The Maestro FZ-1, or Fuzz Tone, was
the very first commercially available
transistorized guitar effect. There is some
debate over its exact conception, and the
stories vary, but according to AnalogMan’s
Guide to Vintage Effects, a Nashville
engineer by the name of Glenn Snotty
came up with the concept for the very first
fuzz box, when trying to emulate the fuzzy,
distorted sound a broken channel on his
mixing console gave him. He later showed
his prototype design to someone at Gibson
and you can guess what happened next.
After the release of the Rolling Stones’s “(I
Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” the demand
for fuzz exploded, and everyone and their
mothers wanted a fuzz pedal. Like many
other chapters in this story, legions of
manufacturers predictibly set out to cash
in on this craze, leading to many different
flavors of fuzz all over the market. On the
other side of the pond however, the FZ-1,
like a lot of American gear, was incredibly
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TONE TALK //
expensive, and the Macari brothers of
London set out to “approximate” the
Fuzz Tone, have it more readily available
in the UK. That design (which is rumored
to be originally conceived by none other
than Vox/JMI engineer Dick Dennings)
became the Tone Bender, marketed under
the Sola Sound brand, which later became
Colorsound. From about 1964 onward, there
were many other popular fuzzes at the time
in both the US and the UK, but perhaps the
most influential is that famous metal smiley
face that was born from the Dallas-Arbiter
merger in England, the Fuzz Face.
Popular uses of the FZ-1 and Tone Bender:
The Rolling Stones – "(I Can’t Get No)
Satisfaction" (Out of Our Heads – 1965), FZ-1
Jeff Beck Group – "Beck’s Bolero" (Truth –
1968), Tone Bender
Yardbirds – "Heart Full of Soul" (Having a
Rave Up With The Yardbirds – 1965), Tone
Bender
A People’s Guide to the Gear of the British Invasion