Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone

In the late 1950s, guitarist Link Wray began intentionally overdriving his vacuum tube amplifiers to create a noisy and "dirty" sound for his solos after an accidental discovery.

Wray also poked holes in his speaker cones with pencils to further distort the tone, used electro-mechanical echo chambers (then usually employed by singers), the recent powerful and "fat" Gibson humbucking pickups, and controlled "feedback" (Larsen effect).

[1] In 1961, while recording the Marty Robbins song "Don't Worry", a fuzzy tone accidentally caused by a faulty preamplifier in Bradley Studio B's mixing console distorted session musician Grady Martin's guitar part.

Shortly thereafter, the American instrumental rock band The Ventures asked their friend, session musician and electronics enthusiast Orville "Red" Rhodes for help recreating the Grady Martin "fuzz" sound.

[3] As "Don't Worry” topped the country charts and crossed over to the pop charts, the unique sound of the faulty mixing console channel rapidly became sought after in Nashville studios, but the transformer had failed completely, so recording engineer Glenn Snoddy partnered with fellow WSM radio engineer Revis V. Hobbs to design and build a stand-alone device that would intentionally create the fuzzy effect.

The two engineers sold their circuit to Gibson, who introduced it as the Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone in 1962, the first commercially available fuzzbox to gain widespread acceptance,[4][5] and U.S. patent 3,213,181 was issued to Snoddy and Hobbs on October 19, 1965.

The Maestro FZ-1 contained a three germanium transistor circuit with RCA 2N270 devices, powered by two 1.5-volt batteries, and a lead cable to connect it to an instrument (bass as it was originally intended, or guitar).