Mystery of the Japanese Wedge Fuzz...

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Back in March a pedal that I easily recognized as the classic Sekova Wedge Fuzz came up for sale on ebay, but a couple things immediately stuck out as odd; one was that it had clearly been modified where the original circuit was replaced with what looked like a delay (?), and the other, which was way more surprising, was that it looked like the pedal originally had a tone control!

If you know the Sekova Wedge Fuzz (aka the No. 59 Distortion Box), then you know that all three versions have the same 2-knob configuration for Volume and Attack. The only other known example that was probably related (but varied from the rest), was a pedal we featured here a few years ago, the equally mysterious Fuzz Master.

But after staring for days at the sad state of this once rare wedge fuzz variant, I realized that I'd actually seen one before... but where!?

So I went through all of my hard drives, and nothing. Next I tried a few different image searches, again, nothing. Then I went back through all the various websites and nerd forums, and still, nothing. Finally I checked every internet database, going through magazine after magazine and newspaper article after newspaper article, aaaaaaaaaand nothing.

I was starting to feel crazy (and yes, this is typically the process I go through before every article on here, lol) because I knew I had seen this pedal before. So I tried one last trick, which was to go to Japanese resale sites and see what I could find. And after a few days of digging, THERE IT WAS!!!

Hiding away in the middle of a 1981 special issue of Player magazine called "Output" I found this Maxon ad featuring our mystery wedge fuzz! And it answered a few questions I had, like "Was the third knob simply a modification?", "Did it come with hardwired input/output cable like the Sekovas?", and "Were those the original knobs?".

But in addition to the handful of resolutions it did provide, it also created about 50 new avenues for me to explore. And the first glaring one to tackle was, 1957??? 

Unfortunately the photo I had was just too pixelated to translate, but luckily friend of the blog, Pablo Japan did me a huge favor and purchased a copy of the original magazine! 🙏

So here it is, the (google) translated version. Kind of vague, and doesn't really address the actual pedal in the photo, but it is interesting that they are claiming the first fuzz box was created in the late 1950s, and a different one was used in a Screaming Lord Sutch recording from 1960.

Sadly that got us nowhere, but at least we don't have to completely upend all of fuzz history and start telling people that Japan actually had the first fuzz box in 1957.

The next question I had was in regards to the pedal appearing in a Maxon ad at all. Before being known as "Maxon" they were a Japanese manufacturing plant called Nisshin Onpa, and had been around as early as the mid 1960s. Their first major client was Greco, supplying pickups for the majority of their guitars at the time.

Now what makes the Greco connection interesting is this ad from the November 1967 issue of Japan Music Trades magazine. It features the No. 35 Fuzz Booster, which is clearly the same as the Sekova Wedge Fuzz.  

And we know that Nisshin Onpa would go on to become Maxon, and would not only be responsible for their effects, but also every classic Ibanez pedal you can think of! 

But what we don't know is; were they already manufacturing pedals as early as 1967?

In all of my searches I have never come across an original ad for a Sekova wedge fuzz. But knowing some rough history of Sekova as a "company", they did not seem to make any of their own products after the mid 60s. 

To make matters even more confusing, there are at least 3 different circuits used during the production of the Sekova wedge fuzzes; a true 1.5v FZ-1A type fuzz, a heavily modified 9v Fuzzrite style fuzz (the most common version), and another 1.5v FZ-1A style that uses the exact same board you'll find in an LRE Fuzz Sound.

And while I do believe that the LRE version was manufactured by a different company, I am not sure at all of the origin (or chronology) of the other two, except that I'm almost certain neither were made by Shin-ei.

So that brings us back to our mysterious 3-knobber...

Before we go into any similarities, let's talk about the standout differences. First, and I almost missed it, the front jack is labeled as "Input" instead of "Amplifier" like it is on every other version (and like it is on an actual Maestro FZ-1A). 

Next, as we mentioned before, there is no hardwired cable. I'm not sure if this was done because there wasn't enough room with all the added components, or if it's related to the swapped Input/Output holes, but it's noteworthy nonetheless.

