Guyatone FS-3 - The Other Super Fuzz

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If you're tied into the vintage Japanese pedal market whatsoever, you may already know that the Guyatone FS-3 Fuzz is one of the most sought-after effects in the scene. It's famous among nerds for being extremely rare and sounding particularly awesome/gnarly. 

But what's the story with it? And what's going on inside that familiar looking enclosure?

A good internet scouring on the Guyatone FS-3 will typically find you little, and what you will find theorizes that it's possibly from the late 60s, and has some relation to another classic Japanese fuzz...

So the first myth we can work on is the "late 60s" part. It's funny, I've noticed specifically with vintage Japanse pedals, the default guess is that they were made "sometime in the late 60s". And while that's obviously true for some of them, the vast majority were actually made in the 1970s.

We did a whole video on the history of the Companion FY-2 a while back, where we discovered it actually hadn't been released until 1970, even though it's often considered to be one of the classic 60s fuzzes. And in that same video we briefly discussed the history of its big brother, the FY-6 Fuzz Master; another one thought to have been from the "late 60s", when in reality the Companion/Shin-ei version hadn't been released until 1970 as well.

So what about the Guyatone FS-3?

There are luckily an abundance of old Guyatone catalogs online, which have definitely helped me in my quest for supreme pedal knowledge! But there are a few glaring misses too, so I'll try to put it all together the best I can.

Above you see a 1973 Guyatone catalog that features three effects; the FS-4 Wah-Wah, the FS-5 Wah-Fuzz, and the FS-3 Fuzz. The next earliest catalog I have is from 1969, where they introduced the FS-2 Buzz Box. So we can probably guesstimate that the FS-3 was released some time between 1970 and 1973.

*Update: while I was working on this post, my good friend Marcelo hooked me up with the missing 1972 catalog! And inside we see basically the same pedal lineup from 1973. 

After taking into account that the pedal was available for at least a year and a half, it's surprising just how rare it is to come across one. Scanning through the 1971 catalog, it shows that they were still selling the FS-2 Buzz Box, and then in the 1974 catalog the FS-3 was replaced by the new, Big Muff inspired, FS-6 Fuzz Sustainer.

So while we lack some of the better hard evidence, like magazine ads, Guyatone really hooked us up by publishing accurate catalogs that pictured their available gear in proper chronological order.

Alright, so that part was fairly easy, but what about the enclosure? At first glance it probably reminds you of the Univox Uni-Fuzz. And that would make sense because they're exactly the same shape. There is a significant difference in size though, so it might not be related, or could simply be a generic enclosure.

But there is a better suspect; the Honey Special Fuzz. The Special Fuzz came out in 1968 and was made for probably less than a year, as Honey went out of business in 1969. And while Shin-ei continued to build the Honey Baby Crying Fuzz (as the FY-6 Fuzz Master), they did not continue with the extremely unique Special Fuzz.

So what happens when we compare the two pedals? I apologize for the awkward angle of the above FS-3 photo, it's not quite that long. So when we take that into account, the enclosures look pretty close, even using the same style of graphics badge! Obviously one has been pressed/drilled out differently for switches, pots, and jacks, but many of the other details seem to check out.

Luckily for us, at least one person has already made this comparison in real life, and did so in a photo essay of sorts, on the legendary Cult pedals blog; Check it out HERE.

I reached out to him to confirm the sizing, and he said that while they are close, the Special Fuzz was notably wider and shorter than the FS-3. Which is odd because with all things considered, I would have expected the enclosures to be exactly the same size. I say this because of what we find when we look INSIDE the Guyatone...

photo by: Cult Pedals Blog

So after looking at the all-important gut shots above we see some things that tell an entirely unexpected story, and simultaneously spawn a whole new crop of questions. The component-side of the board shows the exact layout you see on many of the pre Shin-ei Super Fuzzes (Honey, Univox, LRE, etc). And while that is a bit weird to see in a Guyatone pedal, there were others from this era, like the Royal Fuzz Box, that also copied the Super Fuzz PCB layout, so it's not unheard-of. But when we take a look at the bottom of the board, we see that it is in fact an original Honey-labeled PCB! 

So what the hell is going on here???

Through my long obsessive searches online I have found at least two other examples of "Super Fuzz" style pedals that use the Honey PCB, but were otherwise completely different when it came to the components used. And knowing the FS-3 didn't come out until 1972 (at least 3 years after Honey went out of business) the only conclusion that makes sense to me, is that old parts stock was sold off at some point, and these brands (including Guyatone) purchased it and released as many pedals as they could make out of them.

I don't think it's a coincidence that both the enclosure and the circuit board are Honey related. And while I write this, another possible version of the story just came to me. It could also be that a currently unknown third-party was responsible for building the Honey pedals. And while Honey itself went out of business, this particular manufacturer did not. It's also possible then, that Guyatone (and these other brands) contracted this company to build a new fuzz pedal, and they simply used parts they had left over from the Honey days?

Obviously this is just me speculating out loud, trying to make sense of it all, but I do find it interesting that apparently a handful of seemingly unrelated brands somehow acquired these PCB's (and who knows what other parts?) and made their own version of the Super Fuzz. It's also kind of funny to know that the legendary, extremely rare and sought-after Guyatone FS-3 is basically a Univox Super Fuzz with different components inside (not to diminish how awesome it is or anything. trust me, I still want one ;)

Guyatone's entire pedal history is still quite hazy to me. I have never been able to confirm that they built any of their pedals in-house (60s-70s). Each one is a bit different, construction-wise, and looking back at the 1972 catalog, right next to the FS-3 we also see two pedals confirmed to have been made by Maxon (what Guyatone has called the "FS-4 Wah-Wah" and the "FS-5 Wah-Fuzz").

Well we definitely know that this was a business practice they followed (it was also how the vast majority of Japanese guitar brands functioned at the time). And while we don't know the builder of the FS-3, or the FS-2, or the FS-1, or even the FS-6 actually, the most confusing part is figuring out if each of them was built by the same manufacturer or not. I truly have no idea.

When it comes to the sound of the Guyatone FS-3, it's been described as a beefier version of the Super Fuzz; with a bigger low end, more pronounced upper octave, and it's just a bit more gated than its cousins.

There are a few demos online, but most of them really don't do it justice. The one that is pretty good, and what I usually send to people when they ask about the FS-3, is this classic banger by Effeken//

So the background of the FS-3 isn't quite as cut-and-dry as we would hope (and just expect from vintage Japanese pedals at this point), but we at least have more to go off of than usual. It's also kind of relieving to know that even though the last one sold for over $4K, at its heart, the Guyatone FS-3 is a Super Fuzz. A very cool, and rare Super Fuzz... but a Super Fuzz nonetheless. :)

If you happen to have any additional information we missed here, or happen to have an FS-3 yourself, I would love to hear from you. Send me a message via Email or Instagram. 

thanks for reading,

-ed