We finally got the enclosures, and they are as sweet as we'd hoped they would be! Of course, it nails
the tone of the original Shin-ei FY-2, but as usual, we've made a few improvements:
3.5X gain boost stage.
Bulgin battery drawer.
5mm x 2.1mm "tip negative" DC power jack.
Effect-on LED.
Two-piece 16 gauge steel "U" enclosure.
Black "sandtex" powdercoat finish.
20 gauge stainless steel rear legend plate.
Same size, shape, and general design of Shin-ei original FY-2.
This pedal is one seriously nasty fuzz tone! It's like packing your amp with angry bees!
It's like attacking your speaker cones with a rat tail file (but a lot cheaper to fix)! It's like...
Well, have a listen to the bass track on Radiohead's "Exit Music (for a film)", and
decide for yourself! (Radiohead used a vintage Shin-ei pedal.)
The original FY-2 is notorious for having a severe volume drop when the effect is engaged.
A few changes to the fuzz circuit could have overcome this, but they would also have
changed the tone. Instead, we added a clean boost stage to the output of the fuzz circuit,
which brings the volume back up to the level you'd expect coming out of a fuzz pedal. We
realize that some people will be using the Wattson FY-2 to replace a vintage Shin-ei FY-2
on their gigging pedal board, and they already have their board set up to compensate for
the volume drop. For these people, we added a switch to the circuit board that allows the
boost stage to be bypassed, making the Wattson FY-2 a drop-in replacement for a Shin-ei FY-2.
We ship the pedal with the boost turned on, since this is how most people will use it.
It's late, and my wife is calling me to go to bed. I'll be updating the web site in the next
day, and we'll be shipping FY-2's to our dealers over the next couple of weeks. We'll try
to get some demo clips uploaded this weekend.
We've Renamed Our Pedal! (Redux)
Yeah, I know... we keep bouncing around on this, but we think we've finally settled on
a logical naming scheme for our pedals.
The pedal which was previously called the Wattson Classic Fuzz is now, officially,
the Wattson Classic Fuzz FY-6. The new reproduction of the Shin-ei FY-2 is
the Wattson Classic Fuzz FY-2. The sordid history behind this can be found on
the News page.
Farewell, Bob Sweet!
We learned today of the passing of Bob Sweet, founder of Sweet Sound Electronics, on
Friday, October 24th, 2008.
It was impossible to be involved in the guitar effects business, or be a guitar
player with any exposure at all to boutique effects, and not know about Bob Sweet
and Sweet Sound. Bob was an icon, and his pedals are legendary. On top of all that,
Bob was a really great guy.
Bob was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in January. By August it was looking like he'd
successfully beaten it. Shortly after that, his doctors discovered he had bone cancer,
and it took his life in a few very short months.
We miss you, Bob. Farewell!
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