LIMMCO / Bob Seidman Interview

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One of the forgotten heroes of 60s effects pedals was a distribution and wholesale company based out of Hicksville, NY called LIMMCO (Long Island Musical Merchandise Company).  Since the mid-60s Bob Seidman, the owner, not only lead the way in disseminating East Coast-based guitar gear, but he appears to be the main connection between brands like Applied, Nomad, Kimberly, UMI, Guild, Goya, and so-on.

In addition to this monumental contribution, Seidman was also one of the first, if not THE first person from the US  to go over to Japan and set up a musical instrument business relationship between the two countries; which would eventually lead to the 60s Japanese import boom!

There is a great interview with Bob Seidman over at the NAMM "Oral Histories" page, and I would highly recommend checking out the full video:

WATCH INTERVIEW HERE <<<

Additionally, there is an unfortunate lack of information about LIMMCO currently online. And since I believe Seidman to be a pivotal player in the early effects world, I would love to find out more about him and his company! 

So if you happen to have anything at all related to LIMMCO; a catalog, old advertisements, a personal story, etc. please reach out to me via Email or Instagram. I would love to help put together the story of this mysteriously important part of rock history.

thanks for reading!
-ed

How To Read Shin-Ei Date Codes

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If you've ever owned one of the endless amounts of Shin-ei built pedals, then you've probably seen a cryptic circular stamp with odd letters and numbers somewhere on the bottom plate. They tend to come in varying sizes and somewhat different layouts. And if you don't know what you're looking at, it can be very tempting to just disregard this stamp altogether. But it's precisely this confusion that has lead pedal enthusiasts to incorrectly date these legendary stompboxes for at least two decades now...

So today I think it would be helpful to go through the history of Shin-ei date stamps, and how to decipher what they actually mean...

To start off we need to understand why these numbers are not formatted using the typical Gregorian calendar. And the best way to think about it, is that in Japan the date is based on the reign of the current emperor (*to really just reduce it down for the sake of this article...). 

So from 1926-1989 this was the period of Emperor Shōwa. Which would mean that 1926 is year 1, and then you simply count up from there.

But don't worry, I got you! I made this little chart with a date range you could possibly find on vintage Japanese pedals:

Now in addition to simply knowing how to read these numbers, Shin-ei also used different stamps at different periods. And I have taken a stupid amount of time to go through literally hundreds of photos and figure out which stamp style came out when.

So let's get into it!

The earliest stamp I have found (so far) is from March of 1970. Which makes sense because the end of 1969 saw Shin-ei go through a huge change and expansion. Honey had just gone out of business, Univox seemed to cancel a large portion of their contract, and "Companion", Shin-ei's house brand, was just getting going. And even though they had been manufacturing pedals since 1967, I believe it wasn't until early 1970 when they started using date stamps.

These early stamps were much smaller, and simply had the "SM" "NO" labeling with the Shōwa year and month codes (sometimes in both English and Japanese):

This format was used for nearly two years, until January of 1972 when we would see our first big stamp. *as of now I have yet to find a small stamp dated after December 1971 (46.12), or a large stamp dated before January 1972.

This new stamp did away with the Shōwa formatting, and instead used a Gregorian dating style. I can only assume this decision was made because of the large amount of US brands that had contracts with Shin-ei?

This new format combined the "SM" and "NO" into a single line, and added the Companion logo. The below example can be read as "January of 1973":

This new style though, lasted only a single year. And by March of 1973 the date stamp we are most familiar with came into existence.

It was the same size and followed roughly the same format, with two major exceptions; they went back to the Shōwa dating, and altered the logo to say "Shin-ei, Companion". 

This change came about as the company was going through yet another rebranding period. And in January of 1973 we would see the first "Shin-ei, Companion" labeled effects. *interestingly, for two months there was a small cross-over of the previous "Companion" stamps on products with the new "Shin-ei, Companion" labeling. 

This stamp style stayed with Shin-ei until the very end, lasting around 5 years in total. It is by far the most common version you will come across.

One thing to note is that from 1973 to 1975 there seems to be no "Companion" labeled products. But for some reason Shin-ei decided to bring it back, and for a while was simultaneously making effects under both brandings.