Then, we have the matter of that third knob/tone control. I was originally thinking that it might be an added tone booster circuit but there are no extra transistors to be found here. So it truly is a simple tone control, which would normally be of little significance, but in this case it's a feature that doesn't exist on any other version of this fuzz (that I have seen at least).

And lastly, it runs off a 9v battery! And while I have not yet mapped it out, my assumption is that it's roughly the same germanium FZ-1A style circuit but with added electronics for the tone knob. There is a somewhat lower output on this than my Sekova, so it's possible that they chose 9v to beef it up a bit? The result is a higher gain, thicker sounding fuzz, that sits somewhere between an FZ-1 and a MKI Tone Bender (but much closer to the FZ-1 side of that spectrum, for sure).

One of the theories that floats around when it comes to vintage Japanese pedals is that even when different brands look identical, it could mean that they were manufactured by two completely different companies who just happened to use the same generic enclosures and parts supplier.

So these wedge fuzzes always come down to a bit of an educated guess, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use comparisons as a part of that education. That all being said, it's obviously the same enclosure, uses the same knobs, same classic Japanese footswitch, same embossed labeling with white paint, and the bottom plates are identical to the ones used on many of the Sekovas.

 

All of that is great, but none of it really addresses the possibility that the same enclosures were used by different builders. But when we compare the insides of the pedals, it becomes pretty clear this was all done under one roof.

The two photos above show an FZ-1A style Sekova No. 59 Distortion Box (top) and the mystery 3-knob fuzz (bottom). The build style is almost identical, the resistors are the same, the combination of capacitors are the same (minus the two replacement caps in the mystery fuzz), the transistors (Matsushita 2SB175) are the same, the on/off pots are the same, and even the wire colors used are (almost) all the same.

With this mountain of evidence I feel like it's at least safe to assume that those two pedals were made by the same people. So there you have it! Mystery solved ;)

But for real, was it Nisshin Onpa (Maxon) who made these? And if so, which other 60s/70s Japanese pedals were they responsible for? The consensus in the vintage pedal community is pretty clear that the classic Ibanez Standard Fuzz was manufactured by Nisshin Onpa in 1974 (originally introduced as the Mac-Tone Fuzz Machine in 1971). 

And something I had never thought about until right now is the number designations given to the Ibanez line; like the No. 83 Fuzz, the No. 57 Wau-Wau, and the Standard Fuzz itself which was "No. 59". Well if you think back just a few paragraphs ago, remember the names of the Greco Fuzz Booster and the Sekova Distortion Box? They were also assigned "No. 35" and "No. 59".

And sure, that could easily be a coincidence, but let's also remember that there were Greco versions of a few of this same Ibanez line from 1974; like the Double Sound Fuzz Wah, the Fuzz, and the Phase Tone (which would later get a true Maxon rebranding).

So while this all feels conclusive that at the very least Nisshin Onpa manufactured the early-mid 70s Greco and Ibanez effects (among other OEMs), it still leaves the question if they were also responsible for any of the wedge fuzzes, let alone our mystery 3-knob pedal.

Another question I have is, when and in what order did the wedge fuzzes come out? We know that there are at least four versions now, with the earliest most likely coming out some time in 1967 (placing it among the first few pedals commercially available in Japan). But when did they each come out?

For pretty much as long as there have been vintage pedal internet forums it has been thought that the 1.5v version came first, especially when we consider it's build style. And then it was followed by the 9v version. And not until recently did we realize that the other 1.5v version was actually the LRE Fuzz Sound, which was being produced under one branding or another until the mid 1970s! So it is very likely that this is the final version of the Sekova wedge fuzz.

We also know that there was a Treble/Bass Booster pedal that has an nearly identical build style to the 9v wedge fuzz, but appears to use a Super Fuzz style enclosure. Like the Sekovas, this enclosure is chrome and uses the same hinge style bottom plate design we see throughout all of the wedge fuzzes. And I would say this is more than enough evidence to allow us assume it was also built by the same people, but we have to leave at least a 5% chance that it wasn't, for the sake of unknown unknowns.

