The first
commercial fuzz box was designed by
Glen Snotty, a Nashville studio engineer and later released by
Gibson under the name
Maestro Fuzz-Tone around
1965. It was a
brown wedge-shaped
affair with a
foot switch on the face, a
jack and two
knobs (
volume and
attack) on the back.
Maestro's fuzz box immediately spawned an entire raft of stompboxen seeking to cash in on the whole fuzz box craze. This in turn, gave birth to the entire stomp box industry, which is still quite large today.
The Maestro Fuzz-Tone has been featured on the Green Acres theme song as well as the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction".
Some of the more notable fuzz boxes of history include the Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face, Roland Bee Baa, Fender Blender, Foxx Tone Machine, and the Roger Mayer Octavia (originally designed for Jimi Hendrix).
The fuzz box is as inextricably linked to rock 'n roll history as the electric guitar.