W
hat guitar pedal is more
iconic than the old
Fuzz Face? One can
get a lot of dirt from
that smiley-faced mic stand base. The
first one was born back in 1966 (with
NKT275 transistors inside of it), but
new Fuzz Face pedals are rolling off the
assembly line as we speak. Jim Dunlop
bought the rights in 1993 and his pedals
remain faithful to the original design
and aesthetic. They still have the twotransistor circuit board inside and the
look and feel of the one’s from the ‘60s
and ‘70s. For players wanting to harness
the sound of Jimi Hendrix, this is the
ticket. Joe Bonamassa, Eric Johnson,
Pete Townsend, and David Gilmour all
have one on their pedalboards.
There are quite a few Fuzz Faces on the
shop shelf right now. They all have the
Fuzz Face look and feel, so it can be a
task to keep it all straight as far as which
one is which. The devil is in the details
they say, so I’ve done the leg work for
you. I tell you what makes each one
different, and I’ll talk about what is on
the inside and the outside of them. So
without further ado . . .
Here is a rundown of the half-a-dozen or
so Fuzz Faces in production right now:
First there is the full-sized original,
the classic.
JDF2 (JIM DUNLOP FUZZ 2):
When thinking of the Fuzz Face, this
is the first one that comes to mind—
big red! Jim Dunlop has recreated the
original using the same Dallas-Arbiter
specs. There are two germanium PNP
transistors (NTE158s) underneath
so players c