Shaftesbury Duo Fuzz (England meets Japan)

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Among the most well-known vintage guitar pedals, the Shaftesbury Duo Fuzz has the distinction of being even more famous than its original branding. In 1967 the Japanese company Honey released two effects; the Crier Wah and the Baby Crying Fuzz. The following year a deal with the American company Unicord would lead to the very first OEM units that came from Honey; the Univox Super Fuzz and the LRE Super Fuzz. Shortly after a few more export contracts would be signed, Tempo (another branch of Unicord) and Crown would both get their very own Super Fuzz units, and by 1969 three more rebrandings of the effect would be on the market; the Apollo Deluxe Fuzz Tone Expander (US), the JH Experience Fuzz (Canada), and finally the Shaftesbury Duo Fuzz (UK).

And it's precisely the Duo Fuzz that we're going to focus on today; partially because it's the longest running Super Fuzz ever made, and also because much of the current information out there is a bit... outdated.

So let's see what we can uncover about this savage British beast.

The Shaftesbury brand was born out of Rose-Morris, a longtime UK-based musical instrument distribution company. In 1967 they began opening showrooms in London to highlight their most popular brands; Marshall, Gibson, and Eko, among others. With the added dimension of a physical retail space they could begin to compete on a different level, and decided to create their own low-cost house brand, "Shaftesbury" (named after the street location of their flagship showroom).

Most online searches will return a date of "1968" as the inception of the brand, but as of now I have not been able to find any evidence of this. Rose-Morris ran advertisements in magazines like Beat Instrumental and Melody Maker pretty consistently from 1967 through to the early 80s, yet there was no mention of the Shaftesbury brand until the middle of 1969. So while we can't say for sure it was either year, it's still worth mentioning regardless.

The above catalog is consistently attributed to 1968, but there are no date marks on any of the pages, nor have I been able to find any of the products listed elsewhere prior to 1969. So my best guess is that this catalog simply came out a little later than we've always thought.

Another common piece of information that often gets passed around is that Pete Townshend played a Shaftesbury Duo Fuzz at the legendary Rolling Stones "Rock and Roll Circus" in December of 1968. I suppose this could be possible, but again, I have so far found zero evidence to corroborate the claim. I've watched the Who's performance multiple times, but they never even pan down to Pete's feet, let alone show the pedal he's using. I've also found two separate photos of his setup but unfortunately you can't see ANY pedals in either image. So I have no idea?

Could it be a Duo Fuzz, no fuzz at all, or is it maybe an early grey Univox Super Fuzz perchance? For now we'll have to leave that one up to debate, at least until someone finds solid photos from that night showing exactly what he did use.

So what do we know?

Well in June of 1969 Beat Instrumental magazine ran the earliest known ad for the Shaftesbury pedal line (*see above), and it prominently featured not the Duo Fuzz, but it's crazy sister effect, the Squall Pedal.

The Squall was another rebranded Honey invention, the Super Effect, which had just been released some time in 1968 (for a full history check out this article here). It was rather odd, as it functioned more like a sound effect machine than a stompbox. But maybe this novelty is exactly why it got top-billing over the Duo Fuzz in these early ads?

Both pedals were highlighted throughout the rest of 1969, showing up in Melody Maker, BI, and by early 1970 they even appeared alongside fellow Rose-Morris distributed items, like the Marshall Supa Fuzz, in the annual Henry's Radio Ltd. catalog. (*see below)

Another thing that we know for sure is all of the original Shaftesbury products were imported from Japan. Ironically, this included a set of Rickenbacker knock-offs, which was funny because Rose-Morris was also a distributer for the actual Rickenbacker. lol

In addition to European and US companies, RM distributed guitars from Suzuki and Arai/Aria. This means they had an established connection to the Japanese market prior to launching Shaftesbury. But beyond this it has yet to be proven that either of these brands had anything to do with their guitar or effects dealings later on.

So where/how did Rose-Morris come to partner with Honey (or whoever was manufacturing their pedals at the time)? The initial brands to do a similar OEM deal were all from the US, and were all associated with Unicord/Merson: Univox, LRE, and Tempo. This was followed quickly by the brand Crown, who themselves were already doing business with Japan, importing guitars affixed with their logo from Matsumoko. To me, this really only leaves two options for the Shaftesbury line; One is that Rose-Morris used their connection with Unicord/Merson that was previously established through Marshall. The other, is that there was possibly a third-party supplier that made package deals (if your brand wanted to import gear from Japan, instead of doing business directly with those manufacturers you got a pamphlet and simply circled what you wanted; guitars, amps, mics, effects, etc. Then the orders would be put through to the proper factories).

