Mirano Exciting Fuzz - The First Big Muff Clone?

☟

Back around 2010 I randomly came across photos of a cool-looking fuzz I had never seen before. It appeared to be a Mosrite Fuzzrite copy but with three knobs instead of two (à la the Pro Suzzzz Fuzzzz). 

After a bit of onlining I discovered, that in pure Japanese fashion, it wasn't a Fuzzrite at all, but a Big Muff clone! So now I was intrigued (no disrespect to the Fuzzrite)...

While it is much easier today, it's still quite difficult to research vintage Japanese pedals from here in the US. In addition to the language barrier, all of my typical fact-finding methods fall flat when it comes to anything made in Japan before 1980. But back around 2011 I did my best to find any information I could on the EF-1 Exciting Fuzz, and Mirano as a brand.

From the little bit I had access to at the time, a few things seemed to be agreed upon; 1. is that it was indeed a Big Muff "style" fuzz, 2. "Mirano" was the house brand for the manufacturer Katayama Denshi Gakki Co., Ltd. 片山電子楽器(株) (aka, Katayama Electric Instrument Co.) 3. the same company would also go on build the Rozz pedals, probably most famous for their own Big Muff copy, the legendary 18v DH-01 Dead Heat, 4. the Exciting Fuzz was released very early, possibly even in the late 60s!

And it was this last point that caught my attention the most.

Now the idea that the Exciting Fuzz could have come out almost immediately after the Big Muff, or even a much more insane idea, that it could have come BEFORE the Big Muff, is almost too preposterous to even consider. But if there's something I've learned through all this, it's that you have to look into every possibility because you quite literally never know what you might find.

That being said, the problem with guitar pedal lore (and a huge reason I even write these posts) is that someone's best guess at the past can get repeated over and over again, and eventually to the point of being accepted as undeniable fact. We've seen this scenario a thousand times, and to be completely honest, I too contributed to this noise with some of my older posts (*that probably still need to be revised!). And while I don't think much of this was done intentionally to deceive people, these "best guesses" are rarely described as such, resulting in deception nonetheless.

So after about a decade of putting the Mirano Exciting Fuzz on the backburner, I started digging again a couple of years ago.

Sadly, even after ten whole years of waiting for the internet to catch up, I wasn't able to find a significant amount of new info than I had previously. But what I did find, in addition to the super cool ad-sheet above, was that the Exciting Fuzz wasn't quite as rare as I had once thought. 

I found multiple listings on Japanese auction sites and guitar shops, which also gave me a great look inside many more of them than I had seen before (they're all built exactly the same; parts choice, pcb, paint job, everything). This last bit could even be a clue that whenever they were built, it most likely wasn't over long period, as it's extremely rare to see unchanged components throughout the lifespan of any pedal.

So I was feeling a bit defeated until I came across THIS website. In it, the author describes how expensive it was for the time (¥9,800) and that together with help from his parents, he bought the pedal. He remembered this being around the time he was in Junior High School, and determined that it must have been 1972!

Great! An actual first-hand account!

1972 makes a lot more sense than anything earlier, and seemed to confirm the websites who stated that it was built in "the early 70s". But there was still something that bothered me about this date; 1972 would not only mean that it's the first known Big Muff clone in Japan, but also that just two years after the official EHX release, with almost NO foreign distribution, the Big Muff was not only cloned, but heavily modified and released by a major Japanese company?

It's no secret (and we have discussed this here many times before) that since the mid-60s Japan was notorious for copying foreign designs of everything from guitars, to amps, and of course, pedals. But even in those instances there was always some time between that original pedal landing in Japan, becoming somewhat popular, getting cloned, manufactured, and released back to the world under a new name.

What we do know for sure is that the Japanese amplifier brand Elk released their "Big Muff Sustainer" under the intentionally confusing brand, named "Electro Sound Co." in 1973 (they also simultaneously released it under their own brand, as the "Super Fuzz Sustainar"). And while my previous best guess for the equally legendary Sekova Big Muff was also 1973, I have yet to find any evidence to confirm that's true, and now think '74 is the more accurate estimate.

Other Japanese Big Muffs of the time include the Guyatone FS-6 (1974), the Ace Tone FM-3 (1974), the Aria RE-102/203 (1975?) and the Maxon D&S (1976). 

So that brings us back to the Exciting Fuzz and this 1972 date. Is it really possible that a full two years before every other brand in Japan caught on, Mirano was out there slinging their version of the Big Muff with zero competition?

And going back to the handful of claims that the Exciting Fuzz was built in the "late 60s"; there are a thousand reasons why that can't be true, with the biggest being that we now know Electro Harmonix did not release the Big Muff until Spring of 1970. 

This whole thing was becoming exhausting and honestly, I was about to give up completely. 

But then!!!

I found something.

So this is really nerdy to admit, and I know it makes me sound like some level of dork I can't come to terms with, but one way I have found to get new info on old Japanese pedals is by looking through auction sites for vintage magazines. Page by page, listing by listing, in hopes that anything I care about will show up.

And just last week I came across this magazine above. It's an annual gear buyer's guide published by Player Magazine (think of Player as Japan's Circus or Hit Parader). Inside was a whopping two full pages of suggested pedals and their prices; including stuff from MXR, Elk, Guyatone, Korg, and... the Mirano Exciting Fuzz!

So what does this mean?

I think finding out that this was still for sale, and to the point that it was in a group of suggested gear for 1976, at the very least disproves those super early release dates (1968-1970). And when we consider other facts; like the unchanged components, the relatively low number of existing units, and the explosion of Japanese Big Muff clones in 1974, I would feel comfortable moving up the release date of the Mirano Exciting Fuzz to the "Mid-70s".

So is this the earliest Big Muff clone? No. 

It's almost certainly not even the earliest Big Muff clone in Japan. But it is rare, it is cool as hell in that Fuzzrite style enclosure, and it is an awesome sounding and ingenious modification to the original circuit that combines the classic BM crunch with a type of clarity you almost never find in a fuzz.

Obviously I plan to keep digging into the history of the Exciting Fuzz, and I'm sure hiding out there somewhere is an old advertisement or printed announcement for its release, just waiting to be discovered. So as always I have to ask, but if you know any additional details about Mirano, Katayama, Rozz, or anything else related, please feel free to reach out to me via  Email or Instagram.

thanks for reading!

-ed