Mystery: Solved!!! (Yura Yura Teikoku)

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This tiny, blurry, illegible image that you see below just unlocked a 15+ year mystery. I was looking for pdf's of old Japanese Rock magazines and despite its size, this little photo caused me to do a complete double-take. The unfortunate part was there was not a larger version (which was pretty damn unfortunate for me). But the good thing was that it existed at all, AND I knew exactly where it came from... 

In 2010 a truly legendary music video was making its rounds through the various vintage pedal forums; the song was called "Tsumetai Gift" and the artist was Yura Yura Teikoku. The track was actually from 2003, but was only then being discovered by a group of enthusiastic American nerds some 7 years later. (*see video below)

The concept for the first 3/4 of the video seems to be, "look at how awesome vintage pedals are!", as it opens with an original Honey Baby Crying Fuzz on a rotating platform, before giving way to a seemingly endless line of pedal grail after pedal grail.

Back on my favorite forum at the time (the D*A*M forum), we all came together and attempted to name every pedal highlighted in the 06:14 video. There were a handful of obscure oddities, but after just a couple weeks of sleuthing we were able to pin down all but one. And as accomplished as we should have felt, that one pedal would haunt us for years.

Appearing at the 02:40 mark, with only two seconds of screentime, this large box that kind of looked like an early 70s Maestro Sustainer, but clearly wasn't, became an instant cypher to crack. The colors were correct (Black & Green) and the general design was similar to the Maestro, but the graphics were wrong, the enclosure was off, and it just wasn't it. But could it be an early clone or something?

Yes, the video was shot in Japan, but it featured pedals from all over Europe and the US as well. So could this be some foreign pedal that's just never surfaced before?

Everyone's best guess was that it was some kind of Russian/USSR pedal from the 70s or 80s. Most likely a clone and probably of the Maestro Sustainer. And at the time this felt the most "right", as there are still plenty of Soviet-era pedals being found in 2026, let alone in 2010. And many of these are so close to actual units made by Electro Harmonix, for instance, that they border on "counterfeit" territory rather than a simple clone.

And for years, the "it's probably some Eastern European pedal" theory was the best we had. It never showed up for sale on either Reverb or Ebay, or even any of the Japanese or Euro auction sites (as far as we knew anyways).

Well unbeknownst to us, on the other side of the world there was a group of likeminded pedal nerds in Japan who where attempting to do the exact same thing. And just like us, they too were getting stuck on the black and green mystery pedal. But they did have one bit of info we didn't, which was the owner's name of this amazing stash; Souichiro Nakamura, owner and acclaimed producer/engineer at Inter Music studio, later renamed "Peace Music", who recorded the song in question. (*see his crazy collection below)

When asked about the music video he admitted that many gear geeks had inquired about that specific green/black pedal over the years, and no one had ever figured it out (nor was he willing to give up the answer). So this led to even more best-guesses and forum debates, with the current consensus being that it must have been some vintage Korean pedal, possibly a copy of the Maestro Sustainer, that has just never shown up again...

So by now, if you are a regular here, you know that I can't get stuff like this out of my brain. It haunts me. 

And while I hadn't been actively seeking out that specific pedal over the years, I would immediately recognize it if I saw one. Which brings us back to that tiny, blurry photo at the top of this article.

As I stated, I was in the middle of one of my nightly internet rabbit hole scrolls when I came across that image, from a December 1975 issue of Music Life magazine (picture Japan's equivalent of Hit Parader). It was about as tiny of a scan as I've ever seen and impossibly pixelated, but luckily it wasn't obscured enough because I instantly knew what I had stumbled upon.

My very next step lead me to a Japanese auction site where I found the exact issue of Music Life that hopefully contained the image. I hit the "buy now" button, filled out the necessary forms, and the wait began...

And here it is!!!

After 15+ years of searching for the mystery black/green pedal from the Yura Yura Teikoku video, we have finally done it!

What you're looking at is the C.S. Cathey Sound effects series. Featuring the AS-01, AD-02, AB-03, and AO-05. The AS-01 Sustainer, being the pedal from the video, is described as a "Soft Fuzz" effect that is "popular these days". Which makes me think it was a Big Muff copy as they were extremely popular in Japan by 1975 (the Elk Super Fuzz Sustainar, the Guyatone FS-6 Sustainer, and the Ace Tone FM-3 Fuzz Master were all out by then). The AD-02 Distortion Box is described as a "return to the origins of fuzz", with a "powerful sound" and intense distortion effect. Could this possibly be a Tone Bender copy? The AB-03 Distortion /Booster is described as a booster that can get into distortion territory. This makes me think it's some kind of overdrive effect, but it's hard to know for sure. And finally the AO-05 Upper Octave is exactly what you think it is. The description makes it sound like an Octavia or Green Ringer style effect.