There is one other small detail that would be easy to gloss over when it comes to the Treble Bass Booster, and that's the "Made in Japan" sticker. 

It stood out to me because nearly all of the other wedge fuzzes have the words embossed right into the plate. But then it stood out even more because I recognized that sticker and knew I had seen it before...

On the bottom of an Ibanez Standard Fuzz!

So with all of that, we will leave you here. The exact order the wedge fuzzes were built, currently unknown. The true origin of the 1.5v Sekova Fuzz and the 3-knob wedge fuzz, still a mystery. But if we go all the way to the beginning of the article, and consider that the pedal appeared in an ad for MAXON, then it is very likely that it was in fact Nisshin Onpa who was responsible for these pedals all along.

As always, if you happen to have any additional information or details you think might help solve this mystery please reach out to me via Email or Instagram.

thanks for reading,

-ed

The Berko Fuzz (AUL Foxey Lady)...

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As you probably know by now, the history of Electro Harmonix goes all the way back to the late 60's, with a pedal that collector nerds have dubbed the "AUL Fuzz" or the "AUL Foxey Lady". And while this story has been told and retold for decades, there are a few incorrect and even untold pieces of the puzzle that I think are worth exploring.

As the narrative goes, William (Bill) Berko had his own electronics shop, ABCO Sound, in Manhattan on 48th Street in the mid-60s (which would have put him directly in the center of Music Row, among stores like Sam Ash and Manny's Music). Having previously (and then later again) worked at the Ampeg factory in New Jersey, Berko was very familiar with the technology of amplifiers, so this type of repair became his main occupation. But in addition to amps, he would get visits from local guitar players who wanted to modify or fix their new fuzz tones. And this happened enough that it eventually drove him to start building his own fuzz boxes to sell directly out of the shop. 

What came next has two conflicting accounts (both from Mike Matthews 😂):

-Either; Berko contacted Mike because he was doing well selling his fuzzes and wanted some help. But unfortunately, Berko stepped away from both the shop and the new fuzz partnership almost immediately after it began. Leaving Mike in a most unfamiliar position, having to build fuzz boxes himself. So to remedy this problem Matthews went to a local large-scale electronics factory called AUL Instruments and contracted them to build the pedals instead. This new version of the fuzz began to do very well, and based on that success word got out to Guild Guitars owner Al Dronge, who made a deal with them to start supplying Guild with the newly dubbed "Foxey Lady" fuzzes. 

-Or; At some point before Matthews was involved, Berko connected with Dronge and agreed to build fuzzes for Guild directly, as they wanted to capitalize on the hot new trend as well. And faced with an order from a major guitar brand, and attempting to simultaneously run his repair shop, Berko reached out to Mike Matthews and proposed that the two go into business together building and expanding on his new fuzz box venture. Mike agreed, and took on the task even though he was still working full-time at IBM.

*side note; although it has been written differently over the years, it was actually Dronge who came up with the name "Foxey Lady".

The story comes back together here, where Mike states that he would drive out to AUL, pick up the orders and deliver them directly to the Guild factory in Hoboken, NJ every few weeks. He has also stated that the "Guild branded" versions were only brought to Guild and not sold directly to dealers. The implication here could explain the blank AUL units we typically see that have residue left over from what appears to be a Manny's Music sticker (*see first image above).

Well this is where the things start to get even more convoluted, as Guild apparently made a similar deal with Mosrite to also build their version of the Foxey Lady pedals, either concurrently with the deal Mike had or very shortly afterwards. It is unknown why this happened, but the most common theory is that Mike was simply unable to keep up with the orders that Guild had requested.

This would not turn out to be a great decision though, as Mosrite had run into financial troubles, and by 1969 went bankrupt. In the meantime, Mike had decided to go all-in on guitar effects and started Electro Harmonix with engineer Bob Myer in the Fall of 1968. Shortly afterwards he picked up where he left off with Guild, and began producing the Foxey Lady pedals with EHX.

