When dialled in properly, there’s no greater sound in music than a fuzz pedal letting rip.
Sure, they can be hard to tame at times, but wrestling with a fuzzbox to scrape out a sputtering square-wave lead or a chugging velcro riff at full volume is one of every guitarist’s guilty pleasures. And when it comes to reward for hard labour, no pedal is quite as rewarding as when you master the Arbiter Fuzz Face.
Known both for its iconic quirky looks and gnarly tones, the Fuzz Face is undeniably one of the most important effects pedals of the 20th century. Released in 1966 just as psychedelic rock and hard blues were set to explode, the humble smiling stompbox has defied all the odds to cement its legacy as a vital tool for the dynamic guitarist.
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Before we unpack the history of the Fuzz Face, let’s start with a profile of Ivor Arbiter, who led the pedal’s first production run under the ownership of Arbiter Electronics.
Fuzz pedal
Starting out as a musician himself, Arbiter made a career pivot towards musical retail and opened the famous West End store Drum City during the 1950s. It was during his time that Arbiter became the exclusive distributor of Ludwig Drums, leading to him inadvertently designing the Beatles’ “drop-T” logo when slapping a quick graphic on a Black Oyster Pearl kit sold to Ringo Starr in 1963.
But his Beatles branding certainly wasn’t set to define Arbiter’s musical legacy. He also imported the first karaoke machines to the UK – but that’s also insignificant when compared to what the Fuzz Face aided during the tail-end of the ‘60s.
Designed to compete against units such as the Maestro Fuzz Tone and Colour Sound Tone Bender, the first Fuzz Face made use of a simple circuit that employed germanium transistors to achieve a gnarly, cantankerous distorted tone. The rudimentary schematics were tucked inside a round enclosure intended to be stashed beneath a microphone stand, while the arrangement of the control knobs and footswitch gave the pedal its iconic face-like appearance.
While the germanium transistors loaded into the Fuzz Face proved to blow the minds of many, they were extremely sensitive to climate, and guitarists soon discovered the pedal was particularly unstable when the temperature dipped. This meant that few Fuzz Faces ever sounded the same, and would later lead to Arbiter subbing out germanium in favour of silicon transistors.
But even those silicon transistors weren’t immune to their own troubles. Because they had much higher gain and frequencies, they were susceptible to picking up radio signals when plugged into a guitar, making them extremely finnicky when being used during live settings.
The inconsistent tones and output issues associated with early Fuzz Faces certainly didn’t deter players from buying them in bulk, however. At the time, Arbiter priced the pedal at an incredibly affordable £6.00, driving many to purchase a pedal and get in on the psychedelic sounds that were exploding through their radio sets at home.
As one of the Fuzz Face’s biggest early endorsers was none other than Jimi Hendrix, with the pedal being a mainstay in his setup both onstage and in the studio. Given the wildly inconsistent sonics of the pedal and its relative affordability, Hendrix’s guitar tech Roger Mayer claimed that he would purchase several different units to alternate between at any given time, which sometimes led to spares being stolen by light-fingered crew members and patrons at his live shows.
As well as using it to spurt some of the wildest distorted tones of his era, Hendrix was a big fan of the Fuzz Face due to its low impedance, which made it very tweakable via the guitar’s volume knob. Hendrix would often use his pinky finger to roll off his Stratocaster and achieve incredible dynamic control, letting him easily leap between gentle rhythmic passages and roaring leads.
Another trick that Hendrix stumbled upon was the fact that the Fuzz Factory would react differently depending on the level of the battery loaded inside it. A dying battery would often create a gated, glitchy-sounding sputter effect that would wonderfully complement some of Jimi’s more feedback-drenched moments, with this volume sag driving many guitarists to experiment with several batteries on hand until they found their tonal sweet spot.
Although Jimi Hendrix was certainly the greatest proponent of the Arbiter Fuzz Face, he wasn’t the only prominent player to put the pedal on the map. Eric Johnson is another noted user, employing the pedal to create a gorgeously creamy fuzz tone on his famous instrumental piece ‘Cliffs of Dover’, while Stevie Ray Vaughan and Duane Alman coaxed some similarly blues lead tones from the pedal.
David Gilmour also relied on its snarky distortion for various Pink Floyd tracks, as did his bandmate Roger Waters; despite its freaky tendencies, the Fuzz Face also became a secret weapon for several bassists looking for a fat, bottom-heavy tone.
Even with the myriad of other fuzz boxes on the market today, the Fuzz Factory continues to be a favourite effect of many esteemed players. A new version of pedal now produced by Dunlop Manufacturing can be found on the board of Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker and heard prominently on early tracks like ‘Elephant’ and ‘Half Glass Full of Wine.’
As it gears up to celebrate its 60th anniversary, it seems like there’s no signs that the Fuzz Face will drop off its perch anytime soon. It’s an iconic effects pedal that’s had its place in rock history solidified through the work of some of the all-time greats – and it’s done it all with a smile on its dial.
The Fuzz Face is currently manufactured by Dunlop. Keep reading about the company at their blog here.
