz Face instead of the Big Muff Pi.

During his career, Jimi Hendrix employed many effects both in the studio and in live performance that gave his music a completely new dimension. For example, Jimi used many fuzz box units among which were the Arbiter Fuzz Face, the ‘Axis’ fuzz , and the Mosrite Fuzzrite.

Another effect that Jimi used and has since become synonomous with his name was the Vox wah-wah pedal. Jimi employed this effect on many of his studio recordings such as “Voodoo Chile (slight return),” and “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.”

A third type of effect that Jimi used in the studio was a Leslie Speaker cabinet. This effect created the swirling sounds heard on studio tracks such as “Little Wing” and “House Burning Down.”

The Uni-Vibe was yet another effect used by Jimi predominantly in live performance. This created a swirling effect quite similiar to the Leslie Speaker cabinet, although it differed in that it had a speed control, unlike the Leslie cabinet. This meant that the swirling effect could be sped up or slowed down. This effect was employed on tracks such as “Hey Baby (The Land of the New Rising Sun)”, “Earth Blues”, and “Machine Gun.”

A fourth effect Jimi used was the Octavia. This device, as noted by “Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy,” “gives the effect of a multiple mirror image of the actual sound,” but phased inverted. So really it produces a sound that absolutely multiplies all the harmonics up, almost to infinity, so you get an extremely high tone out of it.” The Octavia made it first appearance on “Purple Haze.”

Finally, there is undoubtedly a plethora of other effects that Jimi used in the studio other than just the ones that were mentioned above but to name and detail all of them would take far too much time. The only thing left to be said is that Jimi Hendrix was enormously gifted and was one of the most brilliant musicians that has ever lived.

Although Stevie Ray Vaughn wrought most of his tone out of his fingers, he did employ a couple of effects that were important aspects of his overall tone - the Ibanez Tube Screamer and the Crybaby Wah-Wah pedal.

Stevie Ray Vaughan used both the early TS-808 and the later TS-9 Ibanez Tube Screamer stomp boxes in his career. The TS-808 is easily distinguished from the TS-9 by its small black knobs, smaller stomp button, white script on the housing, and darker green color. They have become a particularly coveted distortion unit and command high prices these days, due in great part to Stevie’s association. The Tube Screamer was his primary distortion device. He employed it to overdrive the front end of his tube amps and to add a natural tube-like saturation and sustain to his lead voice.

Throughout his career Stevie Ray Vaughan alternated between the Crybaby wah-wah pedals and the vintage Vox wah-wah pedal. A superb example of his wah-wah playing can be found on the track “Say What” from Soul to Soul. Other notable SRV wah-wah pedal examples include “Voodoo Chile” and “Come On”. While the use of the wah-wah pedal is fairly rare in the blues genre, Stevie made it sound like the most natural thing in the world.