#fuzz king

Unicord - FUZZ KING ad

FUZZ KING, Boomerang

"My "pedalboard" circa 1966."

"The Fuzz King, Maestro FZ-1 and others of the era used germanium transistors, which are notoriously leaky compared to silicon types. These early fuzzes used this leaky characteristic to create enough voltage across the base resistor of Q3 to turn it on sufficiently to produce glorious fuzz tones.

The Fuzz King uses a 3.3K ohm base resistor which is too low to create enough voltage to turn on Q3 sufficiently, unless Q3 is extremely leaky, like in Drew's unit. The Q3 in mine is on the low end of the "leak range" and would barely turn on.

What I did was to put a 20K ohm trim pot in series with the 3.3K base resistor. Then I could increase the base resistance (and thus the base voltage) with the trimmer until Q3 "came to the party". It's not the only way to do it, but it worked well in my case.

Amplifier Corp. Of America,  Westbury NY - Fuzz King 

“ ... someone has replaced the instrument cord with a 1/4'' jack, missing two screws on the bottom, battery compartment has corrosion “