Step on it

>> A Montreal boutique pedal builder helps
guitarists from all over the world
find that warm, classic sound

KING OF FUZZ AND TONE: Mike Milcetic

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Guitar pedals are one of the most important steps for the six-string slinger chasing the elusive holy grail of tone. Arguably, most of the tone still comes from the fingers, but pedals can aid the guitarist’s sculpting his or her own signature sound and have become essential tools for any musician.

Guitar pedals were introduced right when Leo Fender popularized the first electric guitar in 1949 with the DeArmond tremolo unit. Thanks to early primal recording techniques, the first actual guitar effect could be attributed to an overloaded pre-amp channel on a recording console, as heard on early Chess blues records. But one of the first distorted guitars to have a big impact was in 1964, on the ultra fab “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks. Guitarist Dave Davies made an incision in his speaker cones with a razor blade in an effort to emulate the distorted sound of T-Bone Walker. Soon, kids were shredding their speakers nationwide.

That same year, much to speaker companies’ chagrin, fuzz pedals were soon designed and built by early pioneers like Roger Mayer and others trying to emulate these rude and rough sounds.

By the late ’60s and ’70s, guitar pedals were in full swing. A flurry of designers and electronic engineers soon became known as “the bucket brigade,” named after the buckets that housed the transistors and capacitors. By the ’80s, the pedal revolution fell upon dark days, as digital technology eclipsed the good ol’ days of fuzz, with most production outsourced to Japan.

These boxes were now crammed with cheaper parts, and computer manufacturing replaced hand soldering. These digital effects were cold and lifeless and were simply not as musical as the effects they were trying to emulate. Thus a collector’s market was created for the old effects, driving the prices for the original pieces way past the affordability of the working guitarist.

Dawn of the new builder

With increased prices and limited availability, a new breed of bedroom builders began to surface in the ’90s. Armed with the schematics of popular effects like Fuzz Face, Univibe, Rangemaster and Octavia, the new builders were able to recreate the sounds of yesteryear without the collector’s item price tag. Using the earlier, simpler designs as a prototype, builders added current advancements in technology, which made these recreations even better than the vintage units they were based on.

One of the early builders who got his foot in the door just before the big boutique pedal boom was Montreal’s Mike Milcetic, from MJM Guitar Fx. His introduction to the now thriving boutique market began innocently enough; he just wanted to make sure he wouldn’t lose his sound if anything happened to his vintage Fuzz Face.

“I guess, like any guitarist I just wanted to have two of everything,” says Milcetic. “I had always been interested in electronics, and the design seemed simple enough. And after months of tweaking, by changing different values of capacitors, I was able to get the sound really close.”

Milcetic quickly realized he may have something to offer but was initially met with resistance at local music stores around town. But thanks to a bevy of guitar noodling nerds (such as myself) that populate guitar effect message boards and forums, Milcetic’s reputation as an expert builder and serious sonic engineer was quickly galvanized.

SIXTIES VIBES: More MJM Guitar FX pedals

Crank it or spank it

Soon Milcetic would give up his job as a mild-mannered NDG librarian and spend the next decade huffing up solder fumes while barely keeping up with the insatiable demand for his pedals.

“It really takes up a lot of time, and it’s not just building the pedals,” he says. ”I’m still a one-man operation and there are a lot of things to do—like sourcing out stock parts, updating the Web site, matching transistors for a consistency of sound, painting boxes, shipping and taking orders.

“I think most boutique builders put a lot of attention into quality, because if they don’t, they won’t last long in this business. I like to stand behind every pedal that I make, so I have to make sure they are the best they can be before they leave my workbench. When I finish a pedal and test it, I have to ask myself ‘Would I buy this?’”

With over 5,000 MJM Guitar Fx pedals now below the toes of pro guitarists and bedroom bashers all over the world, Michael Milcetic’s simple business plan is making its mark.

“That original Fuzz Face that I bought here in Montreal at Marrazza’s music store in the early ’80s for $25 is now going for over $1,000 on eBay. Not to slam the big pedal companies, but people are always going to want that old, warm sound that they associate with the classic bands. And something that is built by hand just sounds that much better and is that much more special. As long as people are going to be chasing that old sound, there will always be people like me filling that niche.”

But this one goes to 11…

>> Pedal breakdown

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

From the day I first heard the raunch of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, I have spent more time chasing after guitar tone on guitar pedal message boards and forums than I would care to admit. Along the way, I have amassed a stack of stomp boxes both vintage and boutique, including numerous MJM boxes of electronic magic. Below are reviews of four MJM Guitar Fx models. These reviews are, of course, subjective, but if some of them pique the geek in you, I would encourage any guitarist to check out sound files on MJM’s Web site at www.mjmguitarfx.com.

Blues Devil
The Blues Devil is known for adding dirt to a clean guitar tone, and in this review was compared with an example of the original design it was based on, an Ibanez 808 Tube screamer. The Blues Devil slightly nudges out the original with a less harsh high end compared to the sizzle from the original, as well as more gain (distortion) on tap and a bigger tonal sweep. The tube screamer’s signature is a mid-range hump that is great for raising a guitar lead over the din of a band. This pedal works great with more mid-scooped amps like mid-’60s Fender amps, and can give a volume jump to amps in a low setting by boosting the level and dropping the gain, or add some hair and transient harmonics to an amp already huffing and puffing. For an example of a Tube screamer sound, look no further than Stevie Ray Vaughn, who used them exclusively through his career.

Ulysses Wah Wah
This wah wah is based on the ’60s Clyde McCoy Vox wah wah, which has always been the big cause of signal degradation and thinning out the sound even while deactivated. MJM added true bypass circuitry that improves on the original design by retaining the original tone of the guitar when disengaged, while the vintage “tropical fish”-matched capacitors make this faithful to the original. True bypass circuitry is not the only benefit here, as each unit is far more consistent with its original counterpart due to strict attention paid to capacitor and transistor tolerances and values. This is not available on MJM’s Web site, but if you supply a wah wah casing, MJM will install a hand-soldered board and a true bypass switch with a huge tonal improvement over mass-produced units. If your wah isn’t sounding like the beginning of Jeff Beck’s “I Ain’t Superstitious” or any of the fancy footwork of Jimi Hendrix or Thin Lizzy, this is your ticket.

RM Booster
The RM Booster is completely faithful to its ’60s original design, the Rangemaster. This can be a finicky pedal and, unlike the Blues Devil, the RM Booster definitely needs to be working with an amp that is already on the verge of distortion. With a single boost knob, it’s simple enough, but it deviates from the original design with the addition of a switch for a brighter sound that adds clarity to humbucker-equipped guitars such as Gibsons. A dark setting beefs up single- coil guitars such as Fenders. Again, this pedal is a bit picky and doesn’t sound all that hot in classic American amp designs, but it really kicks the bejesus out of U.K. designed amps like Marshall and Vox. To hear the bright mode, check out anything by Queen’s Brian May, who uses the pedal to beef up his Vox AC 30s. For examples of the full range (dark) mode, check out the sludge slung by Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi.

Foxey Fuzz
This is based on the famous early ’70s Big Muff fuzz pedal, and MJM has maintained the utter authority this pedal demands. Compared to a mid-’70s Big Muff, the Foxy Fuzz has a useful tone knob that adds gobs of ungodly fuzz that the original can’t even keep up with. Great for lead guitar work or just generating a pile of hellish distortion and noise. For examples of a Big Muff pedal, check out anything by Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore or the cacophonic stew of My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields.