JHS Pedals Legends of Fuzz : Smiley
In 1966, a salesman named Ivor Arbiter saw the rising British rock scene demanding the effect of fuzz. He decided that his company Arbiter Electronics* needed to join the other London guitar product companies and release his own take on this trending sound. After seeing the circular base of a mic stand, he came up with the idea to put the effect in a similar round enclosure and give it a face: two eyes made of knobs, a foot switch nose, and a brand label mouth. Thus, the Fuzz Face* was born. That same year an American guitarist named Jimi Hendrix arrived in London and adopted Ivor’s design as his weapon of choice, and the rest is history. The first few years of the Fuzz Face* were manufactured using germanium transistors but by 1969, germanium fully gave way to silicon devices and Arbiter never looked back. Hendrix himself preferred the silicon versions over germanium because of their sound, aggressive bite, and their stability in environments where germanium proved inconsistent. Th