Finally, and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't mention this, but as of now I have only found one stamp like what you see below. It appears to be from May 31st of 1976!? But I have not encountered any other stamps like this, with exact days on them (yet). I have seen stamps just before this, and the one above which is only 3 months later, and neither include the exact date... So maybe this was a funky thing they were trying out for a minute, or maybe it was for a specific brand or style?  (this is on a Shin-ei labed FY-6, for reference). So who knows? But yeah, this is the only other variation I have come across. *please excuse the blurriness

I know some of you are probably reading this and (hopefully) are excited that you can now accurately date your pedals. 

But I also know that more of you are being hit with the realization that your "1968 Shin-ei FY-6" was actually made in 1974... 

And that's ok! It doesn't make it any less cool. I promise. The shroud of mystery that looms over Shin-ei is still very dark, and there's literal tons of information we do not yet know (like who actually invented the Super Fuzz?). But as we dig deeper and deeper, and utilize our collective wisdom, we can continue to inch closer to the truth.

So that all being said, I am trying to catalog as many Shin-ei pedals as possible in order to figure out an even more accurate timeline, and to help uncover the still many mysteries with this brand. If you feel compelled, please reach out via Email or Instagram and tell me about your Shin-ei pedal! I'm most interested in the Super Fuzz and FY-2 timelines, but literally any info related to Shin-ei, Honey, Univox will help get us all closer to the true history of this iconic brand.

thanks for reading! 

-ed

Peak Bell Fuzz Tone Box (Mexico's FY-2)

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One of my favorite nerdy pedal things to do is discover vintage effects that existed outside of the Big 5; USA, Japan, UK, Italy, and the Soviet Union. I can almost guarantee that the vast majority of pre-1980 stompboxes in your collection are from one of these 5 places...

But as you begin to dig deeper, you realize that by the mid-70s, rock n' roll had become (almost) completely worldwide, and that every country seemed to have their own version of the most popular effects of the day. 

That brings us to, I'm totally guessing here, late-70s Mexico, where we get our first in a series of Shin-ei FY-2 clones; The Peak Bell-2 Fuzz Tone Box was an almost exact replica of the Shin-ei in looks and build, with just minor part value adjustments.

The story I typically hear from people who grew up outside of the "Big 5" was that the most popular pedals were near impossible to find (and impossible to pay for). So instead the local electronics guru would create his own version and inadvertently, a new pedal brand in the process!

"PEAK" seems to be such a brand, and they really just nailed it! The enclosure is a bit different in size, but otherwise it's spot-on to the original. And in fact I actually love the labeling on the front plate. The FUZZ TONE BOX is pretty aggressive, and let's you know exactly what you're in for.

A short time later two more FY-2 copies made their way to the market, the Suzuki Fuzz and the Sona Tone. Both had the classic name plate and were a similar build style to the PEAK fuzz. 

It's very likely that this was some sort of OEM situation. Which is kind of wild if you think about it; a Mexican company that not only copies a Japanese pedal, but then goes one step further and copies their whole business model!

So after this, I'm guessing some time in the 80's, two more Mexican FY-2 copies showed up; the Takeuchi Fuzz and an updated version of the Suzuki Fuzz. They appear to be made by the same builder of the PEAK, as they're all extremely similar.

The obvious, and main difference is the missing name plate. But also the switch type, paint style, and the labeling on the side went from Spanish to English.

Now one rumor floating around is that these were actually made by Shin-ei, in Japan, for a Mexican market. But as of now, there is nothing I have seen that confirms anything close to that.

Every component, every switch, every pot, the knobs; none of it is remotely similar to those used in Shin-ei FY-2's. And while someone could point out that a few Japanese parts are in there; during the 70s and 80s it was not uncommon for builders, from any country, to order bulk electronics directly from Japan.

Surprisingly there are a few online demos of these rare birds. So I will leave you with this one of the PEAK Bell-2 Fuzz Tone Box, from user, ganchohomero.

enjoy!

Thanks for reading,

-ed

A Yellow Big Muff ???

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So last week a new (to me) and mysterious pedal popped up on Instagram. Supposedly it's a Chilean-made Big Muff copy. But other than that, we got nothing! 

The Big Muff Super Distortion seems to be from the late 70s/early 80s, and possibly an op-amp copy? It's a bit hard to tell from the back of the board, but that's my best guess! 

I don't know, what do you think? Leave a comment if you have a better idea of what circuit this could be, or when you think it was released.

I remember the first time I had seen a Sekova Big Muff, and it instantly became the ONE I had to find... And for how rare those are, finding one of these feels like it's going to be near impossible.

