The Dirt Box is a distortion pedal made by Maxon in 1976 and sold in the United States under no brand name at all: the enclosure simply reads The Dirt Box. It is a rarity in the distortion world for two reasons, its missing branding and the fact that two different circuits hide inside what looks like the same pedal. TONEHOME, the vintage effects reference, describes it as an Ibanez/Maxon-made distortion pedal and notes that "there are some legends around this pedal since it is unbranded, just called The Dirt Box."1
Two circuits in one unbranded box
The central oddity of The Dirt Box is that the same-looking enclosure was built around two different circuits. TONEHOME identifies a standard version based on the Ibanez OD-855 Overdrive II, recognizable only once the pedal is opened: "the pcb copper side states clearly MP-D0701, which means it is an OD-855 Overdrive II." A rarer variant instead carries the OD-850 circuit on board MP-D0501, "namely an OD-850 in disguise."1
From the outside the two are identical. As TONEHOME puts it, "You cannot tell the difference from the outward - both are just labelled The Dirt Box."1
| Version | Circuit inside | PCB number | How common |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Ibanez OD-855 Overdrive II | MP-D0701 | the version TONEHOME calls standard1 |
| Rare variant | Ibanez OD-850 | MP-D0501 | described as a rare variant1 |
The circuits behind it are part of the first wave of Ibanez/Maxon overdrives. The OD-850 shares its circuit with a Maxon counterpart: Kit Rae's history of vintage pedals states that "Other than the enclosures, the original OD-850 is exactly the same circuit as the Maxon OD-801 counterpart."3 TONEHOME separately records five different versions of the OD-855 narrow box, the family The Dirt Box's standard version belongs to.4
A short life in the US market
The Dirt Box was on sale in the United States for a short period in 1976, and TONEHOME records that it met with little success.2 That short run is the likely reason for its scarcity today: the same reference flatly calls the pedal RARE.1 For a player hunting vintage gear, that combination of brief availability and no brand name means examples surface infrequently and are easy to misidentify.
One clue to dating a particular unit sits on the enclosure itself. On the edge of the pedal there is a kind of model number, No.15451, which TONEHOME takes to be likely a Sears Roebuck & Co. catalog number.1 The reference's own example also carries a misspelling: "the 'Amplifer' misspelling on the left edge, which I could not find on other Dirt Boxes I came across. Thus mine seems" to belong to a pre-production run, in the author's reading.1
Because the two versions are outwardly identical, a Dirt Box's true identity is only settled by opening it up and reading the PCB number: MP-D0701 for the OD-855 circuit, MP-D0501 for the OD-850.1
Questions
Is The Dirt Box made by Maxon?
Yes. TONEHOME, the vintage effects reference, states that it is quite obviously a Maxon-made pedal, and dates it to 1976. It carries no brand marking of its own, which is why it is known simply as The Dirt Box. It is closely related to the Ibanez OD-850 and OD-855 Overdrive II, which Maxon also built, and one version of The Dirt Box uses the same circuit board as the OD-850.
Can you tell an OD-850 Dirt Box from an OD-855 one by looking?
No. TONEHOME says you cannot tell the difference from the outside, because both versions are labelled The Dirt Box. The only way to know which circuit is inside is to look at the printed circuit board: the OD-850 version carries the board number MP-D0501, while the OD-855 Overdrive II version states MP-D0701 on the copper side of the board.
How rare is The Dirt Box?
TONEHOME describes the pedal as RARE. It was on sale in the United States for a short period in 1976 with little success, according to the same reference, so few were made and fewer survive. Examples turn up with legends attached because of their unbranded appearance.
What does the Amplifer misspelling on The Dirt Box mean?
Some examples carry the word Amplifer, misspelled, on the left edge of the enclosure. TONEHOME's author could not find this misspelling on other Dirt Boxes he had come across, and takes it to suggest that his example belongs to a pre-production run. It is a clue to when a particular unit was made, not a feature.
Sources (4)
- TONEHOME, TONEHOME - the World of Vintage Guitar Effects Pedals
- TONEHOME, TONEHOME, 1976
- The Big Muff History, www.kitrae.net, 2017-01
- TONEHOME, TONEHOME
