1966 History

The Italian two-transistor king of the bee's.

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The Captain
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1966 History

Post by The Captain »

Thought I should pull my finger out my ass and provide a bit more history on the goods. I'll start at the top, with the 1966, and work through all of the D*A*M range past and present.

Thought it might be of interest and also could come in handy for pricing and what not.

Just laying down the bare bones for now but I''ll go over each of the sections and compile notes like I've done with the first 1966.

No#1, August 2003
  • One-off "horse" decal
    Dry letter transfers used for labeling
    Supplied with a set off AC128's and a set of OC76's
    Blue LED
    DC socket
    Side mounted Switchcraft jacks
    Horizontal mounted circuit board
    Matrix board construction
    Over sized components
    Side mounted metal toggle switch
    Input bias trimmer
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No #2 January 2004
  • Baby Pink Eddystone enclosure
    Dry letter transfers used for labeling
    Green LED
    DC socket
    Supplied with a set off AC128's and a set of OC76's
    Socketed output capacitor
    Side mounted Cliff Jacks
    Q2 bias trimmer & input bias trimmer
    Matrix board construction
    Constructed to match the Dragonfly's made at that time
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Image

No#3-4 March 2004
  • As No#1 but converted to Negative ground
    No "horse" decal
    No#3 was silver/grey Hammerite, No#4 pictured
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No#5 June 2004
  • Numbered as 004 but it was actually 005!
    Low set knobs
    Top mounted Cliff jacks
    Eaton Cutler Hammer DPDT switch (the best!)
    No LED
    No DC
    2 x OC76
    New board layout
    Stripboard construction
    Tone Control over "Super Bee" switch
    Constructed to match the Pro MKII's made at that time
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Image

No#6-10 October/November 2004
  • As above but with high set knobs & Carling DPDT footswitch
    No#6 was silver/grey Hammerite that I originally made for myself (later traded) possibly had a side mounted tone control in the same position as the Super Bee switch.
    No#7 (pictured) was the 1st 1966 to have the rotary switch for the Super Bee switching
    No#8 was original made without the Super Bee switch but was later returned so it could be added.
    No# 9-10 as No#7
    The above all had slight differences in the decals as they were all hand applied with dry letter transfers, one letter at a time, so some the types of font varied depending on what transfers sheets I had to hand. My local stationary store was selling off all their stock of transfer sheets so I bought whatever was on sale that week that looked "retro" :hihi:
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No#11 - 84-ish / December 2004 - June 2006
  • The all seeing eye years :-D
    As above but with new artwork applied by a single water slide decal & switchcraft jacks
    No#11-12 had 2 x OC76
    No#13 Was the first 1966 to have the mixed transistor set-up. AC128 for Q1, OC76 for Q2
    No#20 was the Mini 1966 shown below.
    AC128's or AC128K's were used for Q1. AC128 has the square heatsink, as shown.
    No#27 was the first 1966 to have the AC128K
    No#34 - 8? used a SFT device in Q1. (like shown on the custom purple 1966 board) Originally SFT337 but also other SFT types were used, SFT353 etc.
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2004

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2006

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Oddity's...No#20 April 2005
  • Pedal borad friendly 1966
    AC128 and OC76
    Filter control, same as the type used on the Drag'n'fly
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No#49 February 2006
  • Custom purple paint job
    SFT337 and Mullard OC76, exact replica of the first Vox Tone Bender I had for reference purposes
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No#85-ish - 179 / June 2006 - present day, 2008
  • Okay, so my notes get a little thin come 2006 as we were headlong in selling to dealers and I only really made a note of where they went and only occasionally what transistors were inside.
    From pedal #82 (June 2006) - #138 (September 2007) there are no notes on the transistors. I'd assume the main stay would have been a SFT353 & an OC76.

    No#82 - 89 final assembly by Linzi

    No#95 - 109 made by Dave & Linzi

    Transistor notes begin again at:

    No#139 - 151 OC81 & OC75
    No#156 - 158 OC75's
    No#159 No battery drawer
    No# 160 - 171 Mullard OC76's
    No#172 - 177 AC125 & OC76
    No#178 -179 Mullard OC76's

    The 8K2 resistor was replaced with a Trimmer pot at some point in 2007?!....I don't know when :badteeth:
2006

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2008

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pigeontoe
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Re: 1966 History

Post by pigeontoe »

That is fantastic. Thanks for taking the time to post all that info and fuzz porn.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.
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Mr. Maestro
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Re: 1966 History

Post by Mr. Maestro »

Great stuff, Captain! Looking forward to the updates.

I was wondering if you could eventually elaborate a bit on the five 1966s that you built with the NKT OC75 and Mullard OC81 transistor combo. I have one of them, and it sounds fucking great!! :freakout: However, I have never had the opportunity to check any other versions out so I'm not sure how they compare. What was your reason/inspiration for using this combo and how would you say it differs sound wise form some of the other combos?

I think you mentioned some of this in the auction but I can seem to find it.
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mrpicard
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Re: 1966 History

Post by mrpicard »

Excellent :-)

Dave, I notice that you have said that the enclosure with the Seeing-Eye ran from "No#11 - 90-ish / December 2004 - November 2006". However, I have found pedal number 85 that was done by Linzi (unusual in itself) that was made in June 2006 that does not have the Seeing-Eye logo on it. Therefore, you may have phased out the Seeing-Eye enclosure for the 1966 before November 2006. Is that correct or is pedal 85 kind of an anomaly?
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The Captain
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Re: 1966 History

Post by The Captain »

Cheers Mr. P!! :party:

I knew you could shed light on the matter. I have it down as "90-ish" because I don't actually know for sure when the screened 1966 enclosures replaced the seeing eye decal enclosures.
It was a crazy busy time for us then, we were suppling dealers left right and centre so my notes are not as indepth as with the early pedals. It was a case of the screened enclosures came in and we jumped right into getting them out to stores.

I've corrected the above. So, for now we'll say 85 is one of first non-seeing eye screened 1966's until we find otherwise....

btw - 1966's made by Miss Haynes are very rare indeed, nice find :fu:
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SBlue
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Re: 1966 History

Post by SBlue »

thank you so much for the history on the 1966 David!
The 1966 is becoming my favorite fuzz pedal(including my whole collection!), and I can't see to stop using it all the time.
Here is a small sample using the 1966 and a Zeke I have:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=59

Hope you like.
SBlue
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mrpicard
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Re: 1966 History

Post by mrpicard »

The Captain wrote:I knew you could shed light on the matter...I've corrected the above. So, for now we'll say 85 is one of first non-seeing eye screened 1966's until we find otherwise....btw - 1966's made by Miss Haynes are very rare indeed, nice find
Thank you very much for that. Give me a call whenever you want to know what else you did in the past as I still have all the surveillance tapes :D So far I have only come across one 1966 made Miss H but the search goes on...
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d4niel
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Re: 1966 History

Post by d4niel »

Wow, pedal porn freakout! :shocked: Definitely a milestone post, maybe these history posts should be stickies?
What was the story behind the horse decal on the 1966 No#1 by the way? :geek:
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The Captain
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Re: 1966 History

Post by The Captain »

Updated and now sticky :fu:
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mrpicard
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Re: 1966 History

Post by mrpicard »

Hi Dave, I have some information on the 1966 History in this thread D*A*M Pedal Descriptions. I was wondering if you could take all the 1966 transistor photos I have in my thread and incorporate it into your thread? Once that is done I can remove the 1966 section from my thread. :-)
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