Sola Sound Tone Bender MkII Professional
Three-germanium British fuzz — Jimmy Page's 'Whole Lotta Love' tone.
We don't ship reference schematics until they've been hand-authored against authoritative sources (manufacturer service docs, ElectroSmash analyses, GEOFEX writeups) and reviewed in the simulator. Until then, the BOM, signal chain, controls and mod notes below are accurate, and you can still add this pedal to a project — it just won't include a circuit yet.
About
An evolution of the Maestro FZ-1 by Gary Hurst, the MkII uses three OC75 or OC81D germanium PNPs in a high-gain cascade. Compared to the Fuzz Face it has more sustain, more compression, and a more nasal mid-forward voicing — exactly what Jimmy Page recorded with on the first Led Zeppelin albums.
Signal chain preview
4 stagesQuick facts
- Vox, Marshall, and Park all sold rebadged MkIIs; Sola Sound built nearly all of them.
- Used by Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck (with the Yardbirds), and Mick Ronson.
- Temperature-sensitive germanium means the same pedal sounds different in a hot vs cold room.
Controls
- Attack (1M audio)
- Level (100k audio)
Mod recipes Pro
3 mods- Bias trim on Q3
Dial in optimum collector voltage per transistor set.
How: Replace Q3's 100k collector resistor with an 82k + 50k trim pot in series; tune for Q3 collector ≈ -7 V.
- Silicon Q2 hybrid
Tighter low end, less ambient temperature drift.
How: Swap Q2 only for a BC108 silicon. Reduce the feedback resistor between Q2 collector and Q1 base from 100k to 47k.
- External bias pot
Expose the famous 'dying battery' tone live.
How: Replace Q1's emitter resistor with a 1k + 5k linear pot wired as a rheostat on the enclosure.