Fuzz Face
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. This article has been tagged since January 2007. |
The Fuzz Face is an effects pedal used mainly by electric guitarists, and by some bass players. The Fuzz Face is a stompbox designed to make a "fuzzy" sound out of an electric guitar. The Dallas Arbiter company first issued the Fuzz Face in 1966, although the first fuzz faces were simply made by "Arbiter", the second batch then introduced the "Dallas" arbiter addition. There is also a rather large and serious debate amongst Fuzz Face geeks as to which were the first transistors to be used in the unit. Most people generally agree that the AC128 transistor was the first, a few say that the NKT275 was the first and still others claim that the "Arbiter" Fuzz Face , (the first run of the unit) had SF363 transistors in it (See 1992 Guitar Player Mag. Distortion Special). However, although this rather interesting debate rages, there is generally unanimous agreement as to which transistor sounds the best (the NKT275), made by the British company Newmarket. However to be fair, it seems that this is primarily because of the high quality consistency of this particular transistor, whereas other types had larger flucuations in consistency. (See Germanium Transistor). The electronics are contained in a round, red, landmine-shaped metal housing. The pedal uses two knobs, one for volume, and one for the amount of "fuzz" the pedal produces. The distinctive sound of the Dallas Arbiter version of the Fuzz Face is said to come from the germanium transistors used in its manufacture. The Fuzz Face is also notable among modern effects pedals for its lack of an input for a 9 volt power adapter; some have modified their Fuzz Face to accept adapters, or use adaptors that connect to the leads for the 9v battery. Many copies and reissues have been introduced and had little success due to different materials used in their electronic components. Jim Dunlop Manufacturing currently makes the pedal, but schematics and DIY plans to build your own Fuzz Face clone are abundant on the Internet; its simplicity lends itself to experimentation with different compenents to alter the sound. Such guitarists as Jimi Hendrix (one of the best known Fuzz Face users), Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and others have used the pedal to make their legendary sounds. The Fuzz Face is sometimes confused with the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi fuzzbox due to the resemblance of their sounds on recordings; Jack White and Mudhoney (who named an album Superfuzz Bigmuff) have erroneously been said to use the Fuzz Face instead of the Big Muff Pi .