While we were able to get amazing hi-res scans from the magazine, unfortunately the original images left a bit to be desired. So it's still impossible to make out the logo or text under each control knob. But if I had to guess, based on the description, I would put my money on "Volume", "Tone", and "Sustsain". 

Another interesting thing that comes up in the description is that each pedal featured an On/Off switch built into the "Volume" pot (think, Maestro FZ-1). And they all run off of two 9v batteries (think, Rozz Dead Heat, although this would have almost certainly predated the Rozz). 

One final, and possibly insignificant aspect, is the knobs. It's hard to tell from either the scanned image or the video, but they look very similar to the knobs found on some 1970 Univox effects, and the final version of the Sekova wedge fuzzes. I have long believed that whichever factory made the Melos effects also made most of the Univox pedals, and that possibly these knobs were some indicator of a connection? It's a longshot, but worth pointing out.

So that's it! We finally did it. 

And I was feeling super accomplished yesterday putting all of this together, and this is normally where the post would end. But then I remembered a random Twitter post I came across last year where people were discussing and trying to list the pedals from the Yura Yura Teikoku video. And yet again, they were getting stuck in the same spot. But one response lingered in my mind, and I thought to myself, "I should go and look at that again, just in case!".

The commenter went by the name Pedakichi, and I remembered that he posted a pretty convincing illustration, that I assumed he drew from memory, possibly after physically seeing the pedal long ago:

THAT'S IT!!! 

Pedakichi knew exactly what the pedal was. And when I checked out his own posts, I not only came across 4 separate mentions of the C.S. Cathey line, but also his description of the magazine where he discovered the image... and it did NOT sound like the same one I had found.

So I went and signed up for a Twitter account and sent him a message asking if he had any further info on the brand.

Well Pedakichi (ペダ吉) came through big time! And sent me a handful of images, including his own rendering of what the pedals probably looked like based on the descriptions in the advertisement above.

He also noted that the earliest mention he was able to find about the C.S. Cathey line dated to October 1975, and the latest was April 1976. So a short window for sure, and one that probably ads to the impossible rarity of these effects. A rarity that even after I found the initial advertisement last week, I considered the possibility that they were a case of vaporware; conceived, advertised, but never brought to market. And somehow a "prototype" just made its way onto the set of the "Tsumetai Gift" video.

But now that we know they were adequately marketed, and lasted at least 6 months, the reason for their rarity almost has to lie somewhere else. Maybe they just had poor or no distribution, and you could only get them from a couple shops in certain neighborhoods? Who knows! They weren't any more expensive than any other effects at the time, and Japan certainly hadn't become so oversaturated with pedals by 1975 that they would have gone unnoticed. So yeah, that part is still a mystery. 

After seeing the image above it appears as though my guess about the knobs was correct! But obviously that doesn't mean they have any connection to Melos/Univox. Just something for me to dig into more later.

My other guess on the knob functions of the C.S. Cathey AS-01 was super close as well! I just flipped the order; so they actually run left to right, "Sustain" "Tone" "Volume", where the volume knob also acts as an on/off switch. That all considered, I am still sticking with my "it's probably a Big Muff" guess for now (or at least until someone finds one and comes forward!).

So my big grand discovery had already been discovered (thanks Pedakichi!), but honestly something like this is exactly what I hope happens more often. Don't get me wrong, I love being out here in the uncharted and nerdiest depths of guitar pedal history, but it saves so much time and effort when someone else has already done similar work and can meet me halfway to share their findings! No guesses, no lies, no need for grand theories, just hard evidence that shows that a pedal existed, when, and what it might have sounded like. 

So thank you to everyone who has reached out over the years, and to anyone who's doing their thing, deep in the cut digging up their own stompbox gold and willing to share it with the world.

Thanks as always, and if you happen to own a C.S. Cathey pedal or have any more information, please feel free to reach out to me via Email, Substack, or Instagram!

-ed

Electro Harmonix Sold Kits?

