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A Brief History of Effects Pedals


Let’s take a look at how guitar effects got their start.

Throughout this post, there will be references to recordings made using the effects mentioned. Here is a playlist so you can hear these examples. The playlist is mostly in chronological order, so you can hear the evolution of the effects with each song.


The first amplified guitars showed up in the swing era of the early 30s. The guitars were amplified to compete with the volume of the horn and percussion instruments, but these early amplifiers were low power and had a thin, reedy sound. Around this time, Rickenbacker made the Vibrola Spanish guitar that had motorized pulleys that jiggled the bridge of the guitar to create a vibrato effect. This kicked off the era of modifying the sound of the electric guitar.

In 1940, Rowe Industries created the DeArmond Model 600 Volume Control pedal, followed in 1941 by the DeArmond Model 601 Tremolo Control. When the DeArmond Tremolo Control was commercially released in 1946, it became the first standalone guitar pedal.


This effect passes the guitar signal through an electrolytic fluid (salt water or Windex will work) and a motor drives a spindle that varies the signal strength, causing a rapid change in volume, creating the tremolo effect.

This effect can be heard on the Bo Diddley song “Bo Diddley,” released in 1955.


In an effort to be heard over a full band, guitarists in the 40s would simply turn up their amplifiers to the point of distortion. One of the earliest recordings of distorted guitar is the Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys song “Bob Will’s Boogie” from 1946. Possibly the first true Rock n’ Roll songs featuring an intentionally distorted guitar is “Rock a While” by Goree Carter, 1949. Chuck Berry licks before Chuck Berry did it!

Quite a few recordings over the following years made use of distorted guitar tones either from a guitar amplifier or through some overloaded (or faulty) preamps in the recording studio. Possibly the first recording made using a solid state effect to purposefully achieve a distorted tone is “Go On Home” by Sanford Clark, released in March 1960. This box gives a fuzz tone that is the most like what we would be used to hearing when we think about fuzz tones, as opposed to more of an overdrive sound that came from a distorted amplifier.


In 1961, Orville ‘Red’ Rhodes created a fuzz circuit in a small metal box with a distortion level knob and a bypass switch. It can be heard on the Ann Margaret recording “I Just Don’t Understand,” and on the Ventures’ “2000 Pound Bee.” In 1962, Gibson decided to mass-produce a fuzz circuit created by engineers Glen Snoddy and Revis V. Hobbs. It was designed to replicate the fuzz bass tone heard on the Marty Robbins song “Don’t Worry.” The first production units were built in to Gibson bass guitars, but it was later made into a stand-alone floor pedal, the FZ-1. This pedal, known as the Maestro Fuzz-Tone FZ-1, is generally accepted to be the first production fuzz pedal, and went on to spawn the British fuzz tone craze. Gibson initially produced 5,000 units of the pedal as they saw the popularity of fuzz tones rise, but they didn’t see a corresponding rate of sales until the pedal was used on “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” by The Rolling Stones in 1965.















If you listen closely to the recording of that song, you can hear when Keith Richards turn the pedal on as there’s an audible click. I find it an endearing part of the song.


The Gibson Maestro was difficult to get in the UK as it was a US-made pedal. UK engineer Gary Hurst took the Maestro circuit and tweaked it slightly, raising the operating voltage from 3V to 9V, and added a true bypass switch. True Bypass switching means the guitar signal passes from the input jack to the output jack directly, rather than through any of the effect circuitry. This pedal became the MKI Tone Bender, which was manufactured by Sola Sound.

Jeff Beck uses the MKI Tone Bender on the Yardbirds single”Heart Full of Soul,” which was released nearly two months before “Satisfaction” in the UK.


Other notable users of the Tone Bender include Pete Townsend, Mick Ronson, and Paul McCartney (“Think For Yourself” on Rubber Soul, 1965.)

In 1966, Ed Sanner designed a circuit that fixed a problem inherent to the Maestro fuzz – namely it’s inability to work in low temperatures dur to the use of germanium transistors. Mosrite took this design and integrated it into the distortion channel of their amps. Later, this was made into a stand-alone pedal version known as the FUZZ-rite.

After this comes a rash of fuzz effect pedals, all very similar in design.

Some of these include:

• Buzz-Around – early two-knob fuzz pedal, later a three knob pedal

• Fuzzy – Italian red wedge-shaped fuzz based on the Maestro. Controls were: Volume, Pep.

• Tone Bender MKI.V – 2-transistor circuit, the same as the Vox 816 Distortion Booster

• Astrotone / Sam Ash Fuzz Box – made in New York and featured a Tone knob

• Rangemaster Fuzzbug – by Sola Sound, same circuit as the Tone Bender MKI.V

• Arbiter Fuzz Face Distortion Unit – later the Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face. A clone of the Tone Bender MKI.V, used by Jimi Hendrix and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.