So that's it! That's the story we all know and love, and not just for the history of the Foxey Lady fuzz, but also for the genesis of Electro Harmonix. But if you were reading through all of that and had tons of questions; yeah! me too! But the one I want to focus on today goes back to the very beginning, where everyone just glosses over the fact that Bill Berko was building fuzz pedals and selling them out of his shop. 

This means that there were/are, somewhere out there, pre-Guild, pre-AUL, pre-Mike Matthews, Berko Fuzz boxes! This idea has my collector brain going crazy. Was it the same circuit as the Foxey Lady fuzz? What did it look like? Did it have some kind of label on it? Was it called the "ABCO Sound Fuzz", or a ridiculous hyperbolic 60s name like, "Berko's Wild Fractured Sound Box" or something? I have so many questions.

If we are at the complete speculation part of this article, then let me throw out a guess that it WAS the same modified Fuzzrite circuit. And if it is the same, then all we would have to do is find a really old looking, seemingly home-made pedal, with a silicon Fuzzrite-ish circuit in it. And MAYBE, just MAYBE, this could be an original Berko Fuzz???

So be on the lookout friends! And who knows, YOU might have potential fuzzy gold just sitting in a box in your basement at this very moment. 

There are plenty of other points about this story that I want to touch on in later posts; like the possible reason Berko just disappeared shortly after teaming up with Mike, the potential sequence of Foxey Lady builds, Berko working for Ampeg and the possible connection to the Manny's Fuzz, and so much more. But for now, just let it sink in that somewhere out there is an unknown fuzz box that was essentially the beginning of Electro Harmonix, and no one has ever seen it before...

thanks for reading!
-ed

Ace Tone FM-2 Fuzz Master - A Deep Dive

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In the late 2000's my pedal hoarding was getting a bit out of hand, and it was time to make a change. So I decided to pair down the collection and go for only pedals that were obscure or typically harder to find. And while that was great for freeing up closet space, it did cause me to skip right over some historically significant pedals that I've had to go back and acquire over the last couple of years (and for 5X the price). 

One of these was the Ace Tone FM-2 Fuzz Master. Built by the thousands, I was always more drawn to its significantly rarer brothers, the FM-1 and FM-3. But over the last couple of years as I starting digging deeper into the true history of the Super Fuzz, the FM-2 kept coming up as one of the earliest "copies" to exist. 

So now that I finally landed my first Ace Tone FM-2, I decided it was time to put together a post with all the info I have collected, and hopefully we can smash our brains together and fill in the missing pieces...

For as long as I've known about the FM-2, I have seen a production date range from roughly 1969-1971. So the first thing I wanted to do was confirm how true (or not) that was.

1969 would have put the FM-2 right there with the Royal Fuzz Box as one of the first commercially available Super Fuzz copies . And we do know that there was an Ace Tone FM-3 that's a Big Muff copy, so 1971 is certainly plausible as an ending date.

All we have to do now, is prove it!

So to the magazine and newspaper archives we went, and in not much time, we had the answer:

The first mention I found of the FM-2 came out of this ad from the Vancouver Sun, May 1968. And I know what you might be thinking, "It only says 'Fuzz Masters', that could mean anything in 1968!", and I thought that as well. So I went through a decade's worth of ads from the same newspaper and not only found an ad from the previous year that just said "Fuzz Master", which would have been the FM-1, but also found an ad from 1971 that included a photo of an FM-2.

The other bit of information to notice here is that it also includes the "Wah Master", which Ace Tone released at the same time as the FM-2.

But I totally understand if you're still not convinced, so what about this:

From the June 1968 issue of Music Trades magazine, we get a full page ad for all of the new Ace Tone products, including the Wah Master and the FM-2 Fuzz Master!

Interestingly, what is not in the picture, is the Ace Tone FM-1. And if they did discontinue it by June of 1968, that would mean just about a year's worth of production time. But we'll dig more into that at some point in the future.

In addition to this ad, I found 4 more from 1968, all confirming that the Ace Tone FM-2 Fuzz Master was available that early! Which puts it as not only the first known Super Fuzz copy, but May of 1968 is also the (estimated) date that Univox began to sell the Super Fuzz themselves!

