That mid-'60s fuzz sound

P-90 · #1 May 5th, 2007

Does anyone have recommendations for a really OLD kind of distortion pedal at a reasonable price? I'm thinking pre-Fuzz Face, something more like a Maestro Fuzz (the Rolling Stones "Satisfaction" sound) or a Mosrite FuzzRite -- a hard, edgy, nasty fuzz. Hopefully something which will still sound right when plugged into a solid-state amp. I'd rather not cough up big money for a collector's item or boutique pedal if there's a cheaper way to get the same sound.

allthumbs · #2 May 5th, 2007

You could build your own.
http://www.runoffgroove.com/

DemoEtc · #3 May 7th, 2007

Best if you can try them out first, but my suggestions are the MXR Distortion+, the BOSS FZ-5 or one of the reissue FuzzFace pedals.

Thing is, sometimes it's not about the pedal or its circuits, but how you route it, how you tweak it, what settings you use on it, the settings on the guitar and amp, the type of pickups you have, etc - the whole signal chain.

Best to try a bunch at a store if you can.

RevAndyX · #4 May 9th, 2007

I second what Demo said. I bought a FZ-5 and love it. You can the middle effect is pretty much a sound a like to Satisfaction.

A Maestro reissue wouldn't be bad either. It may be hard to find one (ebay?) and the downside to buying it offline is you can't try it out.

I suggest heading over to a guitar center and trying out a Boss FZ-5. Best of luck! Keep on the fuzz!

P-90 · #5 May 9th, 2007

After much searching around and agonizing over whether or not to break out the soldering iron and perfboard, I found something which I think is going to do. In the mid-late '90s, Ibanez made a pedal, the SF5 '60s Fuzz, which sounded like it might be just the thing, and I managed to track down one of them in a little music store in Wisconsin.

I'll let you all know how it works out.

Stratrat · #6 May 10th, 2007

I don't know if you consider $99 reasonable, but the Dunlop Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face was what Hendrix used. Check out the sound clips at the link and see if that's what you're looking for.

P-90 · #7 May 15th, 2007

I was after the raw, abrasive and rude mid-'60s sound, which I remember as being a shade harsher than Fuzz Face tone. (It's been 30 years since I used a Fuzz Face, so I could be mistaken, but that was how I remembered it.)

My Ibanez Soundtank '60s Fuzz arrived today, and I'm happy to say that it almost nails the Maestro/Mosrite kind of sound. With the right tone settings, distortion set pretty high, and guitar volume up, it's close enough to the "Satisfaction" sound to be convincing. I guess "In-a-gadda-da-vida" too, if I that were something I ever wanted to play. It also does a good job of '65-'66 sort of Who/Yardbirds/Beatles tones; all of them used fuzzes based on the Maestro design during that period (the Sola Sound Tone Bender).

The circuitry is pretty complex and wouldn't lend itself to DIY cloning; I'm sure that I couldn't make a copy for the $39 I paid for this one. So if anyone else is looking for that sound, I'd definitely recommend it. It sounds great, and has no collector value (as yet). What more can you ask for?