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On the heels of the upcoming Electro Harmonix book, “Made on Earth for Rising Stars”, by my pals Josh Scott, Daniel Danger, and Dan Epstein, I figured I would add my own little “did you know!?” to the story. It’s a part of EHX lore that isn’t talked about often, nor is it as well documented as the background of the Big Muff or who invented the Memory Man. So let’s take a look and see what we can uncover about the enigmatic Electro Harmonix Kits of 1971…

Around 1966/67, with the explosion of Fuzz, a small subcategory opened up right alongside all of the new (and now legendary) pedals being released. For every Fuzzrite, Fuzz Face and Tone Bender, a new article was being written that showed young players how to build their own guitar effects right at home. And the majority of these articles, in addition to inspiring first forays into soldering, were also linked directly to order forms for DIY project kits.

The project kit fuzz could be found throughout newspaper and magazine ads/articles from this point all the way through to the mid 1990s! And in fact, building a fuzz pedal is still often included in the curriculum for students just beginning their electrical engineering journeys. But one aspect that is usually overlooked is the handful of brands that gave customers a cheaper alternative by offering DIY kit versions of their gear.

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In 1971 Electro Harmonix adopted this idea and began to sell their entire line in kit form and at a fraction of the price of the “factory built” options. EHX advertisements of the time would double as order forms; showing a list of pedals that you could simply check off which model you wanted and if you would like it pre-built or not. Then you’d cut out the form and mail it in with a personal check (remember checks!), and a month or so later a brand new EHX pedal (or kit) would arrive at your door - let the shredding commence. 🤘

But there’s just one problem with all of this; NO ONE has ever seen an Electro Harmonix kit before!

I have personally been collecting and looking into vintage pedals for over 20 years, and while I don’t keep up with every single sale or listing, I can confidently say that I have never seen an EHX kit, and neither have any of my equally nerdy pedal collector friends. Which makes me wonder, did the kits even exist at all, or are they just so indistinguishable from the regular pedals that you wouldn’t even know if you held one in your hands?

It’s long been a bit of a joke that the early Electro Harmonix pedals were not the best when it came to build quality. Poor soldering, wiring inconsistencies, and chaotic component variances are all hallmarks of that first series EHX released (1970-1973). So would we even notice a difference if we found an original kit built by a 14yr old?

Another idea to consider is that there were a few times where EHX listed models in advertising that (as far as we know) were never actually released! A perfect example can be found on the order form pictured above; the Tape Reverse, which most likely was later released as the Attack/Decay, has never been seen. There are also instances where model numbers just seem to skip one and go on to the next, suggesting they had possibly created a pedal and just couldn’t get it ready enough to release for mass consumption?

So I guess that’s it.

Maybe the Electro Harmonix kits were a classic case of vaporware, advertised for a short period in 1971 but never brought to market?

One night, about a year ago, I was in my usual pedal detective mode, scanning Effects Database when I stumbled across an entry for the EHX Hare-Lip Microphone Echo. It’s a pedal I’ve known about for ages, but because its rather, ummm, underwhelming, I never really paid it much attention. But on this day I decided to give it a click.

And right there, staring back at me in all its glory, was a KIT version of the pedal!!!

I couldn’t believe it, they were real!

And the craziest part was that these photos had just been sitting there on FXDB for over a decade.

Ok, so now we’re getting somewhere.

And yes, it’s not lost on me that the “law of large numbers” has nothing to do with my upcoming assessment, but that said; we now know 100% that the kits did in fact exist, and when built would look nearly identical to the regular factory-assembled product. This means there’s a legitimate chance that if you ever bought a 1971 Triangle Big Muff you could have unknowingly owned a kit version!

Alright, I’ll calm down now. sorry. 🤓

Let’s have a look at what else was inside this mystical box of awesomeness…

So we have a full enclosure, including the rubber grip pad that sticks to the bottom-plate (*sitting under the PCB). We also have a bag of components; with knobs, pots, switches, battery clip, etc. And we have what looks like a single long piece of green wire.

I can assume that when the pedals were being assembled in the EHX factory, whoever was on the line was given a very similar, if not this exact set of parts to work with. Really, the only thing that stands out as different is the single bundle of green wire. Because the majority of “Triangle-era” EHX pedals could feature up to four different colors and even smaller gauges of wiring than what you see above.

When we look closer at this pixelated baggie of parts nothing stands out as odd or unique. It’s basically exactly what we see in that era of EHX effects; D-shaft pots, black “pinch” style knobs, carbon comp resistors, green caps, and a blue battery clip.