Ok so now we have a pretty solid start date for the FM-2, but what about that end date? There are tons of these out there, which would either mean that Ace Tone was making them by the thousands for just a handful of years, or they made them for much longer than that original 3 year period we all thought.

Luckily the internet provided yet again, as many of the 70s era Ace Tone catalogs are available through various sites. So starting at 1971 I went through each year until the FM-2 was gone, and it took until 1975 to find its final entry. Which, as you may have guessed, is also the first time Ace Electronics introduced the world to the devastatingly heavy FM-3 Fuzz Master.

So at the very least, we can assume that they were selling the FM-2 until 1975. They may have stopped building them earlier (or later) as well. But either way, our newly discovered production run of 1968-1975 makes a bit more sense when you consider the shear number of FM-2's in the vintage guitar pedal world.

Well a nearly 8 year run should mean that there are differences in how the FM-2 was built during that time. As we saw in our last post on how to date a Super Fuzz/ FY-6, there were plenty of indicators of "era" both in and outside the pedals. So would this also ring true with the FM-2?

Unfortunately, after examining hundreds of them, I can't find one single difference in the enclosures, at all. Ace Tone seemed to really have this part of the process down from day 1. Every logo, sticker, knob, bottom plate, and even the rubber feet were all identical from pedal to pedal.

So I had to look inward.

The only (big) problem, was that Ace Tone built the FM-2 so that the component-side of the board is facing away from us; and not only that, but one of the foot switches is soldered almost directly to the PCB. And all of this is to say, that in the hundreds of examples I have looked through, only 3 owners were brave enough to disassemble their pedals and take that precious gut shot.

But it's ok, for now we can work with what we do have.

When looking inside the FM-2 there are a couple of things that immediately stand out as possible differences to help us create a timeline. The first is the On/Off pot. As you can see above there are two colors that were used; Red and Black. The red was my first potential clue, because it happens to be the same On/Off pot that they used in the Ace Tone FM-1 from the previous year.

*and a side note, but these pots are conveniently dated. So this FM-1 is at most "June of 1967" years old.

Sadly anything we can glean from comparing both pedals ends here. And while it doesn't necessarily equate to the Red Pot FM-2's being first, it's not something to just overlook either.

Ok, so now look back at the comparison photo above, and another thing you may notice is the difference between the two Black On/Off pots, in that they appear to be two different brands with different labeling.

The next clue is that weird stereo jack that you see in the upper two examples. If for no other reason, it may help us establish an order; so if the red pot is first, that would make the black pot with the weird stereo jack second, and the other black pot with the plastic jacks last. But again, for now this is just all a guess!

Alright, let's zoom in a bit for the next observation:

Something that you may have missed above is what's going on over at the second pot. Through each example we see a mixture of date stamp/no date stamp, a single resistor/no resistor, and a ceramic capacitor/a film capacitor. 

The first pedal with the red pot appears to have a date stamp of June 1968, while the next pedal has no visible date stamp at all, and the third pedal has a stamp that says "831D" that I'm not too sure what to make of (31st month of 1968?). I also noticed that all three pots appear to be from different manufacturers, and the third pot is a totally different value from the other two. I would guess this could potentially be related to that missing resistor?

So again, none of these details on their own will tell us how old or the order that they were released, but I feel like it is getting us closer! So let's take a look at the trace-side of the PCB next and see what we can find there (...this is where it gets weird).

When we take a closer look at the PCB's used in the FM-2 throughout its run, they all seem to be exactly the same. What is not the same however, is the wiring. 

Above are the three variations I was able to find just within the Red Pot units alone. I am definitely not versed in any kind of electronics, so I couldn't tell you what would cause something like this, especially in a circuit that should theoretically be identical from pedal to pedal. 

And while our photos don't help much in determining what is going on, we might as well point it out here for future dissection. 

Next is the Black Pot version. I only found two variations here, but there definitely could be more. 

