GMR BC Bender Handwired Fuzz Pedal

GMR BC Bender Hand Wired Fuzz Pedal The Tone Bender was designed by Gary Hurst in the early sixties. It was based on the design of the Gibson Maestro Fuzz (as used by Keith Richards on 'Satisfaction' by the rolling stones). Gary designed fuzz pedals for most of the British amplifier companies around at the time as well as his own brands 'Colorsound' and 'Sola Sound'. The GMR BC Bender is based on the Vox Tone Bender circuit which to Tone Bender fans is known as the "MK1.5". The circuit was also manufactured for Dallas Arbiter under the name 'Rangemaster Fuzzbug' and was the basis of the circuit design for the much better known 'Fuzz Face' also made by Dallas Arbiter. Essentially the difference between the Fuzz Face and GMR BC Bender is that the BC Bender works equally well with Humbucker/P90 loaded guitars as it does with Single Coil Fender type pickups. It has been spoken about numerous times that Fuzz Face pedals do not mix well with Humbuckers. The Fuzz intensity and volume go right down this is not the case with the BC Bender. On designing and researching a vintage style fuzz pedal there were aspects that I wanted to change and aspects I wanted to stay the same. I wanted the pedal to be designed as if I were a manufacturer of the time but with a crystal ball that told me where things would go. Here are some examples of my design process and thoughts. 1, Although old fuzz pedals look really cool in there giant oversized cases they often take up to much space on a pedal board. This is probably due to none of the manufacturers in the 60's imagining that people would have multiple pedals or a board in which they were placed. I wanted the case to be in keeping with the vintage design so chose the Eddystone designed case made by Hammond which would have been manufactured in that late 60's/ early 70's time period in the UK. 2, Pedals of the time all ran on batteries which is impractical. Most guitarists have pedal boards with power supplies to accompany them. However it is a fact that vintage style fuzz pedals sound better using batteries. This is due to 9v batteries giving out below 9v when attached to a circuit, but most power supplies giving above 9v when attached to a circuit. The BC Bender reduces the voltage coming from your power supply into the pedal. It is fixed in the sweet spot for the best overall tone. No more batteries! 3, Most mid 60's electronics were made utilising point to point hand wiring. Many high end boutique pedal makers use tag board meant for amplifiers which is to large to fit in a smaller more practical pedal size. I decided to make my own based on the same principles and from materials freely available in the era. Taking inspiration from Leo Fender I decided to use Vulcanised Fibre board as he did on his pickups and amplifiers. This means I can miniaturise the tag board design to fit in a smaller case whist keeping the same components. No PCB's or Vero board. Just point to point hand wired goodness! 4, None of the pedals of the 60's/ early 70's have an LED indicators to tell you whether the effect is on or off. This can be confusing when using multiple pedals meaning you have to do a few test strums to make sure you don't have a raging fuzz tone at the beginning of a ballad or a squeaky clean tone at the start of your stoner rock masterpiece. The BC Bender utilises the switches used in modern pedals so you can have complete true bypass switching and an LED to tell you if you are on or off. 5, The BC Bender uses Silicon transistors. In the mid to late 60's fuzz pedals used Germanium transistor which people believe several myths about. One myth being that Silicon transistors don't clean up when using your guitars volume control. As my video and Pete Townsend's performance at Woodstock show, this is false. Silicon transistors are consistent unlike germanium transistors which vary wildly. You can buy them new from the manufacturer rather than "new old stock" which may have been stored in a shed or loft for the last 50 years and could fail at anytime. In your kit 1 x Eddystone design Case 1 x 3PDT Footswitch 2 x Mono Jack Socket 1 x 2.1mm Power Jack Socket 1 x 5mm LED Holder and Orange 5mm LED 1 x Double Stick Foam Pad 4 x Rubber Feet 1 x GMR Miniature tag board 1 x Potentiometers 2 x Potentiometer Knobs 2 x Film Capacitors 1 x Electrolytic Capacitor 6 x Resistors 2 x BC109C Transistors 14 x Lengths of Wire 1 x Length of Heat Shrink You'll be given the componants and a detailed set of instructions emailed to you. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252538203684?var=&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649