203
by Big John_Archive
Dr Tony Balls wrote:llllllllllllllllllllllll wrote:Prescription Electronics Yardbird - I hated it at first, until I realized that this is one of those first in line/ volume knob kind of fuzzes. Much more similar to a Fuzz Face than the Balls MK II I had. Weirdly, those are actually MkIII Tone Bender Clones, not schematically similar to either a Fuzz Face or a MkII. Not sure why PE decided to market that as a Yardbirds related thing, but whatever. The MkIII is a great sounding fuzz, but definitely in that grittier seventies vein than some others.Re Dr Balls question, the Yardbox came out in the early 90's pre what we now consider the internet and the sharing of knowledge that would give us multiple versions of the Sola Tone Bender. As far as I know the only version that made it to the US or was made in large numbers would have been the Mark III which I think was around till the early 80s. There were no other (to my knowledge) fuzz clone pedals available at the time and marketed as a boutique clone Dan Electros who made the French toast a Foxx fuzz clone Voodoo labs made a UniVibe type pedal. Or if you could get one the Roger Mayer pedals for fuzz as opposed to distortion. I think Electro Harmonix was just coming back at that point. At that time since there were so few accurate schematics around Prescription Electronics would have had to reverse engineer one from a original. Since they use similar transistors to the originals I would think pre internet that would have been the only way. Sola Tone Benders were pretty rare in the US as they were not associated with any big distributors like VOX (Thomas Organs), so I don't recall even seeing more than a used one or two in NYC and those were at very high prices due to the zeppelin association other fuzz pedals were cheaper as they were out of fashion at the time.I don't think they wanted issues calling them anything that Sola or Tone Bender trade mark would have to do with. But since page and the Yardbirds were known for it they were able to reference them in the name Yardbox and get the idea across as to what it was. So in many ways Prescription was the first "clone" stompbox company.I have one and as far as getting the tones I would expect is no real issue for me you can pretty much get an approximation of the classic fuzz tones off the British albums from that period with some adjustment of the knobs. It does the Mick Ronson thing with a cocked wah. But at the time it was as close as you were going to get without lucking out at a pawn shop in England or going to the single Macaris store in London. Really at the time most people were using RATs for distortion in my neighborhood.In the late 80s early 90s fuzzes were not really being produced so you ended up buying a old one and nursing it back to health or getting a Yardbox which was new well constructed and could fit into a modern pedal board with better switching and some shielding from radio interference compared to a older one. Though they had a odd wiring to the 9v power cable (non standard reversed as I recall).A guitar player acquittance of mine at the time who I considered to be kind of a early tone guru effects guy really liked them and that's how I heard of them.I think the real mystery is why Prescription called their Foxx fuzz clone "The Experience" pedal.