Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson is a Grammy-winning guitarist from Austin, Texas, who took the music world by storm with his 1986 album Tones and the 1990 follow-up Ah Via Musicom¹. Guitar World calls him "famous for his refined tonal palette and discerning selection of effects," and notes that he relied on vintage Fuzz Faces for years². Radial Engineering's artist page credits him as a Grammy award winner and a five-time Guitar Player "Best Guitarist" winner³. For a player building a board, his rig is interesting less for its size than for its logic: a small set of effects, each chosen for one specific job, spread across three separate amp setups.

Known for a refined tonal palette

Johnson's reputation as a tone chaser is not just press shorthand. Dunlop's own history desk calls him "arguably the biggest tone chaser of all time" and notes that he keeps an MXR Digital Time Delay on his pedalboard to this day⁸. His approach to amps makes the point clearly: he prefers tube amps over digital modelers and runs three distinct amp setups, each selected for one of three tones⁷.

His delay placement follows the same one-job-per-piece thinking. In a 2012 Guitar World interview he laid out the split:

Beyond the delays, he described the rest of the board in the same interview plainly: "it's a chorus, a tube drive and the Fuzz Face"¹. The tube drive is the AC-powered Chandler tube driver, a pedal Analog Man spent years trying to find good versions of on Johnson's behalf⁹. On the Experience Hendrix tour in 2008, his normal board carried the big Tube Driver, an Echoplex and an old Fuzz Face¹⁰.

His pickiness extends to individual units of the same pedal. Analog Man's Tube Screamer page recounts that, per Guitar Player's October 1992 distortion issue, Johnson went through about 15 original TS-9s before he found a couple that he liked¹¹. He has also used tape echo preamps alone, without the echo, as a dirty boost to overload amps and make them saturate¹², and Catalinbread notes he ran his Echoplex before his BK Butler Tube Driver, preferring the sound of a saturated echo¹³. Boss's own article site names him among players who use delay pedals for fingerstyle acoustic guitar¹⁴.

The Fuzz Face and the Dunlop signature model

Where it started

Johnson's connection to the Fuzz Face goes back to childhood. He first heard one while listening to Jimi Hendrix at about age twelve and bought one as soon as he could⁵.

Dunlop's artist page carries the same endorsement, with Johnson calling the Fuzz Face Distortion and the Jazz III pick "indispensable elements of his signature sound"⁵. General Guitar Gadgets notes he is known to use a silicon transistor version of the Fuzz Face with excellent tone results¹⁵, and a 2001 ToneQuest Report interview republished by Analog Man confirms the silicon Fuzz Face as one of the pedals Analog Mike hunted good examples of for him⁹.

One detail of his vintage sound has become part of the lore: Delicious Audio reports that his signature sound came from running his Fuzz Face off a partially-drained 9-volt battery¹⁶. There is also a service history behind the scenes. Dave Fox, in a history piece on Analog Man's site, says Johnson later sent him a post card thanking him for helping him get his FF to sound good¹⁷.

The Eric Johnson Signature Fuzz Face

By 2012, Johnson wanted his signature sound available on a consistent basis regardless of the venue, and Dunlop released the Eric Johnson Signature Fuzz Face to answer that¹. The pedal was first shown at Winter NAMM in January 2012², announced alongside the MXR M77 Custom Badass Modified OD and the Way Huge Red Llama Overdrive¹⁸. Its release was celebrated with a giveaway Dunlop ran with Fender⁴.

Johnson worked closely with Fuzz Face designer Jeorge Tripps to create the pedal¹⁹⁴. What came out of that collaboration:

• Hand-selected BC183 silicon transistors, chosen for higher gain⁴¹⁹
• Custom reproduction '68-'69 knobs¹⁹
• A vintage-style hammertone finish¹⁹
• A circuit inspired by Johnson's prized personal Fuzz Faces, built to his specifications⁴²⁰

Guitar World reported that Dunlop set out to create a Fuzz Face that recreated the vintage sounds of Johnson's pedals while delivering modern consistency². Both Guitar World and Guitar Interactive described the result as "a beautifully dynamic, expressive, and powerful pedal"⁴¹⁹.

How it differs from a stock Fuzz Face

The differences are in the parts and the intent. Where the standard Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Face Distortion recreates the Dallas Arbiter unit Hendrix used in the late '60s with modern features such as a status LED, true-bypass switching, a 9-volt power jack and a pedalboard-friendly housing²¹, the Johnson model is voiced from Johnson's own late-'60s units rather than a general vintage benchmark²¹⁹. The BC183 silicon transistors are the headline spec, selected by hand for higher gain⁴. A technical analysis at GuitarPCB adds that Johnson seems to prefer a 100KΩ level resistor over the stock 500KΩ, which cuts more lows (f c = 160Hz) and results in a brighter sound²².

The pedal has since taken on a life of its own in the DIY world. Madbean Pedals' Violenzz project is closely based on the EJF1, and its documentation points to "the highly compressed fuzz sound for which EJ is so famous"²³. That same page passes along a playing tip straight from the source: rolling off the volume on the guitar yields another tonal variety, and EJ does this constantly in his playing²³.

Johnson himself has settled the question of which one he uses now. In the 2012 Guitar World interview he said: "I've sold all my original Fuzz Faces except one I don't use. I use the new Fuzz Face"¹.

Stereo chorus from Analog Man

Johnson's chorus story runs through Analog Man, the vintage effects operation Mike Piera began under that name in 1993. Piera says he had been working with Johnson for many years¹⁰, and the stereo version of the Analog Man Chorus exists because of him:

The Analog Man Chorus is based on the Electro-Harmonix Small Clone, which the company's manual calls "one of the best chorus pedals ever made, with lush, bright, shimmering tones"²⁴. It is offered in a true stereo version and a mini version²⁴. On the standard pedal you plug the guitar in on the right (IN) and the amp on the left (OUT)²⁴; on the stereo version it is true stereo, and either output can be used in mono, though the top output is the normal one²⁴. The stereo option costs $50 extra on a new standard chorus or Bichorus pedal⁶.

Johnson's chorus tastes also connect him to rack history. Premier Guitar's review of the TC Electronic Stereo Chorus Flanger notes that the pedal, with architecture dating to 1976, "has consistently satisfied persnickety tone hounds like Eric Johnson"²⁵.

Picks, boosts and the rest of the board

The Jazz III pick is the other half of Johnson's signature pairing with Dunlop. Of his signature version he says:

His lead tone has other pieces. Radial Engineering quotes him on the Tonebone Classic: "As soon as I plugged the Tonebone Classic in, I could not believe how quiet it was"³. For echo, Guitar.com's review of the Catalinbread Belle Epoch reports that Johnson regards it as the closest alternative to a real Maestro Echoplex EP3 that money can currently buy²⁶. And in a 2024 guitar.com interview he mentioned a custom-made pedal by Bill Webb of Austin Vintage Guitars, designed together with him⁷.

At the time of that 2012 interview he was touring as a trio with Chris Maresh on bass and Wayne Salzmann on drums¹, in support of his 2010 album Up Close¹. The board he described then, a chorus, a tube drive, the Fuzz Face and three delays across three amps, is a working example of his whole philosophy: every piece earns its place for one sound, and nothing else makes the trip.

Questions