So now I have a new quest! And after really digging into the vintage pedal scene of South America last year, I'm realizing that it's truly the last frontier...

At some point in the future a trip needs to happen. Soooooooooo, who's with me!!! Let's find some magical Muffs and equator-rusted Tone Benders.

And as I always seem to end these types of posts, if you have any additional info on the Big Muff Super Distortion, or happen to own one yourself, please message me via Email or Instagram.

Thanks for reading!

-ed

BM Fuzz-Feedback 104 - A Deep Dive (sort of)

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I just uploaded a new video on the ultra rare BM Fuzz-Feedback 104 to the NO Demos YouTube playlist! And unlike the last few videos, I'm going into this one almost completely blind. So hopefully we can use the power of moving pictures to get the word out on this unicorn, and solve the mystery together about its origin...

Thanks for watching!
-ed

Fi-Sonic Fuzz Blender, the other Australian Fuzz.

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Last year I went on a bit of an odyssey to research one of the earliest fuzz pedals out of Australia, the Claybridge Fuzzmaster. I lucked out heavily because it was well advertised in old Aussie electronics and Rock magazines, so piecing together the majority of the story was relatively easy.

But the whole time I was digging for info on Claybridge I was also looking for anything related to Fi-Sonic; another early Australian amplifier brand that put out at least 2 fuzz effects during the 60s. Unfortunately I found almost nothing...

For me at least, the first introduction I had to the Fi-Sonic Fuzz Blender (MK IV) was the above example currently owned by Analogman, Mike Piera.

And luckily, after reaching out to Analog Mike, he was very generous in sending a gut shot! *see below When we look inside we see a two transistor, BC 108 silicon fuzz. And depending on when this was released, it was most likely inspired by the Vox Distortion Booster plugin, or a silicon Fuzz Face. 

From what I understand it's not an exact copy, but clearly an adaptation of those circuits. And for dating purposes, the Vox was released in 1966 and the silicon Fuzz Face came about in 1968.

For now, it's the only one I've ever seen. And other than the pedal itself, there's sadly not much else to go off of. FXDB has a quick little blurb on the brand, stating that it was started in 1959 and run by Philip Dreoni, but only lasted until around 1969.

There are a good number of examples of the Fi-Sonic amplifiers online, and I was able to find at least 1 ad showing an Australian electronics company STA Electronics, who I assume were similar to LRE here in States, and what appears to be a Fi-Sonic hifi radio tuner. But also in that same ad (from Oct. 1968) were a handful of guitar effects, including "Fuzz Boxes".

Now obviously there's no way to really know if this is an ad for the Fi-Sonic Fuzz Blender, but so far it's the closest I've been able to get.

I have a vacation coming up next week, so digging back through all of these old magazines will be the perfect bored-at-my-hotel activity. Maybe something else will pop up as a result!

So in addition to the possible magazine ad, the only other hard evidence we have is this; the Fuzz Blender, but looking a bit different.

It's an amp-top unit, with an enormous handle (just in case?), and has controls for "Gain" and "Fuzz". Something else to note is that it simply says "Fuzz Blender" on it, and is absent any version designation. Which makes me think this is possibly v1.

When we look inside, the biggest surprise is that it's completely different from the MKIV Fuzz Blender! What's not a huge surprise is what the circuit actually is... basically a Maestro FZ-1, but with 9v power instead of 3v. There are a few additional value changes, but otherwise it appears to be an FZ-1. 

Something else that's interesting is an original owner claims to have purchased one new in 1965!  But at this point I take those dates with a grain of salt, because people tend to say they did things a year earlier and at least a year longer than they actually did.

But either way 1966 would make this just as early as the Claybridge Fuzzmaster! Which is pretty cool for Australia at the time, who basically had zero access to American gear to buy or even properly copy.

What is still unknown is at what point the Fuzz Blender MKIV was introduced, and if there was a MKII and MKIII? As we saw with the Claybridge Fuzzmaster, at one time we were only aware of the MKIV, but then a green version was found, then the Wildcat, and finally the "prototype" I found last year that appears to be a MKI or MKII. 

So it is very possible that we have yet to see the other versions of this rare bird, and that like the Claybridge pedals, they are all sitting in a box somewhere in someone's closet, just waiting to be discovered.

If you happen to have any additional info on the Fi-Sonic Fuzz Blender, or own one, I would love to hear from you! Please message me via Email or Instagram.

thanks for reading!

-ed