• Zonk Machine – a clone of the Tone Bender MKI

• Pepbox WEM Rush – based on the Maestro Fuzz-Tone, seen in the studio with The Beatles during Revolver



• Tone Bender Professional MKII – a 3-transistor circuit, much more powerful fuzz tone, made by Sola Sound. One of the most popular fuzz pedals in the UK

• Marshall Supa Fuzz – rebranded Sola Sound Tone Bender MKI made for Marshall

• Rotosound Fuzz Box – rebranded Tone Bender Professional MKII made for Rotosound

• Vox Tone Bender – similar circuit to the Vox Distortion Booster and Tone Bender MKI.V, very similar to the Fuzz Face sound due to its 2-transistor circuit

• Selmer Buzz-Tone – a 3-transistor fuzz box made in the UK.






• Octavia (Evo 1) – Not a fuzz pedal, but an Octave doubler pedal made by Roger Mayer for Jimi Hendrix. This effect appears on the Are You Experienced album. No production version was made around this time (1967)

• Marshall Supa Fuzz – the second Supa Fuzz version, a rebranded Tone Bender Professional MKII made for Marshall

• Ace Tone Fuzz Master FM-1 – A Japanese clone of the Maestro FZ-1A

• Foxey Lady V1 – A rebranded version of the two knob Mosrite FUZZ-rite named after the Jimi Hendrix song

• Foxey Lady V2 – A slightly modified version of V1, replaced the V1 after Mosrite went bankrupt in 1968

• Goya Panther – Fuzz Face circuit with a treble booster

• Playtone Fuzzmaster – A simple 2-transistor fuzz box sold as a kit in Australia. Circuit was published in Electronics Australia in August 1967, and in Popular Electronics in February 1968

• Linear Power Booster (LPB-1) EH-2001 and 2002 – Made by Electro-Harmonix in the US, a boost pedal that overdrives the amplifier pre-amp

• Foxey Lady V3 – two knob Mosrite FUZZ-rite circuit with silicon transistors

• Axis Fuzz – Made by Electro-Harmonix, a rebranded Foxey Lady V3

• Super-Fuzz – Made by Univox, an octave fuzz pedal designed to sound like the Jimi Hendrix Octavia sound. Also rebranded as the Ibanez Standard Fuzz, Aria Diamond Fuzz, Mica Fuzz, Bruno Fuzz Machine, Fuzz Machine.

• Fender Blender – an octave fuzz designed to sound like the Jimi Hendrix Octavia sound.

• Tone Bender Mark III – Made by Sola Sound, a three-knob, 3-transistor version with an added Tone control and a new tapered enclosure

• Vox Tone Bender Mark III – made by Sola Sound for Vox

• Park Fuzz Sound – made by Sola Sound for Park, identical to the Tone Bender Mark III

• Rotosound Tone Bender Mark III – made by Sola Sound for Rotosound, identical to the Tone Bender Mark III

• WEM Rush Pep Box – new version of the Pepbox WEM Rush based on the Maestro Fuzz-Tone

• Sinphoton – Made by Montarbo, an Italian-made fuzz with two clipping stages that sounds a lot like a Big Muff

In 1969, Electro-Harmonix in the US created the first Big Muff, the Big Muff Pi V1 (EH-3003) designed by Bob Myer and Mike Matthews. The V1 is known as the Triangle Big Muff as the knobs formed a triangle on the pedal. The Big Muff is one of the few original fuzz designs since the creation of the original Maestro Fuzz-Tone in 1965 and would go on to be just as heavily copied as the Maestro was. In fact, in 1970, the Foxey Lady V4 was released and was simply a re-branded Big Muff Pi V1.


In 1966, engineer Brad Plunkett attempted to replace a mid-boost switch on guitar amplifiers with a potentiometer, found that turning the pot created a strange fluctuation. Replacing the insides of a volume pedal with this circuit, Plunkett created what we know today as the wah pedal, which he named the Cry Baby. Later that year, Dunlop would trademark the name and release their own Cry Baby pedal.

With effects pedals becoming their own industry in the 1970s, several companies were formed to address the market. Roland’s BOSS subsidiary formed in 1973 and the company began to manufacture pedals in 1977, releasing the class DS-1 Distortion pedal in 1978.



In 1976, Electro-Harmonix released the first of their Memory Man echo/delay units, which recreated what had only been possible by manipulating tape recordings using a bucket-brigade delay integrated circuit.


This heralded in the time when guitarists could recreate studio effects in a live setting and the pedal industry grew to become what it is today.

There are, of course, thousands of more different pedals available today, but so many of the distortion/drive/overdrive/fuzz pedals can trace their roots back to the early fuzz pedals. This brief history of pedals doesn't even touch on the different types of pedals that are available - modulation effects, those that affect dynamics, to say nothing of the digital and computer-based multi-effects available. As we start building pedals, the most accessible builds are those made with inexpensive individual components, so this primer on the earliest pedals can serve as an entry point to getting started.

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