Maestro Fuzztone review

[lennon211]

The day has finally come for "Satisfaction"! I received an email about a week ago from a website that handles some of Gibson's other brands, like beginner level guitars, etc. Well, they also handle Maestro gear. I had signed up on the website about a year ago to be notified if they ever got any Maestro Fuzztones back in stock. For those that aren't familiar, the Fuzztone is the "Satisfaction" pedal. Well, that email said that they finally had them back in stock. Needless to say that I ignored the mounting Yuletide debt and ordered one. It arrived a few days ago and I finally had a chance to test it out now that school is winding down for me. It was a very frustrating pedal at first. It would spike in volume, have no sustain, etc. Well, I finally just sat down in front of the amp and started messing with it. Now it sounds like there's a buzzsaw ripping my amp apart. It's absolutely nailed the sound down of some of the best riffs: Satisfaction, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Psychotic Reaction, etc. The thing is built like a tank too, and runs on a single AA battery. It has just two knobs, attack and sustain. The downside to this pedal is that it is a decided one-trick pony. It has fuzz and that's it. To vary the tone, you need to adjust the guitar knobs/switches to get what you want out of it. I've been running my 330 through it with in the neck position and have been playing a lot of the mid-'60's Stones classics to a lot of success. The pedal just takes some getting used to. It also comes in a reproduction of it's orange box and has reproductions of the original instruction manual.

I figured that I'd A/B this with another famous '60's era pedal: the Vox Tonebender. The Tonebender is a completely different beast. It nails the Jeff Beck/Yardbirds and has somewhat of a variance of tone compared to that of the Fuzztone; think of the sound on "Heartful of Soul" or "Over Under Sideways Down". It's also a two-knob pedal. The Tonebender can also hit sounds like "Paperback Writer" where the Fuzztone can't. A little more versatile of a pedal, but different so there's not too much overlap.

[johnallg]

Thanks for the review Matt. I've had two of these for quite a while and gave up on them for bass. I agree on the one trick pony comment. I never got a useful sound out of mine. MF sent me a second "damaged" one for spare parts because of a switch issue on mine (turned out it was good), and I just rewired mine to not switch battery and now have two that work. I will have to drag mine back out and spend more time futzing with it to try and get a controllable tone out of it. I had all (way too much) or nothing when I tried, but your comments have inspired me. Thanks.

[randyz]

I've got an original Maestro Fuzztone that I bought in a pawn shop about 20 years ago, and I got a re-issue last year from Musician's Friend when they had them in stock. My original was modified by a previous owner (who took the time to mark-up the changes on the diagram inside the cover). It has an extreme noise gate, so that it puts out either nothing (total silence) or it sounds like a chain saw (think Ramones). You have to hit the strings hard to get anything out of it and it has no sustain. It's great for scaring people to death when the amp is turned up load (ha ha). My new Fuzztone has the same distortion but the noise gate isn't as severe. Since I prefer sustain, I also have a re-issue Fuzz Face which provides nearly infinite distortion and sustain. Frankly, I don't like pedals and I'm mainly playing rhythm, so I usually use natural amp distortion most of the time...

[octagon]

I've got an original Maestro Fuzztone that I bought in a pawn shop about 20 years ago, and I got a re-issue last year from Musician's Friend when they had them in stock. My original was modified by a previous owner (who took the time to mark-up the changes on the diagram inside the cover). It has an extreme noise gate, so that it puts out either nothing (total silence) or it sounds like a chain saw (think Ramones). You have to hit the strings hard to get anything out of it and it has no sustain. It's great for scaring people to death when the amp is turned up load (ha ha). My new Fuzztone has the same distortion but the noise gate isn't as severe. Since I prefer sustain, I also have a re-issue Fuzz Face which provides nearly infinite distortion and sustain. Frankly, I don't like pedals and I'm mainly playing rhythm, so I usually use natural amp distortion most of the time...

That's pretty cool. My Box Of Metal has a noisegate like that,but you can adjust it or turn it off.