dates about 1966-67
maestro+epi casino=garage!Well.. At last i can say it: my clone (see back pages/older posts) sounds faithful to this. Against this original (2N2614 transistors), with little or no attack pot excursion, aka max it or it wont fuzz, my clone is a pot full of sweet spots. Maxed, it is plain evil. Compressed.
Comparison, original vs my clone:
Still, the original has got so much mojo.. Magic. I will not mod it to bias the transistors better.
1.5 volts of pure 60es fuzz.
Hot on the heels of “(i cant get no) Satisfaction”‘s success, that triggered sales of the fz1 (a product that lied for its first couple of marketing years virtually in denial), once the stock left of the original model was over, the Gibson/Maestro plants started churning out this, the fz1a.
This is a bit different in sound, still with a very distinctive vintage vibe. If you play garage, this is a must have sound, as this is the pedal thats been taken up by all those garage kids on the wake of the Stones’ USA invasion circa 65!
I didnt have any layout to follow for this, so i had to do it myself from the schem.. works great!
I used some carefully selected ac128 (sub-shit standard Tungsram), oc75 x 2 (crappy chinese Motorola) germanium trannies, NOS ICEL caps, the usual carbon comps.
Q1: hfe 57, leakage 0.08
Q2: hfe 306 (yes..), leakage 0.60
Q3: hfe 2718 ahem.. 358, leakage 0.83 (i really had to wait for this one to settle, but remember these are truly shitty transistors!)
Artwork taken from a japanese 60es pop 45.
Guts:
Masuto's 