Will anyone ever reveal the true circuit Hendrix used in his FuzzFace?

[ZZ$$$$$$$]

Im a fellow guitar effects builder,and like many others here and on the net, Ive been chasing after that elusive Jimi Hendrix tone for quite a few years now. What I am basically trying to say is,it seems to me that someone is keeping that information a secret or something. There are probably hundreds of thousands of variations of fuzz circuits and schematics floating out there. It seems like there are only a handful of the same circuits that are on the internet that keep being built. Will anyone ever reveal or find and upload the real,authentic fuzz circuit that was custom built for hendrix by Roger Mayer or whoever(Jimi may have built it,he learned electronics in the army). I know for sure that he didnt just go in a music store and buy a fuzzface and use that stock circuit. All you have to do is put on a song by Jimi hendrix and you will hear that unmistakable fuzztone sound that he only had. Even to this day,no one has replicated it. This is silly, but maybe that fuzz circuit is so secret that it's hidden as good as the original formula for KFC of Coca-Cola.  It would be neat to see that finally revealed in this era. I dont know what the big deal is,because even if it was available for download tomorrow on the net and all us music techs started building and using it, we still couldnt play like Jimi Hendrix!

[pinkjimiphoton]

imho, the simplest answer is the tone was in jimi, not his effects.

that said, i've heard ALOT of fuzzes over the last 43 years of playing guitar, and i dunno about that sound being uncreatable.

i hear a fuzzface on everything...particularly his "clean" sounds with the neck pickup. a fuzzface, the RIGHT fuzzface, is a magical beast...you'll get filth when cranked, and the sweet clean tones that made jimi's rhythm playing so sweet with the guitar turned way down.

add in 6550's clipping at high volume with a clean cranked plexi, throw in some octavia, it's definitely repeatable sonically.

but his TONE, his SOUL sounds different...nobody is gonna cop his tone anymore than you could cop mine or me yours. it's the player who makes the tone happen.

brother carlos says a man's tone is his face; that is largely true. how many guys can you name just from the sound of the guitar?

it's not the guitar or the amp or the effects doing it...it's the man  (or woman) using those tools to create their tone with the sounds possible by using these tools.

just my opinion...your mileage may vary.

i will say this...

i generally only leave one pedal on all nite...every nite.....and get all my tones from it live, much to the chagrin of a lot of other pickers i know who use a different pedal or combo for every song and solo.

a fuzzface, properly biased, is a thing of beauty that will take you places most other devices will never let you find.

[danielzink]

I agree with pink.....


Take Mr. Hendrix's setup - extacly as he used it.....let Billy Gibbons play it....let Joe Walsh play it.....heck let ROBIN TROWER play it....

I bet it sounds like.....Billy or Joe or Robin....

It was in his hands....it was in his feel.....it was in his soul....


whoops - let me re-phrase.......


It's in their hands....it's in their feel.....it's in their soul.....





and that's about as deep as I'm gonna get


Dan

[R.G.]

Yes to the last two. There are stories that Jimi still sounded like Jimi playing acoustic or unamplified.

Furthermore: the Fuzz Face is highly variable. It's one of those early circuits where the ability to design to be device-independent had not yet been used. The sound of the resulting circuit will be different for each combination of parts and transistors. I'm told that Jimi was notified when a new shipment of FFs hit his favorite stores, and he went down and sorted through them to find the one(s) he liked. I'm told that Eric Johnson is regularly brought vintage Fuzz Faces to interview by his friends. Some he likes, some do not pass the listen test.

So there may not BE a single one, true Fuzz Face as played by Jimi. It may not exist as a single object. In this, it is much like the quest for the Holy Grail - and just as doomed to failure, however noble.

[brett]

Hi
just 2c worth...

I know for sure that he didnt just go in a music store and buy a fuzzface and use that stock circuit.

Actually, it is widely believed that it WAS a standard fuzzface. The thing is that standard fuzzfaces were hugely variable, so Roger M or Jimi or someone probably went through a box of 20 or 50 until they found a coupkle they liked.

