Jordan Boss Tone

The Jordan Boss Tone is a guitar plug-in fuzz/distortion: a small black plastic box that plugs directly into your guitar's output jack, with no patch cables and no pedalboard. Jordan Electronics showed it at the 1966 NAMM Show, and it reached the market in 1967 as the first commercially successful U.S. based plug-in effect¹². Inside is a simple two-transistor fuzz circuit that JHS Pedals, in its history of Jordan Electronics, says "sounds really cool across the board"¹.

It was cheap and everywhere. The Boss Tone was $29.99 when it first came out¹, and Guitar World reports it "was probably used by four out of five garage bands in the late '60s"³. Its best known appearance is the guitar riff of Norman Greenbaum's hit single Spirit In The Sky². Production ran until the early seventies¹, and the circuit has since been copied by Dan Armstrong, Vox, Electro Harmonix and others¹.

How the circuit works

The Boss Tone is a two-transistor fuzz circuit¹. The two transistors are arranged as an NPN at Q1 and a PNP at Q2⁵, a complementary pair that gives the circuit its gain. The distortion character comes from diode clipping: a stock unit uses a symmetrical diode clipping arrangement⁶, meaning both halves of the waveform are clipped equally, which produces the buzzy, harmonically dense fuzz the unit is known for.

The parts count is tiny, which is part of why so many builders have copied it. The madbeanpedals documentation for its FuzzyBritches build lists the full bill of materials for the circuit¹⁵:

⁵

Two details stand out for anyone building or modifying one. First, the clipping diodes in positions D2 and D4 are simply jumpered rather than populated, so the clipping comes from the remaining diode pair⁵. Second, the transistors are not fussy: madbeanpedals notes that "it seems there were a variety of transistors used" in original units, and its PCB is laid out in a multipin format so transistors with different pinouts are easy to use, with the center row of three pads on Q1 and Q2 connected to base⁵.

For comparison, later distortion designs took a different route. The Boss DS-1, for example, pre-amplifies the signal with a transistor booster and then produces all its distortion with a variable op-amp gain circuit whose diodes short the output to ground, producing hard clipping of the input waveform. The Boss Tone, by contrast, uses a simple two-transistor fuzz circuit with a symmetrical diode clipping arrangement in a stock unit⁷⁸¹.

Controls: Attack, Volume and the on/off switch

The Boss Tone has two knobs and a switch. Guitar World describes them plainly³²:

That hand-toggled switch is the practical downside of the plug-in format. Because the box sits on the guitar's output jack, there is no footswitch: you reach down and flip it by hand to turn the effect on or off². Players who want the sound in a floor pedal form have to look at the replicas and derivatives covered below.

Alhambra, Pasadena and Nashville versions

There are five official versions of the Boss Tone/Model 1000, including a modern reproduction¹. The three main vintage variants were built in different places, and Guitar World found they sound noticeably different from one another³:

The Nashville chapter of the story has its own twist: in the mid '70s the Boss Tone was licensed to Sho-Bud, renamed the Sho-Sound Boss Tone and distributed by Gretsch³. Jordan also made a companion piece, the Boss Boost treble/bass booster³.

One quirk worth knowing if you encounter a later unit: JHS reports that "the V3 unit squeals like a dying hog when you take your hands off the guitar strings"¹. That is a grounding artifact of the plug-in format rather than a fault, but it is part of the experience of the later version.

Beyond the fuzz settings, the circuit is more versatile than its two knobs suggest. Guitar World describes its range as "full buzzsaw square-wave fuzz effects with super sweet sustain," adding that the Boss Tone can also dial in distortion, gritty overdrive, and octave up or down textures depending on settings and playing³.

Who played it, and what songs used it

The documented marquee user is Norman Greenbaum, who famously used it in the guitar riff of his hit single Spirit In The Sky². Beyond that, exact credits are scarce, but the unit's ubiquity was its own kind of documentation: Guitar World's estimate that it was "probably used by four out of five garage bands in the late '60s"³ says most of what needs saying about how common it was.

The Jordan name itself has been revived. Guitar Pedal X reported in April 2025 that the brand is fully revived with contemporary builds, including a Buzz Tone based on the 1967 original at $100 and a Spirit in the Sky Fuzz, described as a Boss Tone mod, at $120⁹. The same article notes the recent Anashead Spirit Fuzz as another Boss Tone style variant⁹.

Pedals based on the Boss Tone

Because the original is a half-century-old plug-in with a hand switch, most players today meet this circuit through replicas and derivatives. The copies started early: JHS reports that "tons of companies copied this device (Dan Armstrong, Vox, Electro Harmonix, etc.)"¹. Modern options include:

• JHS Plugin Fuzz: a replica of the Jordan Boss Tone built as a fuzz pedal². JHS had earlier released a limited edition plug-in recreation called the Buzz Tone, which Delicious Audio describes as "obviously nearly impossible to find"².
• Jordan Buzz Tone (reissue): a current build incorporating the exact circuit path as found in the original vintage Jordan units, based on the later PNP-NPN version built in Pasadena and Nashville¹⁰.
• BLAMMO! Electronics P2P Buzz Tone: a hand-wired version of the Jordan Boss Tone. BLAMMO changes the clipping slightly, describing it as "a slight but noticeable change from the symmetrical diode clipping arrangement of a stock unit," moving to asymmetrical clipping⁶.
• KMA Machines Fuzzly Bear 2: KMA's take on the Bosstone circuit, built as a conventional pedal. KMA notes that "the original Bosstone wasn't even a pedal, it was a device you plugged directly into your guitar, which brought a host of" practical problems its pedal version addresses¹¹.
• PedalPCB Executive Fuzz: a PCB project that compares to the Jordan Boss Tone¹².
• **D*A*M Tone Distorter:** a pedal carrying the same control set as the original, Level and Attack¹³.

DIY kits and layouts

The Boss Tone is a popular DIY project precisely because the circuit is so small. Options range from complete kits to bare PCBs¹⁴:

• Jed's Ped's Boss Tone kit: a kit that "compares to the Jordan BossTone and more recently the EHX Satisfaction Fuzz"¹⁴. The PCB & Components option includes the PCB, onboard components and any pots and toggle switches¹⁴.
• madbeanpedals FuzzyBritches: a documented build based on the Jordan Boss Tone, with a full bill of materials and build notes⁵. This version requires three jumpers: the Sag control is not used and is jumpered, and two of the clipping diodes are jumpered⁵.
• PedalPCB Executive Fuzz: a PCB-only option for builders who source their own parts¹².

For transistor choice, madbeanpedals' recommendation is practical: "I recommend using any NPN in Q1 with an HFE in the 300-600 range and probably stick with the 2n3906 for Q2," noting that it has seen quite a few builds using a 2n2222a for Q1⁵. The multipin transistor footprint means experimenters can swap types without cutting traces⁵.

Pedals on this page

Jordan Spirit in the Sky Fuzz

Jordan · Fuzz

$120 list price

Jordan Buzz Tone

Jordan · Fuzz

$8 list price

Boss Tone kit

Boss · Fuzz

Electro-Harmonix Satisfaction Fuzz

Electro-Harmonix · Fuzz

$69.54 list price

Questions