Weak 9 Volt Batteries: Secret to a Great Fuzz Pedal Tone?

Even though batteries for wireless units and guitar tuners should always put-out full 9-volts when tested on a voltmeter, can weak 9-volt batteries in your Fuzz or distortion stompbox give you great tone?

By: Ringo Bones 

I might be the last person to know about this electric guitar “tone tweaking” trick during my amateur metal band days back in the late 1980s, but it has been empirically proven by guitar gods and guitar techs since the days of Woodstock that a weak 9-volt battery that only puts out between 5.5 to 7.5 volts when connected to a voltmeter can actually result in a pleasing tone when used to power your Fuzz or other distortion type stompbox effect pedal. Famed guitar legend Duane Allman reportedly preferred weak batteries in his Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, though any voltage reading lower than 5.5-volts – and depending whether your distortion pedal is IC op-amp or germanium transistor based – it could be the difference between “death metal tones” to a dead as a doornail silent stompbox. But why do weak 9-volt or PP-3 batteries produce a pleasing tone when used to power your Fuzz Face / distortion type stompbox effects pedals?  

The “subjectively pleasing tone” one gets when using weak 9-volt PP-3 batteries on their distortion pedals is probably a holdover from the days before the invention of more efficient solid-state silicon rectifiers. Where electric guitar tube amplifiers still use vacuum tube power supply rectifier and / or selenium rectifier based power supplies when a hard-struck power chord usually causes power supply voltage sag and the accompanying warm fuzzy distortion tone – and unlike your typical hi-fi vacuum tube amplifier, this “fuzz tone” is usually in the 200 to 300 percent total harmonic distortion range. Though there are some electric guitar vacuum tube amplifiers like use both vacuum tube and solid-state rectifiers – Mesa Boogie for example – for reasons of tone. This makes the GZ34 vacuum tube rectifiers, especially the NOS Mullard types, are now highly sought after by vintage guitar amp enthusiasts. If only Mullard made reliable versions of those pesky selenium rectifiers used in the Fisher 500 C Receiver. 

 

Germanium Transistors: The Best For Electric Guitar Distortion Pedals?

Even though 9-volt battery powered electric guitar distortion pedals that use germanium transistors are the best ones around, how come these types are still a rarity?

By: Ringo Bones 

Every self-respecting electric guitar wielding musician with experience knows that germanium transistor based 9-volt battery powered electric guitar distortion pedals are the best there is – as in those 21^st Century era reissues of Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face pedals now starting to appear again in musical instrument stores. Even though such pedals are not that expensive in terms of quality guitar accessories – at around 150 to 300 US dollars each – why then are germanium transistor based electric guitar distortion pedals rarer than their silicon transistor based or even integrated circuit / IC operational amplifier based counterparts? 

The reality is, germanium transistors – which are the first of its type mass produced for commercial applications during the 1950s onto the early 1960s are not very stable and somewhat difficult to manufacture compared to more modern silicon transistors and semiconductor devices. Even during the start of the 1960s where the relatively affordable prices of transistorized radios started to capture the market previously dominated by vacuum tube based radios, germanium transistors are very hard to mass produce with consistent parameter quality. Electronic enthusiasts “toying” with germanium transistors during the early 1960s have noticed first hand that they have very variable gain, leakage, noise and overall tone – even germanium transistors manufactured from the same batch. 

The inherent parameter variability of germanium transistors means resistor values selected for proper AC and DC biasing, feedback, gain and stability that worked fine on one functioning circuit – like an electric guitar distortion pedal – will have to be “tweaked” (use a slightly higher or lower resistor value) to make one sound as close as possible to the previously finished circuit – even from germanium transistors of the same batch. Thus making the manufacture of germanium transistor based electric guitar distortion pedals a somewhat very labor intensive endeavor. 

Although, one can make silicon transistor or even I.C. op-amp based electric guitar distortion pedals approach the sound of germanium transistor types by using germanium signal clipping diodes in the feedback loop, purists still prefer the tone of the authentic germanium transistor based electric guitar distortion pedal, especially if your hi-fi system is righteous enough to realistically reproduce the guitar intro of Iron Maiden’s Two Minutes To Midnight – as in the original vinyl or the mid 1990s era Sony Super Bit Mapped CD reissue. The Sony Super Bit Mapped mastering even brought out the “germanium signature noise” on the very start of this iconic Iron Maiden track.