The first Maestro Fuzztone in UK?

Discussion regarding early stompbox technology: 1960-1975 Please keep discussion focused and contribute what info you have...
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modman
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Post by modman »

I'm not looking for the truth about fuzz, I just enjoy googling the web more than crosswords.

'Satisfaction' by the Rolling Stones was released in early June of 1965 in the US, and only in August in the UK. Agreed, after the summer, fuzz is everywhere: in November 1965 McCartney puts fuzz on Think for Yourself...

But the Yardbirds' 'Heartful of Soul' is recorded on April 20th 1965... and Beck is using a Fuzzbox on that record. That's three weeks before the Stones record Statisfaction on May 10th.

In the NAMM interview in 2012, Gary Hurst explains how session guitarist Vick Flick came into Macari's shop because he wasn't happy with his Maestro Fuzz-Tone pedal. Hurst says Flick wanted more sustain, so he kept the pedal in the shop and examined it and then cloned/improved it -- that became the Tone Bender Mark I. Hurst says he still has that original Fuzztone pedal... somewhere.

In this interview, Flick confirms he was a regular customer at Macari's and got two Stratocasters from that shop:


Vic Flick played on a lot of famous records and soundtracks (James Bond, 'Ringo's Theme' on Hard Day's Night, etc). He also played on 'It's not unusual' by Tom Jones.... and although there are conflicting reports on the musicians in this particular session, that Jimmy Page is also listed on this session.

So the conclusion is that it was not Gary Hurst who brought the Maestro Fuzztone into the UK, it was Vic Flick - and he's the only reason there is already an interest in fuzz in the UK before 'Satisfaction' became a hit.

Big questions remains after that long Hurst interview: he does acknowledge that the Tone Bender Mk1.5 is a 2 transistor circuit that later became the Fuzz Face, and he includes his in his timeline.

What is not clear, is why and how the 2 transistor circuit originated. The Mark I was a 3-transistor 9V clone of the Vic Flick pedal, the Mark II was the same 3-transistor circuit.

When he really starts selling Mark I's in the autumn of 1965, the Vox Distortion Booster plug in unit already exists: 2 germanium transistor fuzz, no controls...

Sola Sound soon would start building Tone Benders for Vox, is that why they switched back to the Mark II three germanium transistor configuration? The other Vox pedals show a switch to silicon by mid 1965.
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nightraven
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Post by nightraven »

The only problem is that Vic Flick has never owned a Tone Bender MKI, nor does he recall ever meeting Gary Hurst. Flick even still owns the FZ-1 that he used during the 1960s, which is photographed in one of his biographies. Vic Flick apparently also requested that Music Ground (AKA British Pedal Company, JMI, Hanks etc) stop using his name in their advertising, connected with this.

Before he died, 'Big' Jim Sullivan provided a telephone account of his experience obtaining a very early fuzz box from Macari's in the 60s that apparently matched what Gary Hurst has been saying over the decades.

It's very likely that Hurst has confused these two session players.
https://fuzzboxes.org | authoritative and clickbait-free resource for 1960s fuzz pedals

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Post by modman »

ok, thanks for chiming in! Don't even dare to trod in this field, in fact, seeing you got everything covered. But there being no info about Vick Flick on your website, I thought I'd put it up. But you're very right: you shouldn't trust something because the guy was there.

We have proof that Beck used a fuzzbox mid 1965 - do we even have proof that Gary Hurst made it?

But in the end, this only confirms that Vic Flick had a Maestro FZ1 in London. I'd be very interested to know where he got it.
Where did Gary get the Maestro he cloned? Did he order it through Macaris? Flick confirms ordering his replacement Strat from Macari's

The only thing that jumps out in the interview with Gary, is that he doesn't want to touch the subject of the development of the 2 transistor fuzz (V816/Mk1.5/FF). Who developed it, why the MK1.5 came about, why they went back to 3 transistors?
Maybe he tried the 2 transistor design for a short time... in MK1 enclosures, but then sold it to Vox TB and Arbiter FF. Neither had a 3 transistor fuzz...
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Post by nightraven »

modman wrote: 25 Jan 2022, 23:47 ok, thanks for chiming in! Don't even dare to trod in this field, in fact, seeing you got everything covered. But there being no info about Vick Flick on your website, I thought I'd put it up. But you're very right: you shouldn't trust something because the guy was there.

