Q: Recently, MTV counted down the best rock songs of all time. The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” came in at number one, mainly because of that memorable 8-note lick. I’ve tried to duplicate that sound with my band, using a whole bunch of distortion devices, and can’t seem to nail it. Suggestions?
A: To the best of our knowledge, the only fuzz pedal available when that song was recorded was the Maestro Fuzz Tone (which was actually a Gibson product, first made available in 1965). By today’s standards, that pedal is somewhat of a dinosaur, but because of its simplicity (it only had two controls, volume and attack), individual notes were still clean enough to be heard without becoming overly mushy, particularly if the attack control was set in its middle ranges, say from 5 to 7.