Roger Mayer

Mayer's own account of those years is blunt about how the work stayed out of sight⁴:

Roger Mayer, in Guitar Player²

From Admiralty engineer to fuzz builder

Mayer spent six years at university studying mechanical and electrical engineering, then went to work at the top-secret Admiralty Research Laboratories in Teddington, doing vibration and acoustic research for the British Navy². He grew up in southwest London and, as a teenager around 1962 and 1963, met Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page at local music venues in the area he calls the "Surrey Delta"²⁴.

His first effects work came out of that circle. He produced a treble booster in 1961 that was tried and used by friends including Page and Beck, and in 1964 he designed his first fuzz guitar effects pedal, made for Page¹⁵. Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Big Jim Sullivan featured these early models on many hit records¹. Mayer's approach to the existing commercial fuzz of the day, the Maestro FZ-1, was that of a scientist: he tweaked its circuit "from square one, really. As a scientist, I could come up with an alternative solution"⁴.

His effects were proprietary and secretive in this period, made directly for individual guitarists rather than sold to other players⁴.

Working with Jimi Hendrix

Mayer met Jimi Hendrix in 1967 in a club, and two weeks later he was in the studio as Hendrix overdubbed the solo to "Purple Haze" using the Octavia¹². He worked with Hendrix on the album Axis: Bold as Love, then accompanied him and his group on their winter 1968 tour of America, his first trip to the US¹². At the end of 1968 he built a limited run of about 5 Octavias and 5 Distortion Pedals in a wedge-shaped enclosure¹¹.

His work with Hendrix went beyond pedals. Using a combination of tape delay and EMT echo plates, and by manipulating the delay, the panning and the EQ, they aimed to make the music sound three-dimensional⁴. He also modified Hendrix's Univibe, though he downplayed the work: "Actually all I had to do was fine tune it. I set it up a little differently, and Jimi loved it"¹². Of what he took from the partnership, Mayer says:

Roger Mayer, in Guitar Player²

After the 1968 US tour Mayer left the Admiralty and went to work for Olympic Studios, building and designing custom audio devices and consoles¹. In 1969 he moved to the States and formed his own company specializing in studio equipment, designing limiters, equalizers and complete recording consoles used by top studios in New York and around the world¹. Through the '70s he worked in the studio with Bob Marley and the Wailers and Stevie Wonder, building much of the analog synthesizer used on Wonder's "Music of my Mind", "Talking Book" and "Innervisions", and he worked on 8 albums with the Isleys¹². He went to Jamaica in 1978 and worked with Marley until his death¹. Mayer returned to England in 1989, where he has specialized in making and developing guitar effects¹.

Known for the Octavia, Axis Fuzz and Voodoo pedals

The Octavia

The Octavia is a guitar effects pedal producing a sound an octave higher than the note played¹³. GuitarPlayer's Dave Hunter described it, with its fuzzy, synth-like octave-up sound, as one of the most radical guitar effects of its era, made legendary by its creative use by Jimi Hendrix². Mayer himself resists the fuzz label: he considers the Octavia a wave-shaping octave pedal rather than a fuzz¹⁴.

• Designed by Roger Mayer in early 1967, specifically for Jimi Hendrix¹⁵¹¹
• Not available commercially until the early '70s, when Tycobrahe released a copycat version that used Mayer's name³
• Mayer owns the original Octavia brand¹⁴
• Two Octavia versions are currently available, in different shaped cases³
• The Purple Haze Octavia uses a hand-wound ferrite transformer like the pedal Hendrix used to record "Purple Haze", incorporated into an official Octavia design for the first time; Mayer says it is identical to Jimi's original in terms of sound¹⁴

The Axis Fuzz

The Axis Fuzz was developed in early 1967 to give Jimi Hendrix an additional series of tone colors¹⁶¹⁷. JHS Pedals' history of Hendrix's technology describes it as a completely different circuit from what came before, named after Hendrix's second record, and the primary fuzz on that album through the end of Hendrix's career¹². Jimi used the original Axis on the recording "Axis Bold as Love", which Mayer calls a landmark recording⁷. Since its reissue it has become a firm favorite among guitarists who want rich full-range fuzz tones¹⁶. A DIY kit version is sold by Jeds Peds¹⁸.

The Voodoo series

The Voodoo line includes the Voodoo-1, Voodoo-1 TC, Voodoo-Bass, Voodoo-Bass TC, Voodoo-Vibe+ and Voodoo-Vibe TC, alongside the AMP+ amp-style pedals¹⁹. The Voodoo-Axe is Mayer's latest fuzz guitar effect pedal and an evolution of the Axis Fuzz he designed for Jimi in 1968⁷. The VooDoo Bass is descended sonically from the original Voodoo-1 pedal, the one associated with Jimi's "Voodoo Chile"²⁰. The TC Series are compact versions of Voodoo Series pedals with performance foot control of drive; the Axis TC adds a passive EQ after the effect²¹. The Voodoo-Blues carries the usual Voodoo-Series features⁹.

Other pedals

How Roger Mayer builds his pedals

Mayer's current pedals follow a pedalboard-friendly format, as per the popular 4644 Drive²⁴. The Axis, Spitfire, Visage and Voodoo Blues pedals released in 2022 came out of customer feedback, and all four feature a six-layer printed circuit board design, which means they are triple-shielded internally and resistant to external electrical noise²⁵.

The 2008 X-series pedals, the Classic-X, Stone-X, Mongoose-X and Spitfire-X, are each an updated version of the Rocket series, and the fuzzes are a modern evolution from the commercial fuzz pedals Roger modified for Jimi Hendrix²⁶. The Classic-X and Stone-X sense and use electronic information directly from the guitar's pickups, and Mayer recommends they are used first in the signal chain to take full advantage of that feature²⁶.

Delicious Audio's buying guide notes that Mayer builds his classic effects, like the Octavia, with studio-grade components and a focus on recording applications³. His influence reaches beyond his own brand: Kemper's Fuzz effect is based on the Roger Mayer Octavia²⁷, and other makers, from Analog Man with its Roger Mayer blue rocket Fuzz Face mod to Anasounds with its Feed Me kit, have built products around his circuits and modifications²⁸²⁹.

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