So unfortunately everything I’m seeing here just reaffirms that if you own a kit version of an EHX pedal, you might never know for sure. Unless of course you find an unbuilt, in the box example (imaging finding a NOS Triangle Big Muff kit 🤯🤯🤯).

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By early 1972 the advertisements mentioning kits were gone, and the little company from New York, Electro Harmonix, would go on to change guitar pedals forever. I assume the build-it-yourself kit idea didn’t generate the kind of sales that would justify keeping them around. And with only a single known example that they even existed, it shows how few were probably ordered.

But, being in the game for a while now, I also know that stuff exactly like this is less rare than it would appear. This is the kind of thing that’s currently sitting in a junk box in someone’s basement. A project never completed, or even started at all; now abandoned and stored away with it’s friends the Nordic Track, the stamp collection, and that 3D puzzle of the Empire State Building. And while these relics are largely forgotten, they DO still exist; just waiting to be exhumed from the dusty embrace of time, and loved again.

So if you happen to have any guitar pedal kits from the 1960s/70s, I would love to hear from you in the comments. But if you have an original 1971 Electro Harmonix pedal kit, I NEED you to track me down and send a direct message via Email, Substack, or Instagram!

alright, thanks for reading,
-ed

The Woman Who (literally) Built Rock & Roll

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Over the last five years the internet has provided me with endless avenues of dopamine-inducing research tools for learning about the history of guitar pedals. One of which is the invaluable category of website known as the “newspaper database”. They host hundreds of thousands of printed articles going back to the 1800s, and within them I’ve been able to find previously unknown release dates for certain pedals, names and faces of company owners, and even full articles on the initial reception of “Fuzz” as a wild! new! sound in the early 60s.

But one thread that seemed to weave its way through all of these discoveries was that for the most part, women appeared to be responsible for physically building much of the music gear we now covet as classic “vintage grails”.

Electro Harmonix factory workers assembling guitar pedals in 1978.
credit: Rolling Stone

I knew that I could not be the first person to have this revelation, so I kept searching. And while there were plenty of articles written about specific women who influenced tech, and music in general, I was really only able to find this one article that highlighted the integral role women played in taking electronic technology from the grasps of the elite and placing it into (almost) every American home by the 1950s.

And even though I wasn’t able to find much, and this has to have been written about 10,000 times already, I still feel like doing my own guitar pedal-nerd take on the subject. So here we go :)

Elgin Watch factory, 1930. credit: Elgintime

What I learned from the ETHW article linked above, is that around the turn of the century it started to become commonplace to specifically hire women for factory assembly work. And with the proliferation of radio in the 1920s, these women shifted from things like mechanical watch assembly to more electronics-based manufacturing.

As the article states, this was something of a balance (although if we’re being real, it was probably much closer to an 80/20 split) between corporate exploitation, and feminine liberation. On one hand, the companies preferred to hire women because they could pay them significantly less than men for the same output. On the other hand; there is a certain level of freedom associated with getting out of the house and working, and of the equivalent jobs available to women in those days (sewing in sweatshop factories or manual labor), sitting down and soldering circuit boards all day was certainly preferred.

By the time the 1960s rolled around the idea of a factory filled with women working the production line was not only the standard, but every step of the process was designed to keep this machine in place.

Take the want-ads for instance:

credit: The Daily Breeze

Throughout the decade a “Help-Wanted” section divided by Male and Female could be found in the back of any local newspaper. The jobs for men were typically higher in rank/status; designers, salesman, foreman, etc. while the positions for women were relegated to the lower rungs of the workforce; secretaries, seamstresses, and of course electronic assembly workers.

The result of this was a specialized workforce dominated by women, who were responsible for building an extremely wide array of electronics. This would trickle down to nearly every piece of music gear one could purchase at the time. And when I say every piece of music gear, I quite literally mean everything from the transistors to the capacitors, to the footswitches, to the PCB’s.

The lone “boutique” builder phenomena was not yet in fashion, and those who did go into business fully by themselves were fighting a huge uphill battle against giants like Fender, Ampeg, and even smaller brands like Applied Audio (who built the Goya Panther Fuzz, amongst others). Nearly all of it was made in factories by a group of underpaid, but very skilled female engineers (you know what, yeah! they WERE engineers).

