Tone Bender

Tone Bender is the name of several fuzzboxes. Macari's Ltd, who also own the Sola Sound Brand, and who have built and sold the pedals since 1965 now own the Tone Bender trademark.Korg used to own Tone Bender trademarks in the 1990s.

The first incarnation of the Tone Bender was a three transistor circuit based on the Gibson Maestro Fuzz-Tone. Gary Hurst, a technician, began selling these in mid-1965. By September he was selling them through the Macari brothers' Musical Exchange shops. Early incarnations were housed in wooden enclosures. Later on folded steel enclosures were used.

This version of the Tone Bender is a two transistor circuit, upon which the better known Arbiter Fuzz Face and Italian-made Vox Tone Bender are based. It is essentially a negative feedback amplifier.

Although this was de facto a second version, no version number was used on its case. To differentiate it from the MKI and MKII, it is known as the "MK1.5" today.

This successor of the original Tone Bender was available, at the latest, by February 1966. The electronics are contained in a sand-cast aluminum enclosure, with sheet metal (steel) base plate.

It was also available in different guises as Sola Sound made OEM products or prototypes for other companies such as Rotosound. Another variant was the elusive Rangemaster Fuzzbug. Little is known about this unit. As Dallas Musical Ltd. had a 'Rangemaster' brand of products at the time, it is likely it had been made for that company.

The Arbiter Fuzz Face, which was released later in 1966, is a clone of an early variant of the Tone Bender MK1.5, that featured a 500k volume pot instead of the more common 100k, providing a fuller low end. The bias point was slightly adjusted to make it less susceptible to temperature changes.

The MKII Tone Bender is a three transistor circuit based on the MKI.V version, but with an additional amplifier gain stage.

Sola Sound produced the circuit for Vox, Marshall and RotoSound as well. These units were named Vox Tone Bender Professional MKII, Marshall Supa Fuzz, RotoSound Fuzz Box. There also was a version of the short lived Rangemaster Fuzzbug containing this circuit. Other variants may exist.

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Wikipedia