Tone Bender MkII

The circuit didn’t sit still. Early in 1966 came a version people now call the MkI.5, with only two transistors, in a sandcast aluminium box. Then, a few months later, Hurst went back the other way.

The MkII put the third transistor back, as an extra gain stage in front of the other two. That matters more than it sounds. Each stage pushes the signal harder into the next, so by the end your guitar comes out saturated, thick with overtones, and holding on to the note. Flick had asked for sustain. Here it was, with interest.

The transistors were germanium, usually Mullard OC75s, with a few OC81Ds turning up in surviving units. The controls were the same pair as before, Level and Attack: how loud, and how much fuzz. Black chicken-head knobs, a cast aluminium case, “Sola Sound” printed on top. The paint varied, so don’t trust anyone who tells you there’s one true colour.

Date codes on surviving units put it somewhere in the middle or end of 1966. In November the advert ran in Beat Instrumental, with the pedal’s full name across the top:

Professional MK II: Tone Bender Electronic Fuzz Unit

And underneath, a credit: a Gary Hurst design. The Macaris owned the brand. Hurst’s name was on the circuit.

A good fuzz circuit got around in 1966, and Sola Sound didn’t only sell it under its own name. It built the MkII for Vox, as the Vox Tone Bender Professional MkII, for Marshall, as the Supa Fuzz, and for Rotosound, as its Fuzz Box. Early Vox units were Sola Sound pedals underneath, some with the brand name crudely covered up. Vox later made its own version in Italy.

The Marshall Supa Fuzz had identical specs to the Sola Sound pedal. Same circuit, different badge, built alongside the Sola Sound ones.

The run didn’t last long. Sola Sound’s MkII stayed in production until early 1968, and then the circuit moved on again, to a MkIII with a tone control.

By then the pedal had found its player. Jimmy Page used a MkII through his time on guitar in the Yardbirds and into the early days of Led Zeppelin.

Which brings you to Olympic Studios in the autumn of 1968, where Zeppelin made their first album. Page’s chain is simple to say: his Telecaster, the main guitar on that record, into the MkII, into a Supro amp. What comes out is a fat, throaty midrange.

Put on “Dazed and Confused” and listen to how the guitar sits right in the middle of everything, not bright, not boomy, just huge. Then “How Many More Times,” the album’s closing track, same rig. “You Shook Me” has it too. The record came out in January 1969, and the first Zeppelin album is loaded with MkII.

The Sola Sound name still sits with the Macari name. Macari’s has owned the brand, and the Tone Bender trademark in the UK and Europe, since 2007.

What you hear on that first Zeppelin record is three germanium transistors and two knobs, in a box a London shop sold to working players. There was no grand plan behind it.

Flick only wanted a bit more sustain. Page took it, plugged in a Telecaster and a Supro, and held the note for an entire album.