Analog Man Sun Face NKT275
The Sun Face is Analog Man's hand-built version of the classic Fuzz Face circuit. This one carries NKT275 germanium transistors, the British transistor type found in early Fuzz Faces. It is a simple pedal with two knobs, Volume and Fuzz, and it lives or dies by how you play it: with the fuzz high and the guitar volume rolled back, a Stratocaster cleans up into a bright, glassy tone; turn the guitar back up and the fuzz returns.
Builder and Background
Analog Man is the workshop of Mike Piera in Connecticut, best known for the King of Tone overdrive, which is also part of Gerbman's gear. The Sun Face is their germanium Fuzz Face, built by hand with selected transistors. The NKT275 version is the one modelled on the British germanium sound of the late 1960s.
Like the original Fuzz Face, the circuit is positive ground. It runs on a battery or on an isolated power supply, and it cannot share a daisy chain with ordinary pedals.
How It Is Played
Analog Man's own advice is to keep the Fuzz knob up all the way, or close to it, and to set the amount of fuzz with the guitar's volume control. That is how a Fuzz Face was meant to work: the pedal reacts to the pickups and the picking hand rather than to its own knobs.
Because it is a germanium circuit, it also cares about what comes before it. A buffered pedal in front of a Fuzz Face takes away the clean-up and makes it sound bright and harsh, so the fuzz goes early in the chain, with the guitar plugged straight into it.
Sound Profile
The Sun Face sits next to the Diaz Texas Square Face in Gerbman's collection of fuzz pedals. Both go back to the same Fuzz Face idea that runs from Hendrix through to Texas blues: one knob for fuzz, and the rest of the expression in the hands and the guitar's volume control.
