These small, rectangular units were designed as attachments to an amplifier, rather than as stompboxes.
The Distortion Booster was originally designed in the UK, and the model was painted red. They were demonstrated in some form of another along with the other three models from the Vox ‘plug-in’ series (Treble, Bass and Mic Boosters), at the British Musical Instrument Industries Trade Fair in August of 1965,1 but there was reportedly a delay in production specific to the Distortion Booster,2 and so it’s unclear when the red model from the set actually made it to the market.
A little-known fact about the British (red) version of the Vox Distortion Booster is that some of the earlier units featured a circuit based on Gibson’s Maestro Fuzz-Tone, but with only two ASY51 germanium transistors, and running off a 9 volt battery (compared with 3 volts as in the Maestro model). Later examples of the red model featured a BC108 silicon-transistor ‘textbook’ circuit (similar to, but not directly related with the two-transistor Tone Benders and Fuzz Faces.)
Pictured above is the set of four ‘plug-in’ Boosters, as they appeared in a JMI catalogue, in 1966. (Credit: Voxshowroom.com)
Brian May famously housed a Vox Distortion Booster inside his ‘Red Special’, and the photo of the surviving remains of his unit, below, reveals it to be an earlier example, with the germanium-transistor circuit.
It’s possible that this was the circuit that was used for the fuzz guitar tracks on the 1984 and Smile recordings. (Photo credit: Kevin Nixon/Future Publishing)
By late 1965, Thomas Organ had already begun prototyping their own version of the unit for distribution in the United States,3 which was eventually housed in a very similar looking chromed casing. The known surviving Thomas Organ-built Vox Distortion Boosters feature the silicon-transistor circuit, built on perfboard.
The red-coloured (JMI) Vox Distortion Boosters were likely discontinued around the time of JMI’s dissolution in 1968. In the same year, the British music retailer, Rosetti, began running advertisements in the press for a series of Italian-built Jen effects pedals.4 Among them was a new version of the plug-in Distortion Booster.
Jen was already responsible for supplying Vox-branded Tone Benders & wah-wah pedals to the American market, and these Italian-built Distortion Boosters were both functionally and electronically also similar to the British counterpart. The model featured a silicon-transistor fuzz circuit, and was housed in a square plastic casing. (Photo credit: Mojostompboxes)
This version of the Distortion Booster was eventually also sold internationally under various other companies’ names, by Jen as the OEM, including as a Vox product.
Share your fuzz!
I welcome any comments, feedback, queries & corrections in relation to the Fuzzboxes.org project. Please get in touch via this contact form (or on the ‘contact‘ page).
Much of our understanding of the development of 1960s fuzz boxes comes from analysis of surviving pedals themselves, and so photos of pedals belonging to readers are particularly useful in furthering this research.
If you would like to contribute pictures of 1960s-era guitar effects to Fuzzboxes.org, then feel free to send in any pictures via the uploader below. Photos are greatly appreciated, and any submissions are not published on this website without advance agreement with the contributor.
I’m looking for a schematic for a version of the Vox Deluxe Distortion which looks like the Jen model you show on your Fuzzboxes page. Like in the picture, there are two pots, Volume & Distortion. The schematic I have of the V8162 Model released May 1969 is not the same as my old 1968 unit. Is there a 1968 model between V8161 & 62? I still have the circuit board from my old unit but it’s been mostly cannibalized. I’d like to re-populate the board but I need more information as the circuit is noticeably different. Any thoughts, anyone?
Interesting! I wasn’t aware that there was a different version of the circuit in those Italian-made square boxes (but to be completely honest, I haven’t actually seen inside very many of them either). If you’d like to send me some photos of the remains of your Distortion Booster (via the ‘contact’ page at the top of this site), then I’ll happily compare it with what little data about the model I have.