Fairchild Semiconductor assembly line, 1960,
credit: Marin Independent Journal

Sprague Electric factory workers test components,
credit: MASS MoCA

While I was able to find “female only” want-ads for nearly every well known electronics manufacturer in the 60s, two of them immediately stood out for playing a part in my favorite vintage fuzzes.

Fairchild Semiconductor was a leader in the production of transistors throughout the decade, and their parts can be found in everything from the Sam Ash Fuzzz Boxx to the Big Muff and countless others. But a company who’s components dominated early fuzz pedals was Massachusetts-based, Sprague Electric. I have seen their capacitors show up in pedals like the Manny’s Fuzz, the Maestro Fuzz Tone, and the ACA Fuzz King. But most famously, Sprague was responsible for the infamous circuit “blob” (precursor to the IC) found in Mosrite Fuzzrites from 1968-69, and later in the Nu-Fuzz by Rosac.

The original caption is already perfect, 1968,
credit: Bakersfield Californian

Speaking of; in an article from 1968 photographer Jack Knight took the reader on a factory tour of Mosrite of California. And in it, was this AMAZING photo above of technician Birdie Lewis hand-assembling Fuzzrites! This has to be one of my favorite images I have ever found in a newspaper database, and the main inspiration for this article.

The other example that was directly related to vintage pedals is below. Trans-Tek Mfg. was mostly known for buying old-stock bulk electronic components from various sources (including the military), and then repackaging and selling them to both manufacturers and direct to customers. Additionally, their factory in South Plainfield, NJ housed Applied Audio (mentioned above), who’s fuzz pedals were almost as ubiquitous throughout the late 1960s as Maestro’s.

Applied Audio also employed a predominantly female staff who not only built guitar pedals and amplifiers, but also the wide variety of electronic gadgets that Trans-Tek offered (like DIY kits, home alarms, and hand-held radios). And workers like Agnes Kowalcheck had the important job of checking the quality and value of each individual component before it was put to use.

credit: The Central New Jersey Home News

Those hourly rates seem insanely low…
credit: The Central New Jersey Home News

This practice, while born in the US, was not confined to it.

Below is a completely ridiculous, and somewhat famous (infamous?) image from Japan’s Sony factory in 1960; showing a line of female workers taking their hourly stretch break, while being overseen by a whistle-blowing manager.

credit: Associated Press

Absurdity aside, I do think it’s important to shine a light on this overlooked/forgotten/unknown piece of Rock & Roll history. And for me personally, it was just a super cool epiphany I was having while digging through the past; and one I had never even considered…

“WHO was sitting down, day after day, actually soldering together all of these stompboxes that I love and have dedicated so much of my time?”

And when it started to become apparent that it was almost exclusively women, I was truly blown away. And mostly because I had never heard anyone tell this story before. 

(quick, someone hit up Ken Burns!)

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By the mid 1970s many of these manufacturing companies were moving toward a hiring preference for immigrants and people of color, who’s own struggle against prejudice and discrimination forced them to take whatever jobs they could, and as a result, whatever pay was offered. This move severely undercut the already insultingly low rate women had been getting, and ultimately led to their mass exodus out of the factories and into the same types of jobs men had been afforded for decades. And by the 1990s the majority of these electronic assembly jobs would be gone; sent overseas, where the exploitation of foreign workers still pervades today.

So while the irony of sitting here writing on my laptop, that was almost certainly made somewhere in Asia for pennies, is not lost on me. I truly do wish that those millions of workers also get their due-credit (and a living wage) some day in the near future.

Dolores Hacker assembling amplifiers at the
Sunn Musical Equipment Co. factory, 1967. credit: The Oregon Daily Journal

But for now, I hope at least some of you have gained a new appreciation for the thousands of women; our grandmas, aunts, and mothers, who in the 1960s and 70s constructed everything from amplifiers to microphones to fuzz pedals; the same gear that helped create the guitar tone on your favorite album, the mind-altering synth odyssey on your favorite track, and the unforgettable sonic explosion you experienced at your all-time favorite concert. These forgotten women deserve our recognition and their long-overdo flowers, for quite literally, building Rock & Roll.

thanks for reading,
-ed

I've Joined the Substack Gravy Train!

So a couple weeks ago I decided to take the blog on the road and try out something new (to me, anyways). I created a Substack account with the intention of having another place to post about nerdy pedal history, and hopefully cast a wider net so we can collectively pull in more hidden information about our favorite pedals.