Everything I have seen in my research points to the 2nd option above as being the most common at the time. But I am still waiting to find the smoking gun in the form of an original Japanese supplier catalog...

For this specific case however there was a legitimate and well documented connection between Rose-Morris and Unicord/Merson pre-Shaftesbury. Take the images above for instance.

These come from the June and July issues of Music Trades magazine (1968). They describe the NAMM convention that year, and the so-called "Britsh exhibit". There is mention of the already existing Marshall/Unicord deal (I have found mention of this as early as January 1968). The short article also discusses Rose-Morris' involvement, and even states that the exhibit is theirs (which I assume displayed all of the brands they represented?). But while they go on to describe the Rose-Morris house brand "R-M", with both their line of drums and and even a new pedal steel guitar, there is no mention at all of the Shaftesbury brand (which most likely did not exist yet).

This is all to say that the evidence might not be anywhere close to conclusive, but I think it's at least a 40% chance that the relationship between Rose-Morris and Unicord led (at least partially) to the products sold under the Shaftesbury brand. But again, that is only a guess at this point!

One final bit on dating the earliest Duo Fuzzes; as we said above unfortunately there isn't clear enough photos or video from the Rock & Roll Circus performance to say that Pete Townshend used one that night. So what is the earliest evidence, and how good is it?

In 1969 the UK band Soft Machine released their album "The Soft Machine Volume 2". Fuzzy guitar tones are prominently featured throughout the album, mostly coming from the bassist Hugh Hopper. Since this time Hopper has been seen (and quoted as saying that he) used a Shaftesbury Duo Fuzz, and if you listen to the track above it's very clearly a Super Fuzz circuit. According to what I've read the album was recorded between February and March of 1969. So if that is accurate, and if we WAS using a Duo Fuzz, then this would be the earliest known evidence currently out there.

Right now, if I had to put money on it, I would say my very best guess for the release of the Shaftesbury Duo Fuzz is somewhere between December 1968 - Spring 1969. 

But how can you tell if you have one of those early, Honey-era Duo Fuzzes?

The unit you see above is an early one, most likely from 1969. And it has all the hallmarks of its fellow Honey-era brethren; the On/Off Expander pot, the small "Made in Japan" sticker on the back, and even the paint/rust patterns are consistent with other Honey Super Fuzzes.

I don't have photos of the inside, but I can guarantee that you would clearly see the on/off pot and one of three known Honey PCB's, along with the letters "HF" printed on the trace side.

But one thing that distinguished the Duo Fuzz from all other variants was that logo badge. It's the only one that leans to the left instead of the right. And it's precisely this distinction that allows us to easily, and quickly, determine if we're holding a Honey Duo Fuzz from the '60s, or a Shin-ei Duo Fuzz from the '70s.

In 1970, after Honey had gone out of business, Shin-ei began to manufacture their own version of the Super Fuzz, which they called the "FY-6". And one of the first things they did differently was to create an embossed enclosure, with an indented area for the logo badge to sit. (*see the example above)

These were made this way from 1970 - 1972. And if you're still unsure from looking at the outside, once you take a peak under the hood you will notice a clear spot that has been machine-pressed into the sheet metal. The unit directly above is a Duo Fuzz from February of 1972, and you can easily see on the left that it too features the embossing.

But if you remember to a minute ago when we were discussing the unique left-leaning logo that Shaftesbury used, then maybe you're already questioning how they were able to stick there badge inside a space that's clearly made for a right-leaning one. And you would be very correct in wondering how they did it... And luckily for us, the solution is one of the main factors that separates a "late 60s" Duo Fuzz from a 1970s unit.

The top image above shows the front of the exact pedal you just saw a second ago. And if you don't immediately see how they did it, I'll just come out and tell you; they made the logo badge BIGGER than the indented area! 

That's it! 

