History

Articles about the history of guitar pedals, brands, power supplies, MIDI, controllers, foot switches and other subjects.

The very first guitar effects were built into guitars. In the 1940s, DeArmond creates the first single effect, a kind of tremolo. In the late 1950s, many amps had a built-in tremolo and/or vibrato effect. In the 1940s and 50s, guitar pickups were often replaced with higher output ones. This gave the tube amplifier more signal to process, causing it to overdrive.

Fuzz originated in 1961 with the song “Don’t Worry” by Marty Robbins. The song uses a mixer with a broken channel strip to record a bass guitar. Fuzz became popular in 1965 with the intro to Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. This gave rise to some very famous fuzz pedals, namely the Tone Bender (1965) and the Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face (1966).

On this place we publish articles about the history of effects pedals and other equipment.