The larger posts, will for the most part, be double posted here and on Substack. But I do like the "Notes" aspect over there, which acts like a mixture of Twitter and Instagram. So those posts will only be found on Substack. Pretty much it will be all of the in-between stuff that you don't typically see in the big finished articles over here.

So if that feels like anything you might be interested in checking out, thanks! Here's the LINK.

have an awesome week,

-ed

Mirano Exciting Fuzz - The First Big Muff Clone?

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Back around 2010 I randomly came across photos of a cool-looking fuzz I had never seen before. It appeared to be a Mosrite Fuzzrite copy but with three knobs instead of two (à la the Pro Suzzzz Fuzzzz). 

After a bit of onlining I discovered, that in pure Japanese fashion, it wasn't a Fuzzrite at all, but a Big Muff clone! So now I was intrigued (no disrespect to the Fuzzrite)...

While it is much easier today, it's still quite difficult to research vintage Japanese pedals from here in the US. In addition to the language barrier, all of my typical fact-finding methods fall flat when it comes to anything made in Japan before 1980. But back around 2011 I did my best to find any information I could on the EF-1 Exciting Fuzz, and Mirano as a brand.

From the little bit I had access to at the time, a few things seemed to be agreed upon; 1. is that it was indeed a Big Muff "style" fuzz, 2. "Mirano" was the house brand for the manufacturer Katayama Denshi Gakki Co., Ltd. 片山電子楽器(株) (aka, Katayama Electric Instrument Co.) 3. the same company would also go on build the Rozz pedals, probably most famous for their own Big Muff copy, the legendary 18v DH-01 Dead Heat, 4. the Exciting Fuzz was released very early, possibly even in the late 60s!

And it was this last point that caught my attention the most.

Now the idea that the Exciting Fuzz could have come out almost immediately after the Big Muff, or even a much more insane idea, that it could have come BEFORE the Big Muff, is almost too preposterous to even consider. But if there's something I've learned through all this, it's that you have to look into every possibility because you quite literally never know what you might find.

That being said, the problem with guitar pedal lore (and a huge reason I even write these posts) is that someone's best guess at the past can get repeated over and over again, and eventually to the point of being accepted as undeniable fact. We've seen this scenario a thousand times, and to be completely honest, I too contributed to this noise with some of my older posts (*that probably still need to be revised!). And while I don't think much of this was done intentionally to deceive people, these "best guesses" are rarely described as such, resulting in deception nonetheless.

So after about a decade of putting the Mirano Exciting Fuzz on the backburner, I started digging again a couple of years ago.

Sadly, even after ten whole years of waiting for the internet to catch up, I wasn't able to find a significant amount of new info than I had previously. But what I did find, in addition to the super cool ad-sheet above, was that the Exciting Fuzz wasn't quite as rare as I had once thought. 

I found multiple listings on Japanese auction sites and guitar shops, which also gave me a great look inside many more of them than I had seen before (they're all built exactly the same; parts choice, pcb, paint job, everything). This last bit could even be a clue that whenever they were built, it most likely wasn't over long period, as it's extremely rare to see unchanged components throughout the lifespan of any pedal.

So I was feeling a bit defeated until I came across THIS website. In it, the author describes how expensive it was for the time (¥9,800) and that together with help from his parents, he bought the pedal. He remembered this being around the time he was in Junior High School, and determined that it must have been 1972!

Great! An actual first-hand account!

1972 makes a lot more sense than anything earlier, and seemed to confirm the websites who stated that it was built in "the early 70s". But there was still something that bothered me about this date; 1972 would not only mean that it's the first known Big Muff clone in Japan, but also that just two years after the official EHX release, with almost NO foreign distribution, the Big Muff was not only cloned, but heavily modified and released by a major Japanese company?

It's no secret (and we have discussed this here many times before) that since the mid-60s Japan was notorious for copying foreign designs of everything from guitars, to amps, and of course, pedals. But even in those instances there was always some time between that original pedal landing in Japan, becoming somewhat popular, getting cloned, manufactured, and released back to the world under a new name.

What we do know for sure is that the Japanese amplifier brand Elk released their "Big Muff Sustainer" under the intentionally confusing brand, named "Electro Sound Co." in 1973 (they also simultaneously released it under their own brand, as the "Super Fuzz Sustainar"). And while my previous best guess for the equally legendary Sekova Big Muff was also 1973, I have yet to find any evidence to confirm that's true, and now think '74 is the more accurate estimate.