When looking at these, I wonder if there was any real rhyme or reason to it all? I also wonder if it has any correspondence to a timeline, or am I just wasting everyone's energy with this part... 😁  

And lastly, the Plastic Jacks version gets a whopping four variations! And again, I can only speculate what any of it means. 

What I can say is that it does seem odd, knowing that the rest of Ace Tone's output appears to be very streamlined. Even the fact that they never updated the enclosure make the wiring variances all the more strange.

But who knows! It could easily be something that my tiny non-engineering brain can't pick up on.

Well at this point there is only one way to proceed, and that is to turn the board over and take a look at what's going on inside.

 

Let's start with the only circuit photos that had been available online for over a decade. This comes from the classic Uzzfay Fuzz Guts site. The version here is a Black Pot with the type of wiring seen in the top-left photo above.

The first thing that sticks out to me is that it uses silicon clipping diodes, as opposed to germanium like the Super Fuzz/ Baby Crying/ FY-6. 

Next, this particular unit runs off of five 2SC369 transistors, as opposed to the six transistors that you find in any Super Fuzz, including the Royal Fuzz.

Another thing that jumps out to me, is the rest of the component brands and styles seem to match up perfectly with ones you will find in an FM-1 Fuzz Master. So it's possible that this particular unit is somewhat early on in the run?

The next gut shot comes to us from our good friends at Soulman Vintage. This unit is a Plastic Jacks version and has a completely different mixture of transistors; four 2SC733's and a single CDC13000. 

We can also see that it uses different cap and diode brands from the previous unit. So I am curious how, or if, any of that affects the tone at all?

But let's take a look at another Plastic Jacks version and see if there's any more variances we can spot.

For the third available gut shot, we have this interesting unit from longtime friend of the blog, Humphrey Barclay. 

Again I am drawn to the transistors, but after messaging him I have confirmed that they are the same exact mixture as the unit above.

The clipping diodes though, do appear to be a third brand and possible value, but still silicon. 

Alright, finally we have a pair of photos from my personal pedal! I decided to bite the bullet and brave the task of taking it apart. And amazingly, I seem to have broken my longstanding curse of accidentally messing up everything I touch.

The very first thing I noticed was that it used a combination of three 2SC369 and two 2SC372 transistors. Unfortunately I don't have access to any other photos of a Red Pot unit, but this transistor combo appears to be as unique as the others.

Another thing that stands out is that it uses a different type of silicon diode. Instead of the glass versions, it uses two black plastic clipping diodes, similar to what you would find on the original Jordan Bosstone from 1966. 

Both pots date to July of 1968, but I have seen them as early as March of that year, although again this doesn't necessarily correspond to when they were made.

For the last entry, I put together this comparison of all four boards. Each one has the same set of open slots in the PCB at the top left, and the upper right side. But there are some differences for sure.

The upper two images are from the Plastic Jacks versions, and at first glance they look the same. But when I went component to component, there was one big difference, and that would be the large blue cap on the bottom right! In the first photo it's not there at all, and in the second photo it's very much present.

If we continue on to the photo right below, we notice again that the cap is there on the bottom right, but appears to be smaller (and probably a lesser value). Additionally we also see a gray cap directly under the large green film capacitor that is not present at all in the Plastic Jacks versions. From what I understand, the missing cap on the bottom portion has more to do with power regulation, and might not be totally necessary for the actual fuzzing going on. But this other missing cap does affect the overall gain. And I will say, that from demos I have heard, there are some with a discernable difference from my personal pedal. And I wonder if this is the culprit...

As for the odd open slots on the PCB, that was a fairly common practice in Japan at this time and throughout the 70s. Pedals like the Ibanez Standard Fuzz, the Guyatone FS-6, and the Aria Distortion Sustainer all have similarly unused holes. There are even examples like the Yack YF-1 and YF-2, that used the same PCB even though the circuits themselves were completely different. Which I assume was some sort of cost/time cutting measure. 

Is it possible then that Ace Tone had another fuzz pedal in the works that utilized the board layout differently? Or is there some completely unrelated piece of Ace Tone gear that uses this exact PCB for a different purpose and I've just never noticed? Possibly their Wah Master, something from one of their drum machines, or even this board from their Echo Mixer...

