D*A*M Forum

vanguard wrote: ↑Sat Mar 27, 2021 4:13 pm Nice to see you over here, Ryan! That old Vox is a real standout--gets dangerously close to my old MK1.5, but with stronger mids.

Fuzzpop wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:30 pm Longtime lurker, but with the heavyweights over here I wanted my first post to be a good one.

Picked this one up from Matt/vanguard. My first vintage fuzz purchase and I'm am beyond stoked. To hold a piece of fuzz history is pretty cool, especially since I've played replicas of these great pedals for so long.

And because I wasn't going to make anything easy on Matt, I also had him make a BEC replica of this one with the bigger output cap and all.

Cool details: Bigger .01uF output cap and a *black* SFT 363

Good to see you too, Matt! Love seeing all the gutshots of these old classics. Finally have one to post myself!

Here's guts of my black Jen and silver Vox. Slightly different component values, Jen is a lot brighter, louder and hairier. What makes the Vox unique is that the output pot measures 500k as opposed to the nominal value of 50k thats stamped on the case. So it basically sounds like a mean Fuzz Face. I tried with 47k and 100k resistors in parallel with the pot and it brings the bass down to a stock levels but the high end is still a lot more mellow. But I kind of like it with all that bass Wonder if the pot was mislabeled at the factory or something? I opened it and cleaned it (it has some of its carbon trace worn out completely) but that shouldn't affect the total resistance. Vox is the in between model with the silver outlining on the face plate.

My black Vox also has a volume pot that reads above 1 Meg and in my opinion it sounds like ass that way. Right now it'ts bridged with a resistor as I haven't got around to changing it, but I feel that the higher value takes out the signature rattle of the Italian Vox. And it's exactly the wear and deterioration of the track that makes the value of the pot go up.

Yeah higher value pot definitely mellows out that zingy high end. I don't mind a little extra bass but that high end needs to be there. Ended up changing the pot to get the snarl back.

Found a good deal at a local shop last week on this vintage box of fuzzy goodness. I have yet to find photos of another like it online… this one has the early hammertone gray enclosure with the later silver face/control plate. Other than having to reflow some solder on a loose connection and clean the slightly scratchy pots, she runs well and is in pretty good shape. Sounds glorious! Anyone else see this combo before? Likely it was somewhere in the transition phase between the two styles and they just used up the remaining enclosures, me thinks. Thanks for an awesome thread (and forum)!

What a super cool looking pedal! Thanks for sharing — I've never seen one like this before.

IMO it doesn't fit into the timeline as a "transitional" version though. The serial number on the bottom plate (and the scrawl inside the enclosure, below the switch) date the enclosure closer to the earlier end of production. The mixture of caps & resistors on the board, however, are consistent with what was being built into the later black Tone Benders.

I couldn't say why, but your pedal looks to be a funky fusion between two Italian Tone Benders from very different eras.

Fascinating… a more extreme chasm between the two eras than I had thought. Thanks for the insight!

Whoa!
That's crazy