Other Japanese Big Muffs of the time include the Guyatone FS-6 (1974), the Ace Tone FM-3 (1974), the Aria RE-102/203 (1975?) and the Maxon D&S (1976). 

So that brings us back to the Exciting Fuzz and this 1972 date. Is it really possible that a full two years before every other brand in Japan caught on, Mirano was out there slinging their version of the Big Muff with zero competition?

And going back to the handful of claims that the Exciting Fuzz was built in the "late 60s"; there are a thousand reasons why that can't be true, with the biggest being that we now know Electro Harmonix did not release the Big Muff until Spring of 1970. 

This whole thing was becoming exhausting and honestly, I was about to give up completely. 

But then!!!

I found something.

So this is really nerdy to admit, and I know it makes me sound like some level of dork I can't come to terms with, but one way I have found to get new info on old Japanese pedals is by looking through auction sites for vintage magazines. Page by page, listing by listing, in hopes that anything I care about will show up.

And just last week I came across this magazine above. It's an annual gear buyer's guide published by Player Magazine (think of Player as Japan's Circus or Hit Parader). Inside was a whopping two full pages of suggested pedals and their prices; including stuff from MXR, Elk, Guyatone, Korg, and... the Mirano Exciting Fuzz!

So what does this mean?

I think finding out that this was still for sale, and to the point that it was in a group of suggested gear for 1976, at the very least disproves those super early release dates (1968-1970). And when we consider other facts; like the unchanged components, the relatively low number of existing units, and the explosion of Japanese Big Muff clones in 1974, I would feel comfortable moving up the release date of the Mirano Exciting Fuzz to the "Mid-70s".

So is this the earliest Big Muff clone? No. 

It's almost certainly not even the earliest Big Muff clone in Japan. But it is rare, it is cool as hell in that Fuzzrite style enclosure, and it is an awesome sounding and ingenious modification to the original circuit that combines the classic BM crunch with a type of clarity you almost never find in a fuzz.

Obviously I plan to keep digging into the history of the Exciting Fuzz, and I'm sure hiding out there somewhere is an old advertisement or printed announcement for its release, just waiting to be discovered. So as always I have to ask, but if you know any additional details about Mirano, Katayama, Rozz, or anything else related, please feel free to reach out to me via  Email or Instagram.

thanks for reading!

-ed

Super Fuzz Guts: The First Year (and a half)

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Continuing on with our bigger mission here of uncovering the true history of the Super Fuzz, I wanted to throw together a post highlighting the (oddly) many variations the early gray units went through in a relatively short period of time. From all available physical records, the Univox Super Fuzz model 108-5 was introduced in the Spring of 1968 and was gone by the end of 1969. Honey, the Japanese brand who sold their version roughly six months-to a year prior, the Baby Crying Fuzz, was bankrupt by Spring of 1969. (Which is just one of many factors that make me think Honey was not the original manufacturer, but we can get into that later...)

Today our main focus is on the Univox-branded Super Fuzzes, seemingly made by the thousands in at most, a year and a half time period. Alright! Let's go:

We'll start with the most common, by a huge margin, version you see above. The mixture of components; grey or blue capacitors, 2SC828 transistors, green or brown caps, etc. are all pretty consistent between these units. Not pictured here is another very notable but hidden part, which is a small ceramic capacitor that's typically soldered to the trace side of the board.

And from examining a lot of Honey units as well, it's my belief that this is most likely the original version of the circuit. But with how common it is there's also a great possibility that they were being made concurrently with the variations below.

The circuit above almost certainly came next. The combination of parts matches perfectly, and other than a single new addition, it IS the same. But that one little update would go on to alter the Super Fuzz circuit for the next decade...

Removing the hidden capacitor from the backside of the board and adding a trimpot to the front, this V2 Super Fuzz PCB would have a short life, and as of now,has only been found in Honey and Univox branded units. There is a good chance that this alteration was made some time after the release of the Honey Psychedelic Machine in 1968, as it too features essentially the same fuzz circuit with the added trimpot (albeit, in a different layout).

The next iteration is essentially the same, but for some reason the trimpot has been removed completely. Now I haven't seen the trace side of this board so I don't know if the hidden cap is there, nor do I know if all of the part values are the same. But we can probably assume that the manufacturer felt like this particular unit didn't need any additional tuning.

Is it possible that this is essentially the same as the V1 but using a V2 PCB? Until we see more of these I can't say for certain.