For the sake of not sounding completely ignorant, we'll move back to the outside of the FM-2 and focus on things that I can clearly observe with my own eyes. 😊 

A handful of examples out there have the serial number sticker still intact. What actually drew me to buying the one that I did was the fact that it actually had a serial sticker WITH the earliest serial number I have ever seen!

If the order of the numbers correspond to the order they were made, then it appears as though my assumptive timeline could be correct!

So look back at the photo above, the lowest number 60969 is a Red Pot version. The next sticker, 62877 is a Black Pot version. The sticker with 72373 has yet to be seen internally, but the 74876 unit is definitely a Plastic Jacks version. And finally we come to the odd one out; a completely different sticker with the Multivox name on it and the number 888. This particular unit has pot date codes from Fall of 1974, so it is very possible that by this time they were changing small details like serial number stickers.

*I promise we're almost done here. I applaud any of you who have read this far!

Well as I dug a bit more I came across this little Ace Tone brochure and price list from 1971. And one thing immediately jumped out as odd. 

Do you see it?

So on both sheets the FM-2 is not referred to as the "Fuzz Master", but instead the "Brazz Master"!

What's going on here? Well this paperwork comes from Sorkin, who was their North American distro. So it's possible that they just got a bad translation from Japan, and printed it. But there is a 1968 Sorkin ad where they clearly label the pedal as the "Fuzz Master".

And while I honestly have no idea why there was an apparent name change, one thing I do know is that in 1970 Shin-ei released the Companion FY-6 Fuzz Master. So is it possible Sorkin renamed the pedal on their order forms just to avoid confusion? Maybe they distributed both effects and were worried that some small Midwest shop owners couldn't tell the difference? Who knows! But I thought that was a cool little piece of the puzzle to throw in here.

*I know we're going way long on this one, and halfway through I even thought that I probably should have just made this a video instead, but here we are. And I promise we're about to wrap up.

As is with many of the Japanese effects from the 60s, we sadly do not know who designed this circuit. There are rumors that an engineer who had worked for Honey left the company to join Ace Tone and brought with him the Baby Crying Fuzz schematic; which ultimately lead to the creation of the Fuzz Master FM-2! And while that sounds like 2008 Harmony Central forum lore, there is actually a pretty compelling quote from the founder of Ace Tone, Ikutaro Kakehashi, published in the May 2003 issue of Guitar Magazine: 

"The person who designed for Honey later joined Ace-Tone and Roland, so I've heard about that, but Honey added an edge to the distorted sound and differentiated it... in other words, it was a circuit that suppressed the low range and emphasized the middle to upper range sounds, and it was a new kind of sound at the time."

He went on to note that the FM-2 is NOT simply a copy of the Baby Crying Fuzz though, just that this same engineer designed both circuits.

Well as you can see, there is a lot we do know about the FM-2, but also quite a bit we do not! So as always this is where I will ask if any of you have additional information, or if you feel so inclined to send me more gut shots, I would be forever grateful! Please message me via Email or Instagram.

In addition to everyone mentioned above, I also want to send a huge Thank YOU! to Nick from the great Fuzzboxes.org, Bart from FXDB, and fellow vintage collector and great guy, SirHC, who have all been a huge help with this research.

Thanks for reading,

-ed

How to Date Your Super Fuzz

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Last year I wrote this article on deciphering Shin-ei date stamps. And while that's probably still the best way to determine your pedal's true age, by no means is it the only way.

So this time around, my main focus will be on the legendary Super Fuzz (Baby Crying, FY-6) circuit and how it evolved over its decade-long production run. Luckily Shin-ei did us all a favor of not only putting date stamps on their pedals, but also making changes in a typically linear and chronological fashion. So I put together this list of the most easily identifiable "rules" and what to look for. There are a few others that will not be mentioned here, but trust me, this should be more than satisfactory. 

*we are going to jump around a bit in the timeline, but know that everything you see here has been determined by going through hundreds of photos of hundreds of Super Fuzzes and organizing each nerdy detail into an even nerdier database...

