Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face (pedal)

The Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face is a guitar fuzz pedal first made available in 1966, one of the first fuzz pedals of the mid to late 1960s¹²³. It is an extremely simple circuit: two transistors, four resistors, three capacitors, and two potentiometers¹. Despite that simplicity, it became one of the most copied fuzz designs ever built, popularized by Jimi Hendrix and scores of other 60s guitarists⁴, and it is still produced today by Dunlop in many versions⁵.

What sets the Fuzz Face apart for players is its touch sensitivity. William E. Overton's technical analysis for the Georgia Institute of Technology describes it as a quality "based on how hard the transistor is driven," and calls it "an important musical quality of the Fuzz Face"¹. Back off your guitar's volume and the fuzz cleans up; dig in and it saturates. The circuit also clips asymmetrically, soft on one polarity and earlier on the opposite polarity when biased correctly, which contributes to its musical character¹.

The controls: volume and fuzz

The original pedal keeps it to two knobs. Guitar World's Alex Lynham lists the controls simply as "Volume, Fuzz"². The pots control the volume and the amount of distortion¹.

That minimal control set is part of the design's character. With only a Fuzz knob to set the drive, players shape the distortion largely from the guitar itself: Animals Pedal's manual for its own Fuzz Face-based pedal suggests starting with the fuzz at maximum and adjusting the distortion with the guitar's volume knob, a working method the original circuit encourages³.

Inside the circuit: germanium and silicon

The Fuzz Face was originally available in two versions, using germanium or silicon transistors¹⁰. The two transistors form a voltage feedback biasing circuit, as described by R. G. Keen¹. PNP transistors are used in the germanium models, whereas NPN transistors are used in the silicon models¹.

Tru-Fi's history of the pedal describes the early 1966 to 1969 units as germanium and the 1970 version as moving to "temperature tolerant silicon"¹³. Coda Effects notes the same shift: germanium at first, later replaced with silicon transistors, which are more stable⁵. None of the original germanium part numbers are readily available today¹⁴.

For collectors, there is a practical way to tell the versions apart without opening the box. On the second and third version enclosures, determining whether a pedal has thinner "dial" knobs or Bulgin "top hat" knobs is a relatively safe way to differentiate germanium from silicon Fuzz Faces without examining the electronics⁸. A later photo of the Arbiter Fuzz Face with dial knobs appeared in Arbiter's advertising in 1967, and pedals with the same knobs are visible at the BMII trade fair booth in August of that year⁸.

One thing every Fuzz Face player should know: the circuit is very sensitive to the impedance of the input signal, and really only accepts the impedance coming straight from a guitar¹⁵. Placing a buffer or another pedal in front of it changes how it behaves.

From Arbiter to Dallas Arbiter to Dunlop

The Fuzz Face was designed by engineer David Cockerell⁷. Its design was inspired by other contemporary fuzz pedals, including the Maestro Fuzz Tone (designed by Glen Snotty) and the Sola Sound Tone Bender (designed by Gary Hurst)⁹, rather than being a direct copy of either.

The corporate history is tangled. Arbiter Electronics manufactured the pedal from 1966 to 1975⁹, and Guitar World notes the pedal was issued by a number of companies: Arbiter initially, then Dallas Arbiter, Dallas, CBS/Arbiter, and Dunlop². Production in the UK ceased around 1976⁸. Today, both the Dallas Arbiter and Fuzz Face trademarks are owned by Dunlop Manufacturing Inc.⁹

Jimi Hendrix and the Fuzz Face

The Fuzz Face's fame rests largely on Jimi Hendrix. Dunlop states plainly that "The Fuzz Face Distortion, in all of its incarnations, was the fuzz pedal that he used more than any other"¹⁶. Dunlop's current Dunlop Fuzz Face Distortion is described as a meticulously faithful reproduction of the 1969 to 1970 Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face that Jimi used on classic albums¹⁷¹⁸. Hendrix used germanium-based fuzz in the early years and silicon-based crunch in the latter part of his career¹⁶, which is why both versions of the circuit carry his name.

The 1976 reissue and later reissues

After UK production ceased, the Fuzz Face returned in a short-lived 1976 reissue. Dave Fox of Foxrox Electronics, who later oversaw the 1980s reissue program, examined one and found it was the NPN silicon version with BC109C transistors, about a half inch taller than the original Fuzz Faces¹⁹¹². On the analogman.com history page he recalls it as blue, nearly two inches tall, with "Dallas Music Industries" on the mouth¹². He also found that changing the 8.2K resistor to 6.2K gave it a decent sound¹².

The pedal was re-issued from 1986 to 2000⁹, and Dunlop reissued it in the early 1990s under the Dunlop Guitar Accessories name in the USA¹. Dave Fox designed the 1980s reissue, with slight variations in the style of the aluminum casting across the run¹².

Dunlop still produces the Fuzz Face in many versions: mini formats, germanium and silicon versions⁵, including the Dunlop Fuzz Face Mini Silicon and Dunlop Fuzz Face Mini Germanium, the FFM1 mini spec'd from Dunlop's own prized 1970 Fuzz Face pedal¹⁸, and signature editions such as the Dunlop Eric Johnson Signature Fuzz Face and Dunlop JBF-3 Joe Bonamassa Signature Fuzz Face. The design also lives on in a wide family of tributes and descendants, from the Analog Man Sun Face to the Tru-Fi Two Face Fuzz, which puts switchable germanium and silicon Fuzz Face circuits in one pedal.

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