maestro fuzztone

[jsp]

hi
I was wondering about the differences between the fz-1 and the fz-1a.  I have a reissue fz1a and the gating effect can be very pronounced at times. Does the fz1 lack the gating effect and thus sustain better?

[gez]

The gating is probably 'unique' to your circuit.  The way these things are biased (assuming your reissue is exactly like the original) means that there's huge variation in how they sound from unit to unit.  It's a bit like the fuzz face, except worse, only so many sounded good.

I think there's some info over at GEOFEX (link above) about a similar type of circuit (zonk machine?) which goes into fixes for bias.  I've messed around with clones and there are some notes in the archives about matching trannies etc...

Schematics for fz-1 and fz-1a can be found over at AMZ (also linked above).