Our next two examples, "V3", ends up being the PCB that will be used to the end of the run. Shin-ei will even go on to copy this exact layout for their "FY-6 Fuzz Master" in 1970, until a final revision (V4) is introduced in 1975.

This version features the same missing trimpot and holes where it should be. You may also notice at the bottom (left of the blue wire) is a green or tan capacitor that was not present in previous versions. From what I understand this was done to reduce noise coming from the battery (but I could definitely be wrong here). And they seemed to really like the idea because this is the next most common board you'll find after the V1.

Now that we've gone through each version I wanted to show a couple oddities that you may come across. The first is this V1 Super Fuzz that uses a combination of 2SC828 transistors and metal can 2SC539's. This is another combination I have only found in Univox and Honey branded units.

There are two other places where you will find this though; the Honey Psychedelic Machines and Univox Uni-Fuzz. Honey appears to have started using the 2SC539 transistors with the creation of the Vibra Chorus / Psychedelic Machine. And as a result, some of them also found their way into Baby Crying Fuzzes, Super Fuzzes, and Uni-Fuzzes.

For our final example we have a V3 board but with a unique combination of parts not often seen in Super Fuzzes. The resistors were commonly used in mid-late 60s Japanese amplifiers and also found in a few early fuzz pedals, like the Guyatone FS-1 and the Voice Differential Box. Another place you can find them is in some Uni-Fuzzes, which helps confirm that this pedal wasn't just repaired at some point.

This was most likely built in 1969, as it matches the parts and layout of both the early Crown Super Fuzzes and the earliest Apollo Super Fuzzes. This was really an interesting and mysterious time period in the pedal's history because by all accounts Honey had gone out of business and Shin-ei had yet to take over...

So the question remains; who was making these pedals? All the examples above, while appearing to be sequential, I believe at least, were made simultaneously. Yes, the V1 was almost certainly first, and the V3 was last, but for the amount of V1's out there it really would stand to reason that all three were being made at the same time. There were also two different enclosures and paint colors used! (two different manufacturers???)

To make things even more maddening, I just looked back at this original factory schematic drawn out by Univox in June of 1968. This would have been roughly one month after receiving the pedals from Japan, and it not only shows the use of two different transistors, but also a TRIMPOT! 

So now I don't know what to think. 😂

My current conclusion hasn't really changed though, because I still believe that within the history of the circuit (1967-1969) it was originally designed without a trimpot, and then in early 1968 (probably with the creation of the Psychedelic Machine and addition of different components) they redesigned the PCB to have space for a trimpot in order to bias the transistors regardless of the components being used? What we do know for sure is that A. the Psychedelic Machine utilizes the 2SC828 and 2SC539 transistor combo, and the board has a trimpot to bias the transistors. And B. that the Honey Baby Crying Fuzz pre-dates the Psychedelic Machine, with the two effects being invented by different people (the former of whom is still a mystery).

This is all to say that I still think while there is a logical order in which these PCB variations were designed, most likely they were all being made at the same time, and possibly by more than one manufacturer in Japan. And it's just by pure chance that the unit Univox dissected for their factory schematic happened to be a somewhat obscure example.

That mess aside, what I am most interested in, and think is the key to solving a large chunk of this riddle, is finding out what exactly happened in the nine months following February 1969. This is like a no-man's-land vortex between the end of Honey and the beginning of the Shin-ei era, yet we have hard evidence showing OEM Super Fuzzes arriving at stores within that period (Crown, Apollo, JH Experience). So who was making them? Who was distributing them? 

What's even weirder is that we've also seen pedals such as the Guyatone FS-3 from 1972 that appear to use old Honey parts, most likely auctioned off after the Shin-ei buyout. So what did that situation look like?

In 1970 Univox would go on to use a different manufacturer for the new Super Fuzz model U-1095, continuing with the same factory that was responsible for their Uni-Wah. (This is almost certainly who, in 1967, Unicord hired to build the LRE Fuzz Sound as well). Unfortunately we do not know the name of this manufacturer, but it appears as though "Melos" could possibly have been their house brand.

Either way, I hope this was a bit interesting to you! I try to keep it fairly surface-level when it comes to the circuit analysis stuff (mostly because "surface level" is personally the amount of knowledge I possess on the subject :) but also because I think we can garner a lot from simply noticing the little similarities and differences between pedals, outside and in.

Thanks for reading!
And make sure to check out this classic blog post from Cult pedals that introduced me to many of these circuit variations years ago. It's a fantastic read, as is the entire site!
-ed