We have proof that Beck used a fuzzbox mid 1965 - do we even have proof that Gary Hurst made it?

But in the end, this only confirms that Vic Flick had a Maestro FZ1 in London. I'd be very interested to know where he got it.
Where did Gary get the Maestro he cloned? Did he order it through Macaris? Flick confirms ordering his replacement Strat from Macari's

The only thing that jumps out in the interview with Gary, is that he doesn't want to touch the subject of the development of the 2 transistor fuzz (V816/Mk1.5/FF). Who developed it, why the MK1.5 came about, why they went back to 3 transistors?
Maybe he tried the 2 transistor design for a short time... in MK1 enclosures, but then sold it to Vox TB and Arbiter FF. Neither had a 3 transistor fuzz...
To be completely honest, I've been deliberately vague about the session guitarist story on my website, because I suspect that this might be a sore spot of Gary's, and I'm still counting on him to help me with a few unanswered questions. After all, the tenuous connection with the James Bond theme is a story that he's been telling for decades now, and he probably feels embarrassed about having mixed it up. The important detail that Gary claims, about a top session player bringing him a FZ-1 to improve, was corroborated. The identity of the player in question is ultimately just a smaller detail :wink:

I don't think there's anything to suggest that anybody other than Gary designed the MKI. His name is in all the advertisements, and several early Tone Bender users from the time have corroborated the story along the lines of 'a guy working in the back of Macari's'. Gary, himself, even held onto a small handful of very early MKI's (among various other pedals) until relatively recently.

Vic Flick might've got his FZ-1 from the Selmer shop. Selmer was an importer of Gibson guitars, and Hurst himself refers a Beat Instrumental reader to Selmer's when questioned about where to obtain a "Gibson Fuzz Tone" (published in January 1965). The FZ-1 that Gary cloned came from Big Jim Sullivan, who allegedly recalled seeing about getting it improved by Gary, and subsequently ended up getting a brand new fuzz box back off him instead.


The MK1.5 thing is one of the ever-unsolvable parts of this story and we can still only speculate about its origins. Gary Hurst has more recently begun to attribute it to himself, and other people suggest Dick Denney, but there's no evidence for any of it. Personally, I think Macari's must have had other people involved when producing the MK1.5, because contrary to what dealers on Reverb etc say, the 2-transistor Sola Sound Tone Bender was really a mass-produced thing in the short space of time when it was available. Gary would have been too busy juggling his work as a tech at Macari's, with his columns in Beat Instrumental, to have had time to bang out what were certainly many hundreds (if not more) of MK1.5's.

We know that Vox was selling the MK1.5, because I have testimonies from people who recalled buying theirs at the Jennings shop in Dartford, so it's possible that the Thomas Organ/Jen v828 came via JMI/Vox, rather than by Sola Sound/Hurst. If anything, the lack of information from Gary about the MK1.5 also suggests to me that he probably wasn't all that involved in the production of that model in particular. On the other hand, there was a LOT going on during a very short space of time, and details about junky fuzz pedals are easily forgotten.

Sola Sound probably developed the Professional MKII because of how poorly the MK1.5's often perform in warm weather.
https://fuzzboxes.org | authoritative and clickbait-free resource for 1960s fuzz pedals

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Post by drewl »

This "website" you mention nightraven, I assume it's about fuzz pedals?

You have a link, if you don't mind?
Thanks.

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Post by nightraven »

drewl wrote: 04 Feb 2022, 19:55 This "website" you mention nightraven, I assume it's about fuzz pedals?

You have a link, if you don't mind?
Thanks.
Yep! Although for now it mostly focuses on the 1960s British fuzz thing: https://fuzzboxes.org
https://fuzzboxes.org | authoritative and clickbait-free resource for 1960s fuzz pedals

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