Apologies to those that enjoy those incredibly unlikely, but otherwise excellent, stories.
Like the one where an old man with a hound gives him a special "package" at the crossroads outside Rosedale...

cheers

[joelindsey]

One thing I think a lot of people neglect in their never ending quest to emulate a certain Tone is the effect the recording process has on the sound. What about the room these sounds were recorded in? The mics? The console? The tape? The EQ during mixing? Individual skill and playing style aside, even if you had the exact pedal+amp+guitar Jimi used it still would not sound the same as it does on the record.

[joegagan]

in 67 i was 7. for some silly reason, the owner of the drugstore in our little town would let us go in the back and rout through the new shipments of hot wheels cars. first year.
wish i had some of them now. they did not have transistors, but they are as collectible as 67 FFs.

[iccaros]

On soap box,----
just to add, Jimi was 101st airborne, and as such learned nothing about electronics in his career, he joined the army to stay out of jail and was discharged after one year.  While an awesome guitar player who "bent" the musical rules, he was a poor infantryman who was put out after one year. When I was in the 82nd Airborne we had a Command Sargent Major who was a PVT when Hendrix was in. He did not believe Jimi would do anything in life, was surprised that he had the working ability to become the musician he did, but admitted that back in that error 1 in 3 solders were that way, it was to be expected when people joined by court order and not on their own.

While he did go to airborne school, which was a big topic when I was at the school, it shows to me that he was only good in life at being a guitar player, well really an artist, everything else he sucked at, which is amazing if you think about it, as people would think that Jimi had everything, but he thought he had nothing.

exiting off my soap box..

As for effects, I always believed his tone came from how he played and not what he played. He said once that he knew nothing of music theory, but he did know that the difference between a note in key and out of key is always 1/2 step. So he suggested that you just play and bend as needed.

[Johan]

don't forget the effect of curly cables and the lack of true bypass on his wha...shaves a lot of unpleasent highs out...nice when your non-master 100watt marshall is on full
J

[DougH]

in 67 i was 7. for some silly reason, the owner of the drugstore in our little town would let us go in the back and rout through the new shipments of hot wheels cars. first year.
wish i had some of them now. they did not have transistors, but they are as collectible as 67 FFs.

I still have my collection of Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and Corgi(?) cars from the late 60's.

That is all.

[joegagan]

that's cool, doug. i always had a feeling you were more than a little bit more organized than me.

in the 80sand 90s i used to keep a HOT WHEELS  cop car on my dash as a voodoo hex against getting tickets. i got pulled over a lot but i often was able to talk my way out of a ticket.

[DougH]

No I'm really not organized at all. But that is one thing I happened to save. Not exactly sure where they are but I have a couple ideas.

edit: Ahh, some of the car models were Husky, not Corgi. But that's a nit really, since Husky made the Corgi line.

[seedlings]

For the low, low price of $1899.99 I will give you the circuit.

But wait!  The first 20 people to send payment will also receive a set of 2 (two) antique-looking knobs to be used in your build!

Hurry, act now while the offer lasts!

CHAD

[Mark Hammer]

in 67 i was 7. for some silly reason, the owner of the drugstore in our little town would let us go in the back and rout through the new shipments of hot wheels cars. first year.
wish i had some of them now. they did not have transistors, but they are as collectible as 67 FFs.

I still have my collection of Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and Corgi(?) cars from the late 60's.

That is all.

Humorist Dave Barry had a book called "Babies, and other hazards of sex" that someone gave us on the birth of our first child.  The numbers are certainly not adjusted for inflation, and maybe not even accurately remembered on my part, but Barry provides the anticipated budget for raising a boy to the age of 5, and it was something like $9,000 for small metal cars, and $2000 for everything else.

Corgi toys absolutely rocked, and were the preferred small metal car among my crowd.  They often had working hoods, trunks, and doors....though Hot Wheels had some bitchin' paint.

[digi2t]

Corgi toys absolutely rocked, and were the preferred small metal car among my crowd.  They often had working hoods, trunks, and doors....though Hot Wheels had some bitchin' paint.

That's because the Corgi's were a UK product, and built to last, whereas the Hot Wheels (US) were made to flash. I had both growing up, and the Corgi's always seemed to endure the abuse, while the Hot Wheels would always end up... well, not so Hot. But, I digress...

It's in the fingers. Most definately in the fingers. What were we talking about again? 

[pinkjimiphoton]

For the low, low price of $1899.99 I will give you the circuit.

But wait!  The first 20 people to send payment will also receive a set of 2 (two) antique-looking knobs to be used in your build!

Hurry, act now while the offer lasts!

CHAD

upping the ante, for TWO thousand dollars, i will give you the vintage capacitors and a couple junk....err...vintage carbon comp resistors to aid you in the holy grail quest...lol


that said...

thank god jimi had his music. he got honorably discharged from the army after suffering a broken ankle. perhaps there's more to the story, but to be sure he didn't want the army any more than they wanted him.


but yah man, it's all about fingers.

if we were all in the same room, all playing one strat thru a fuzzface and octavia and univibe into a dimed plexi hunnert watter with 6550's for output tubes biased cold,

playing EXACTLY the same notes,

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US would sound different. except Jimi, if he were here. hell, HE'd sound different, cuz rather than being dead at 27, he'd be like 70 or something, and probably either really much better, or a forgotten has been, overlooked as genius because he lived.

i hate to say it, but his death is probably what made him more famous than his life. there's a million great guitar players out there who have overdosed, intentionally or not, and died that no one will ever remember or care about.

had he lived, would he be a legend still? seems to me, he was getting really burnt out on music around his death...would he still be playing and vital? or a forgotten has been like ...umm...what's his name...from what was that band back in the day?


i mean...he could have been an eric brann, too (who's psychedelic and musical playing on innagoddadavida was as much an influence on many as, and a bigger hit than Jimi ever had).


to me, hendrix was at his best playing rhythm guitar...that's where he had tone, and style (curtis mayfield....cof cof) and what i love most about him. his distorted tones were ok, and unlike anything else at the time, perhaps..don't get me wrong, i love hendrix...

but i'm pretty sure if he was to have survived, he wouldn't be the god he is today. nevermind that he was the trailblazing pioneer to many of us.

but in the end, his tone was in him...his phrasing, attack, vibrato...Jimi would still sound like Jimi on any gear i bet.

just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

[lonewolf]

hendrix era marshalls had EL34 tubes not 6550's... that alone is a big difference..find a 1967 plexi/Lay down mains with the filter caps inside the chassis  and you will get close to hendrix and EVH except for the picking hand/thumb..etc

[Electron Tornado]

i hate to say it, but his death is probably what made him more famous than his life. there's a million great guitar players out there who have overdosed, intentionally or not, and died that no one will ever remember or care about.

had he lived, would he be a legend still? seems to me, he was getting really burnt out on music around his death...would he still be playing and vital? or a forgotten has been like ...umm...what's his name...from what was that band back in the day?

Case in point, anyone remember Phil Keaggy?

More on topic, here's a video of three guitar players and one guitar:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4udHNZnfBYQ

[petemoore]

  See very early transistor brochure, the two transistor feedback loop amplification circuit was proposed as a way to make transistors perform tasks that required tubes [before transistors were known to be able to do so] in a small diagram with text describing it as a way to get high gain amplification from 2 transistors, IIRC the basic topology was shown in an early national semiconductor sales brochure.
  Some variances exist between this and other 2QHGFBLAmplification circuits.
  I'm not sure what the intended application was/would be or if there even was mention of where/why this circuit would make sense as a transistor application..if it ever took off in say some industrial application...most of the audio applications that became popular soon after transistors became popular were 'clean' if amplifiers..that I know of.

[seedlings]

Yeah!  Jimi with a Rogue Rocketeer and a Zoom multi FX direct-in to a Sony boom-box would still be Jimi.

Which begs the question... why am I on a stompboxes forum instead of a guitar-technique-learning forum 

CHAD