DPE Pedals Buzz Tone

The DPE Pedals Buzz Tone is a germanium fuzz pedal that recreates the Selmer Buzz Tone, a British fuzz from the 1960s. Delicious Audio, which profiled the pedal in March 2022, describes it as "a clone of a fuzz pedal the '60s", built with NOS hand-selected germanium transistors and hand-selected, high-quality components¹.

DPE did not copy the old circuit exactly. According to Delicious Audio, the modified circuitry gives a smoother response throughout the gain ranges, and an updated power section reduces floor noise at high gain while helping keep voltages stable¹.

Controls and the voltage selector

The Buzz Tone's standout control is its voltage selector switch, which offers three circuit voltages: 3V, 6V and 9V¹. Delicious Audio describes the switch as offering "two different headroom settings" across its positions¹. Lowering the circuit voltage starves the germanium transistors, which changes how the fuzz breaks up; 9V gives the transistors their full supply. The original Selmer Buzz Tone ran at 3V, so the lowest setting is closest to how the vintage unit behaved³.

The same control appears on other versions of the circuit. PedalPCB's DIY Buzz Tone Fuzz PCB, a build-it-yourself board of the same design, lists a Voltage toggle that "Selects 3V, 6V, or 9V mode", alongside a Volume control for output volume and a Depth control for the amount of fuzz⁴.

Power and bypass

The pedal takes its power from a 9V DC power jack of the Boss style, the standard center-negative barrel connector used by most pedalboard power supplies¹. The voltage selector changes the circuit voltage internally, not the adapter you plug in.

It is true bypass, so the guitar signal passes around the circuit when the pedal is off, and it uses a soft click footswitch rather than a heavy mechanical one¹. The BLAMMO! Electronics P2P Buzz Tone, another modern take on the circuit, is also true bypass and uses a high-quality low-profile 3PDT footswitch⁵.

Where the circuit came from: the Selmer Buzz Tone

The original Selmer Buzz Tone is a British fuzz pedal that was presented at the British Musical Instrument Industries Trade Fair in August 1966⁶. Fuzzboxes.org notes that it was "both visually and electronically inspired by its American counterpart", the Gibson Maestro Fuzz-Tone, and that Selmer had already been offering the Maestro Fuzz-Tone to the British market before the surge in demand for fuzz boxes in 1965⁶. Its basic fuzz circuit was later redesigned and found its way into Selmer's Fuzz-wah pedal, introduced in 1968⁶.

The Selmer original has a rough reputation. GuitarPlayer's history of rare British fuzzboxes calls it "a rare pedal, and there's a reason so few of them have survived: they sound terrible!"⁷

That reputation is the context for DPE's approach: Delicious Audio quotes the maker's aim as having "took the old-school Selmer Buzz Tone and recreated a version that not only sounds better, but reacts better"¹.

Other pedals with the Buzz Tone name

The Buzz Tone name has appeared on several other pedals, and they are not all the same circuit.

• The Jext Telez Buzz Tone, reviewed by Pedal of the Day in 2018, is a germanium fuzz using "vintage and era-correct germanium transistors", which the reviewer found also had "trace elements of overdrive packed right in"².
• The Jordan Buzz Tone is a different animal entirely: RockBoard's PedalPedia describes it as a remake of the Jordan Boss Tone in pedal form, built by Mahoney Guitar Gear⁸. Guitar Pedal X reports the revived Jordan range includes a Buzz Tone based on the 1967 original, listed at $100 as of April 2025⁹.
• The BLAMMO! Electronics P2P Buzz Tone is a point-to-point built version of the circuit⁵.
• PedalPCB's Buzz Tone Fuzz is a DIY PCB for players who want to build the circuit themselves⁴.

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