That's how Shaftesbury was able to keep their unique look even though another manufacturer took over the project and changed the build-style on them. And honestly, it's a rather elegant solution to what could have otherwise been an embarrassing and janky rollout (hence the other image above that shows what happened when the Canadian brand, JH Experience, made the same journey from Honey to Shin-ei.)

Toward the middle of 1972 Shin-ei would abandon the embossed faceplate idea and go back to a flat one. And while I have yet to find an example, I would bet that for a while at least, the remaining indented enclosures became Duo Fuzzes... But again, this is totally a guess as of now. Either way, their logo badges stayed large throughout the rest of the run, and remain a recognizable calling card of the 70's/Shin-ei builds. 

But actually, there's even one more distinction we haven't mentioned yet:

"Spot the Difference" was (and still is) one of my favorite games as a kid. I honestly think the hours I spent staring at the backs of Highlights magazine as an 8yr old prepared me for the years I've now spent staring at photos of guitar pedals. lol

Take a look above. At first you probably notice that the text on the bottom badge is a bit more fine and detailed than that one above it. You may also notice that it doesn't look quite as squished in its border either. But did you also notice the words "Rose-Morris"? The top badge comes from a Honey-era Duo Fuzz, while the bottom one obviously comes from a Shin-ei pedal. Either through mistake or neglect, the Honey badges failed to add the hyphen between "Rose" and "Morris". But a year later this was fixed by Shin-ei to more accurately reflect the true RM logo.

So if you're ever having a hard time figuring out if the badge is larger than normal, or can't see if it has an on/off Expander pot, then feel confident you can always fall back on the old "Rose Morris" vs. "Rose-Morris" trick.

Another way you can tell what year your Duo Fuzz was made is by looking at the foot switch. Just like we discussed back in this post about dating Shin-ei pedals, from Jan-May of 1973 they introduced a new footswitch that featured the brand name "Companion" (*see the top image). Then they followed that up with the now classic "Shin-ei"-labeled footswitch, around the middle of 1973. So if all I know about the two pedals above is what I see, I know for sure that the top one was made in 1973, and the bottom one is no older than 1973 (and now you too know this super nerdy detail :)

The "Shin-ei" footswitches lasted throughout their run as a brand, around 1979, but I have yet to find a Duo Fuzz dated any later than December 1975. And if I am not mistaken that would make them the longest running OEM branded Super Fuzzes ever made. So in addition to the variances we've discussed here, there are definitely other things that changed over time; like transistors, caps, switches, and jacks. Also, the 1975 units reflect the same change that the other brandings went through, with a new PCB, wiring style, and updated component selection. 

The history of the Shaftesbury Duo Fuzz is both insignificant (as it's just one of many re-branded OEM Super Fuzzes), and also quite significant (as it was used by guitar legends like Pete Townshend and Steve Hackett). Being the only true UK-based import of the circuit, and being tied directly to one of the largest distros in England it competed right up against giants like Sola Sound, Dallas/Arbiter, and Marshall. And because of its totally unique circuit, the Duo Fuzz stood out to anyone who wanted a little extra GNAR from their guitar tone.

In production for approximately seven years, and sold for possibly longer, the story can now be rewritten about this badass pedal. The Duo Fuzz is solidly a stompbox from the '70s, just as Nirvana is a band from the '90s. So if you take nothing else away from this, I hope at least you remember that much! 

Maybe some of this was helpful, and maybe you even found a few new pieces of info that you didn't already have. Either way the Duo Fuzz will remain an important part of guitar history, and there's a reason why it's still one of the first vintage stompboxes most people discover.

Thanks for reading, and as always if you have any additional info on Shaftesbury, Rose-Morris, or anything that's at all related, please feel free to comment below or send me a message via Email, Substack, or Instagram.

-ed

Tri-Dirty Booster Demo (finally!)

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Just last week a great video was posted by friend of the blog, Hidenori Kume over on Takahashi Takuroh's youtube channel. They go through two pedals from Hidenori's collection, but specifically take time to thoroughly demo, what many of us believe is, the best Big Muff clone ever made; the Hohner Tri Dirty Booster!

Enjoy the fuzz/// ✌

thanks for watching,

-ed

Kay Fuzz Tone - What We Know...

