THE MYSTERIES OF
TONE HAVE LARGELY
BEEN SOLVED. The gear
played by many famous guitarists is
well-documented and thanks to curious
tinkerers, readily available. Hendrix
played Fuzz Faces, Roger Mayer
Octavios and Uni-Vibes, and now there
are hundreds—if not thousands—
of variants on each available. When
looking to solve these mysteries, the
brain needn’t work hard; just look at
the floor and the backline. Failing that,
just use your ears. If someone is getting
paid to step on an artist’s pedals for
them, listen for the effect and try to
parse it later. By now, most, if not all
cases are cracked. However, some of
these put legions of tone detectives
on overtime hours, deciphering these
mysteries one at a time. One such
mystery was the tone of Creedence
Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty.
Coming at a time when it’s entirely
possible that Mr. Fogerty employed
someone to turn his pedals on and off
behind the scenes, Fogerty’s fuzz tone
was a mystery that stretched well into
the internet age. And with so many
devoted fans, the public was eager to
find out.
As it turns out, Fogerty’s tone was
even simpler than any of us could
have imagined. Fogerty’s amp—the
Kustom K200B—contained not only
the swampy tremolo we came to
expect from CCR, but the fuzz circuit
as well. The fact that Kustoms have
been notoriously viewed as “bottomtier” amps for their entire existence
only added to the denouncement of
Fogerty’s fuzz tone coming from them.
Muddying the waters was the fact that
this particular model is extremely rare,
and the only Kustom amp to feature a
fuzz circuit, which Kustom called the
“Harmonic Clipper.”
In all reality, the Harmonic Clipper
circuit is an extremely close
approximation of another extremely
rare fuzz—the Sam Ash Fuzz Stainer.
The one difference is the transistors.
While the original Fuzz Stainer used
2n5173 transistors, the Harmonic
Clipper changed directions entirely and
used MOSFETs—a radical departure
from anything of its time period.
Today, you will create your own radical
departure by building one of these rare
beasts. But first, you should read this:
DISCLAIMER: Neither I, nor Tone
Report Weekly bears any responsibility
for any kind of personal or property
damage that may occur as a result
of the instructions provided herein.
Legal mumbo-jumbo aside, we as k that
readers be familiar with a soldering
iron and its accompanying safety
procedures before trying anything
listed here. Furthermore, if you fire
the pedal up and it does not work, it
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