Fuzz King(s)?

☟

The Amplifier Corp. of America (aka Unicord) Fuzz King was first introduced in the summer of 1967 and was a cool take on the Maestro FZ-1A, sounding just as ratty and primitive. The pedal was released in North America and could be ordered directly from various electronics catalogs, in addition to simply walking into your local shop and picking one up. Judging by the components and general build style, it seems like the pedal was manufactured in the US, but I'm not 100% sure on that. 

One cool thing I have noticed after going through the history and connection between Univox/ LRE/ Honey/ Shin-ei, is that the ACA Fuzz King could be ground zero for how all of these brands came to be connected. 🤔

In the LRE catalog from Fall of 1967 the Fuzz King was also released as the "Fuzz Sound" (see below), for a whopping $26.95 (remember to add 9 cents for the battery), and promised to "make your guitar or bass produce the harmony of several wind instruments!".

A year later LRE would release the version of the Fuzz Sound that you're probably more familiar with, made in Japan and sporting a circuit that was almost identical to the 1967 ACA Fuzz King, it was released under multiple brandings here in the US. Funny enough, one variation of this pedal, released by the brand Apollo, would ironically be labeled as "Fuzz King"...

But before you get a headache doing the calculus of what you just read, kick back and relax with the sweet sounds of the demos below ///

 

thanks for reading!

-ed