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Just like its fellow countrypedals, the history of the Kay FUZ-1 Fuzz Tone seems to have been lost to both time and translation. For decades all we've ever known is that it was built in Japan, it was based off of either the Univox Super Fuzz or the Mac-Tone Fuzz Machine (aka, Ibanez Standard Fuzz), and that it was famously used by both the Edge and Daniel Lanois. 

The remaining factoids that currently exist have been a combination of best guesses and somewhat poorly calculated deductive reasoning. I myself unfortunately helped to perpetuate some untruths about the Kay Fuzz in the past, simply because it was easier to believe what I had always heard rather than take the time to look into it myself.

So today we're going to go deep into the history of the Kay Fuzz Tone, and see if we can hopefully right some of those wrongs...

I suppose we should start with the biggest correction first.

Like most of you, my impression has always been that the Kay Fuzz was released "some time in the late 60s". And because I had never heard differently, I just accepted this as the hard truth. But as you might be guessing, we were all wrong!

And when I thought about it, 1969 (and especially 1968) does feel kind of early when you learn what the pedal actually is. But we'll talk about that more in a minute.

So a few years ago I knew that I had to track down some type of advertisement or printed evidence showing exactly WHEN the Kay existed. And while combing though pages and pages of old issues of Music Trades magazine, I found exactly what I was looking for! A product announcement for the original three Kay "Sound Benders" effects series; the red WaWa-1 Wah Wah, the blue Trem-1 Tremolo, and the orange FUZ-1 Fuzz Tone. But immediately after my excitement died down I became legitimately shocked when I realized the date on the cover of the magazine was January of 1974!!!

This was wayyyyy later than any of us had ever considered. So I had my questions, because for a product to appear in Music Trades it means that a major distributer has picked it up and it's ready to sell nationwide. Sometimes this can happen months after the pedal is actually released, so I knew I needed to find some additional confirmation. Then a few months later I happened to stumble on to the image below (on the left), showing a completely different announcement for the Kay pedals in an issue of UK's Beat Instrumental magazine, dated to October of 1973!

In the same issue B.I. also published a report on the AMII (Associated Musical Instruments Industries) Trade Fair that took place the previous month. And included in the piece was a nice little writeup about the new Kay line of guitars and effects! This article (and the accompanying ad) also mentioned "W.M.I." as the owners of the brand. (*and while George Osztreicher is presented here as being part of the company, he was more of a business partner at the time, acting as their importer to the UK. Later on he would play a larger role in W.M.I. and eventually take over the Kay name after W.M.I. went out of business)

I continued to look through every available online magazine and newspaper archive but that October 1973 date still stands as the very earliest mention, anywhere, of the Kay pedals.

If we take a peak inside the Kays a few more clues start to reveal themselves. Notice the first image below; it shows the back of a potentiometer inside the Kay Fuzz Tone with a date code "533E", which translates to the 33rd week of 1975. Unfortunately there are very few images of the pots online, so this is the earliest code I've been able to find so far. But I have seen a later code, dating to August of 1977! This shows that the Kay Fuzz was made for quite a while, which is also reflected in the sheer amount that still exist today.

Another interesting point to consider is the circuit itself. It's clearly a Univox Super Fuzz derivative. But we now know that famous circuit first appeared as the Honey Baby Crying Fuzz in 1967. Just a year later a former Honey employee would join Ace Tone and design his own modified version of the fuzz, calling it the FM-2 Fuzz Master. A year after this another brand would jump on the bandwagon with a similar mod; Guyatone would release their own 5 transistor version, the FS-2 Buzz Box. And finally, in the Summer of 1970, Mac-Tone would come out with their Fuzz Machine, which was possibly designed as a modification to the the Guyatone? So when Kay (or whoever manufactured these) was ready to release their own fuzz box, most likely in a attempt to cut costs even further, they reduced the circuit down to just 4 transistors from the 6 found in the original Honey Baby Crying fuzz. 

This all feels like a logical progression, with one pedal inspiring the next. And in a attempt to compete, Kay seemed to choose a race to the bottom of price as opposed to taking on all the other Super Fuzz knock-offs in either tone or build quality. As a result the Kay fuzz is much grittier and more "primitive" sounding in comparison, giving an almost gated and more raw tone that sits somewhere between a typical octave fuzz and a Fuzzrite. And by 1973 this upper-octave style had spread all over the world, especially in the US where the Fender Blender, the Ampeg Scrambler, and the fOXX Tone Machine had all been on the market for a few years at that point. So it does make sense that this was the path Kay chose as well.

