Everyone who knows me knows that anything to do with Mosrite is a personal obsession with me and the Fuzzrite holds a very special place in my heart. Not only is it Mosrite, but it's a great pedal AND it's the first pedal I ever made as a Tym product.
I've owned and repaired a few vintage Mosrite versions over the years but the one I kept is this version that I bought brand new in the nineties. They were made for Front Porch Music, a Mosrite obsessed shop in Bakersfield, Ca who had asked Ed to make a small run of Fuzzrites.
This is one of 150 made by Ed and apart from trying it when it arrived and using it to compare to my Buzzrites, it hasn't been used and still has the original box and battery. It's rumored that many of these were damaged over the years due to their use of too thin aluminium for the enclosure and not standing up to use very well.
The Fuzzrite was designed by Ed Sanner back in the mid sixties and Mosrite were quick to jump on the fuzz wagon after the Ventures used them on their album "Ventues in space" Mosrite made several versions of the pedal including the legendary early batch with germanium transistors (my personal least favorite) and at the height of heir popularity were fitting a Sprague "capsule" that contained the bulk of the electronics for easy and quick assembly. Mosrite even sold a version of the Fuzzrite to Guild, who Mosrite had a long working relationship with in the early sixties in different forms.
After Mosrite went bankrupt in '69 they sold off most of the stock, parts, machinery and even the name at a public auction (most was bought by Semie's brother and stocked to use when Semie got back on his feat less than a year later) This auction included several hundred Fuzzrites in parts or complete build. These have since been sold by Mosrite in the seventies (assembled by Semie at the kitchen table) or sold on EBay a couple of years ago from NOS.
In the nineties Ed made this small run of Fuzzrites built around his original design and sold under the "Sanner Fuzzrite" name. Out of all the Fuzzrites I've owned and played this is still my favorite and the pedal my Buzzrite is based on.
While others have come and gone (some regrettably) this one will stay with me for as long as I have pedals to play with.
Apart from many of my own Buzzrites and Human Fly series and modded and messed with versions I've made, and clones I've owned, this one has a special place in my heart. After all, it's rare (rarer than a Mosrite version), it's beautifully made AND it's actually made by the guy who designed the original. Beautiful.