Alright, let's go.

In 1970 Shin-ei created their own house brand called Companion and introduced an updated version of the Super Fuzz, they called the FY-6 Fuzz Master. 

In addition to the name change, Shin-ei also redesigned the signature brick-wedge enclosure by adding an indented slot for the logo badge.

This only lasted two years, and I would guess that going back to a flat surface to limit production costs was the main reason. 

One of the coolest and most recognizable things about vintage Shin-ei pedals is that Shin-ei labeled footswitch.

What most people don't know is that they didn't start using them until May of 1973. Now while you will see these on a lot of Shin-ei pedals through to 1979, they're not the only switches they used in that time.

In 1967 Honey introduced the Baby Crying Fuzz, and with it, the circuit we came to know as the Super Fuzz. Most likely taking a cue from the Maestro Fuzz Tone, the original version featured an "Expander" pot that also doubled as an On/Off switch. 

As of now, the only version I have found that was definitely made in 1967 was the Honey, but in 1968 we saw the Univox and LRE Super Fuzz OEM's arrive to the US market, both containing the pot/switch.

A common site on vintage Shin-ei pedals is this classically misspelled battery sticker on the bottom plate. But it wasn't introduced until the latter half of 1972.

It would stay around until the end of Shin-ei's run in 1979. But you won't necessarily see them on every pedal.

In 1975 Shin-ei changed the PCB that had been in use since 1969. This new version featured slots for the wiring that were lined up straight across the top of the board. Additionally there was no trimpot or open slots for a trimpot, like in the previous version.

Another interesting fact, is that Shin-ei had been using this same exact board in their (v3) Psychedelic Machines since at least 1972 (and possibly earlier. I have to do a bit more research). So it's likely that again to save money, they just streamlined using the same PCB for each.

For a very brief period, before introducing the Shin-ei labeled footswitch, they used a Companion labeled version.

It was introduced in January of 1973, the same moment they changed the brand's name from "Companion" to "Shin-ei Companion". And most likely as a result, just 5 months later this version of the switch would be gone.

In 1970, with the introduction of Companion as a brand, another lesser known detail they added was this basic Battery sticker.

The previous versions had no indicators for battery usage, but instead featured a small black "Made In Japan" sticker in the same spot. 

The earliest versions of the Super Fuzz used two TS (mono) jacks instead of what would come later, the combination TRS and TS jacks.

This was because these early units had the on/off Expander pot, while the later versions utilized a TRS (stereo) jack to kill the power from the battery until a cable was inserted.

The trimpot is one of the more interesting additions to the circuit. From what I have gathered (so far) the first version of the PCB featured no trimpot or slots for a trimpot. 

The 2nd version of the PCB, that you see above, has the trimpot and I believe was possibly created in 1968 for biasing the fuzz portion of the original Honey Psychedelic Machine.

The 3rd (and most common) version of the PCB has the empty slots where a trimpot would be, and also an extra green film capacitor further down on the board. 

On thing to note about this, is that the three different PCB's, while I do believe were created in order, seem to have all been used concurrently with each other from 1967 - 1969. So for now, this should not be taken an indicator of date purely on its own. 

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As I stated above, this is by no means all of the "rules" for dating your Super Fuzzes. Circuit-based details like types and values of every component also changed over time, as did manufacturer labeling on the bottom of the PCB's.

Another important thing to note, is that you will see pedals that violate these rules. And virtually 99% of them are from some type of repair; switched out bottom plates with the wrong date codes, replaced footswitches from the wrong time period, replaced circuit boards from a less desirable branding to a previously non-working more desirable branding, etc. 

Luckily though, the vast majority will have two or more of these hallmarks and confirm for sure the round-about year it was made. And this is the hope here; that future you will come across a Super Fuzz for sale and with only a couple poorly shot photos, will be able to determine which version you are looking at. 

Now if that version means it's "better" or not, is purely up to you. 😁

*if you'd like to dig even deeper into Super Fuzz land, check out this post from a while back that highlights the various OEM brandings throughout the years.

Thanks for reading,
-ed