I think if we take this into account, we can finally lay to rest the idea that the Kay Fuzz was released any earlier than 1973. 

But who actually built the Kay Fuzz Tone?

Located on the bottom rubber pad of each Kay effect is stamp that reads, "Made in Japan". And one quick look inside reveals nearly every component is also of Japanese origin. But to this day we still don't know who built them.

There is a possible clue to this, which in the US at least is not widely known; the Kay fuzz was also sold in Japan as the Uecks Fuzz Tone. Uecks was the brand name for the Ueki Gakki (Musical Instruments) Company. In addition to the rebranded Kay effects, they also had their own branding of the Univox Micro Fazer, called the Mini Fazer. Ueki Gakki Co., it has been rumored, was started by Takenori Ueki who was one of the founders and original president of the brand Honey. One thing we do know for sure, based on the below image from Player magazine's musical instrument buyer's guide, is that the Uecks pedals were available to purchase in June of 1976. Unfortunately beyond this, my research has fallen a bit short, as that's really all we know about the mysterious brand. 

So was the Fuzz Tone a "Uecks" pedal? Was it a situation where a single manufacturer sold the effect to each brand, and neither had any real tie to the builder? Or, was it something else completely?

Another clue that's hiding right on the circuit board itself, is what looks like the letters, "IDEAN F-1". Obviously "F-1" is the name of the circuit, but what the hell is "IDEAN"??? I have tried searching this a million different ways, but each time I come up with nothing.

Is that inscription somehow related to where these were built? Each effect in the series has the letters "IDEAN" etched into their boards, but is it simply a mark of the company who printed the PCB's? Or, is it just some inside jargon that's basically meaningless to the outside world?

I would LOVE to find out!

Another interesting detail I discovered was that the Uecks version featured a cardboard box as their packaging, while Kay opted for a more department store-friendly plastic hanger-box style. And while this was a clear difference, both brands did appear to use the exact same image of a guy playing guitar for their marketing and packing materials. This suggests to me the strong possibility that both brands received the pedals from the manufacturer already packaged and to their preference. 

So wherever these were built they must have had the capability to make the pedals and also ship them out, ready to sell. And that is typically the mark of company that not only had their own factory, but also sold their own branded products. Which could very well mean that Ueki Gakki was the original manufacturer!

Except we have to remember that right around this same time they were selling the Ueck's Mini Fazer, which was clearly an OEM product built for them. And unfortunately, that fact brings us right back to the beginning of this search.

Not often talked about in the world of pedal history is HOW LONG a pedal was in production/being sold. As we saw in the article about the Ace Tone FM-2, it had a surprising decade-long run; found in catalogs from 1968 all the way to 1979!

And now that we know the Kay pedals began showing up in print around the Fall of 1973, the next question is, when did they finally disappear?

Well I was able to track down a few newspaper ads (see below) that mentioned the Kay pedals. The top image, from April 1977,  shows what a appears to be a music/pawn shop advertising the "New Kay" Fuzz and Wah. While the image below it, from a different shop, just a year later shows the same two pedals now discounted.

I believe, from everything I have seen (so far) that the run dates for the original 3 Kay pedals are, late 1973 - early 1978. Which helps a bit to explain the amount of these that are still out there, popping up for sale pretty consistently over the last couple decades. While they are not abundant by any means, you could almost certainly buy a Kay Fuzz or Kay Wah right now if you wanted to.

While looking into the Kay Fuzz I also took a quick detour to see what I could find on the other effects, because maybe we could garner even just one more helpful clue.

And after staring at the Kay Wah for a while, it finally hit me that it was very similar to the Univox Uniwah! In addition to the obvious (they both use plastic treadle enclosures) both effects also run off of C batteries (the Kay uses one, while the Uniwah uses three). 

Additionally, and it's something you'll want to look into for yourself because I don't understand the technical aspect, but apparently the ways both pedals produce the wah effects is very similar only to each other, and not like the typical Vox or Crybaby styles that most other brands rip off.

This may indicate that the designer took inspiration from the Univox Super Fuzz for the Kay Fuzz and the Univox Uniwah for the Kay Wah, but was then asked to make a cheaper version of each? That being said, I don't believe there was any connection between the two brands beyond this. 

I thought I was finished with this article, but decided to explore down one final avenue I hadn't yet, just to be sure...

Like we said earlier, for decades the Kay Fuzz Tone has been thought of as a "relic of the late 60s"; with most people guessing it's inception falling somewhere between 1968 and '69. And while I feel pretty good that we confidently disproved this already, I still wanted to find more hard evidence. So I looked into the history of the company itself.

It turns out that in 1968 Kay, and its parent company Valco, were going bankrupt. Sales were falling off as competition with import brands became too costly to fight. And within a year the rights to Kay were being auctioned off to the highest bidder. It would take almost an entire year before a buyer would be solidified, and this is where W.M.I. would take over. Weiss Musical Instruments corporation, located in Indianapolis,  had been around since the mid 60s, mainly as an importer of both Japanese guitars (Teisco, for example) and various instruments from around Europe. By 1969 they had grown large enough to acquire the Kay brand and begin an effort to revive its name.

Over the next three years W.M.I. would slowly reintroduce Kay by way of rebranding imported Teisco guitars from Japan. And in 1973, with a full lineup of "new" products, Kay was finally back! 

That initial 1973 relaunch would include a lineup of guitars (electric and acoustic), a variety of banjos, and a set of four amplifiers. There were no effects present, but we now know that's because they wouldn't be available until the Fall of that year.

Each piece of gear with a "Kay" branding was now imported, with the vast majority originating in Japan. So it's no surprise that when they were ready for their own set of pedals they would stick to the same route.

I have tried to dig in even more to see if maybe there was some connection between the effects, the amps, and the guitars, but nothing has come up. Which is pretty typical for the time. Even large US brands like Guild would sell a mixture of instruments originally built all over the map. At one point they were simultaneously selling pedals made by Electro Harmonix, fOXX, Top Gear, and Applied Audio, but all rebranded with the "Guild" logo.

Knowing now that W.M.I. was the company responsible for this era of Kay, and also knowing that they found their success as a brand between 1965 - '67 as a major importer of Teisco guitars, there could possibly be a connection here that puts Uecks back on top as the missing link for the pedal line.

If Uecks was in fact owned by Takenori Ueki, then that would mean he was working for Teisco in 1965/'66 and was possibly aware, or even previously acquainted with W.M.I.. As we've discussed before, Honey was born in 1967 after Kawai had acquired Teisco some months prior (*this also resulted in birthing Firstman, Idol, and Yukichi Iwase's "Voice, Singing Electric" brand). Ueki was previously head of the Sales department at Teisco and as a result could easily have dealt with W.M.I. at some point in the previous two years. And while this is just my best guess, it's not without at least a little justification. :) 

But even if this were the case, it wouldn't necessarily mean that Uecks was the original manufacturer of the pedals (as tempting as that conclusion is to make). And if we look back at everything we've covered in this article, it would be very difficult to say that they were anything more than a simple go-between for Kay and whoever did build the effects. As of now we have only ever seen these pedals under those two brandings. 

Which leads me to believe the best possible guess here is that POTENTIALLY W.M.I., attempting to rebuild the Kay brand, reached out to Takenori Ueki for help. He then hired a local builder to make a set of cheap stompboxes. And after the deal was struck it led to both the Kay pedal line (export) and the Uecks effects (domestic).

That's the best I got so far.

--------------------------------

By the end of the 70s W.M.I. had moved most of their import business from Japan to Korea. Moreover, they even started manufacturing very low-cost guitars in their Chicago warehouse around 1980. So 1978, as I had guessed earlier, makes even more sense now as the final year of the Kay pedal line, which corresponds perfectly with the disappearance of the local newspaper advertisements.

The brand profile above, taken from a 1977 Music Trades magazine, mentions a "trimmed down" Kay offering that would only include "fast-moving" items. Which is something that screams of a company in decline, desperately trying to save money where they can. And yes, we have again arrived at the part of the post where we're just guessing, but I do believe we've done an otherwise pretty good job piecing together what most likely occurred with the Kay pedals from its inception to its final days.

As always we will keep searching for any missing information on our end, and obviously we welcome any additional bits that you might have! So if you happen to have more info on either Kay or Uecks please feel free to comment here or reach out via Email, Substack, or Instagram.

thanks for reading,
-ed