Keeley Custom Shop Mosrite FUZZrite recreation

The Keeley Custom Shop Mosrite FUZZrite recreation is a hand-built fuzz pedal from Robert Keeley's Custom Shop that copies the 1960s Mosrite FUZZrite, a fuzz pedal fuzz from the first wave of the effect. Keeley's shop describes it as a "dead on copy of the Mosrite FUZZrite", built with the original transistors, and adds one thing the original never had: a Boost Mode that Keeley says "really makes this monster fuzz piece".¹

What it does

The FUZZrite was one of the fuzz designs of the mid sixties, made in germanium and silicon versions², and Keeley's recreation aims to put that voicing on a modern board. The pedal runs on the original transistor types, which matters for a fuzz: the character of a vintage fuzz circuit depends heavily on its transistors. The added Boost Mode is the one departure from the original design, giving players a louder, pushed-in setting alongside the stock fuzz voice.¹

Keeley announced the recreation on 8 June 2023, noting at that time that about half of the run had already sold out.¹

Where the Fuzzrite came from

The original was built by the Californian guitar company Mosrite, after a request from the rock instrumental group The Ventures, and was designed by Ed Sanner in Bakersfield, CA.³⁴ Early production was remarkably primitive: on some versions the components were soldered directly to one another, without printed tracks, eyelets or turrets, and by around 1967 to 1968 the Fuzzrites were being assembled on a smaller eyelet board.⁵

The circuit did not stay exclusive to Mosrite for long. The silicon version was whitelabeled or cloned as the Orpheum Fuzz, the Guild Foxey Lady and the Electro-Harmonix Axis Fuzz⁶, and the Mosrite-made Foxey Lady was, according to Kit Rae's history, "actually the same fuzz pedal as Mosrite's own FUZZ-rite pedal, with a Germanium transistor"⁷. JHS Pedals' history of Jimi Hendrix's gear likewise calls the Guild Foxey Lady "a Mosrite Fuzzrite clone".⁸

Fuzzrite recreations and alternatives

Keeley's Custom Shop build is not the only way players chase this circuit. General Guitar Gadgets sells a Mosrite Fuzzrite replica as a DIY project, available as a complete kit or as a multi-use PCB labeled "SECF", with the kit including all the parts and materials needed to build one. General Guitar Gadgets describes the tone as "Raw and awesome!" and notes it has "a very good 'Spirit In The Sky' fuzz sound".⁹ Builders such as Hudson Electronics have also worked with the all-germanium Fuzzrite design from the mid sixties.¹⁰