Keith Richards's SATISFACTION fuzz sound using a JHS Cheese BALL fuzz pedal

[dave davies]

I have a JHS Cheese Ball Fuzz Pedal as seen in this youtube link. I use a Fruity Loops DAW and have an amp VST Plugin.

I am trying to get that sharp fuzz sound that Keith R used on the original Rolling Stones 'Satisfaction' track.

Any advice on how to replicate it with what i have?

[Scoops]

Simple. Give Keith a call to find out what he used.

OK, can't probably do that

So, Fuzz boxes are in plentiful abundance now days with many different tones and flavors. The Cheese Ball fuzz you have might not be able to do the trick. From the video, the sounds of the Cheese Ball doesn't sound remotely close.

I'd say turn distortion and gain way low and start bumping your way up from there. If you get kinda close, adjust EQ In Fruity Loops.

Good Luck

[Cuauhtli]

Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone is what he supposedly used. I've never even heard of it, but you can find schematics online. Pretty simple circuit but the transistors I'm guessing are germanium.

[Scoops]

Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone is what he supposedly used. I've never even heard of it, but you can find schematics online. Pretty simple circuit but the transistors I'm guessing are germanium.

LOL, I started writing my response and included that there were probably only 2 fuzz stomp boxes at the time. Fuzz face and the Maestro. I made mention of germanium transistors as well, but I deleted it out.

Back in the late 90, when I was building tube guitar amps, I was venturing into stomp boxes, and if I recall correctly, some manufacturer set out to make germanium transistors again.

Gotta chuckle cuz I just went down memory lane. I had a Maestro. I rigged mine to have a 9 volt battery. It gave sustain for as long as the battery lasted. I later switched it back to the original battery (1.5 volt) I kept burning out transistors.

[Ah_Dziz]

When I think of "fuzz" the different voltage / current curves of different semiconductor materials don't really come into play too much since the amount of clipping is so severe. The various bits of filtering are the parts that always throw it off in my experience.

[Cuauhtli]

It'd be great to find new germanium transistors. I've never been keen on buying NOS or used germanium transistors or diodes.

I guess I'll breadboard one using silicon transistors and see what it sounds like. Will probably have to experiment with the resistor and capacitor values.

[dave davies]

Simple. Give Keith a call to find out what he used.

OK, can't probably do that

So, Fuzz boxes are in plentiful abundance now days with many different tones and flavors. The Cheese Ball fuzz you have might not be able to do the trick. From the video, the sounds of the Cheese Ball doesn't sound remotely close.

I'd say turn distortion and gain way low and start bumping your way up from there. If you get kinda close, adjust EQ In Fruity Loops.

Good Luck

I'm satisfied with my results.
Geddit?
Thanks yes I used the JHS and got somewhere very near to what i wanted.

[zerocrossing]

I guess Keith was using a Fender Twin back then, and this is going to be as important as the fuzz. Fuzz is doing some of the distortion, but it's also pushing the input stage of the amp, which my guess is where a lot of the bite of the sound came from. So, I'd probably keep the gain fairly mid to low, the tone in the middle, and try the volume fairly high.

[Cuauhtli]

https://stompboxschematics.com/circuits ... tar-mania/

There's a schematic there for a Master Fuzz. Some folks say that is the closest to the Maestro fz-1 they've heard.

I couldn't get the FZ-1 to work with silicon transistors as is. I need to get out my old transistor textbook to recall how to bias transistors. I've gotten used to just following schematics/