What was John Rostill's Fuzz-box?

[Bruce Cramley]

Does anybody know what was John Rostill's fuzz-box used in Bombay Duck?

I had seen the Shadows in Chequers nightclub in Sydney (67-68?), and after their show, there was dinner and dancing with music by the house band. I danced next to the stage and caught a glimpse of the device. My vague recollection from 40 years ago is of a blackish triangular shaped thing like the "Burns Buzzaround". I think it had 3 or four knobs, and I believe one of them was "Harmonic Adjust".

bruce, Sydney.

[David Martin]

It was a Burns Buzz-Around ... Music Ground are reissuing them at a huge price...

More here... http://www.jmiamplification.com/

[JimN]

I didn't know that John used the Burns Buzzaround (the Baldwin/Burns repackaged version of Gary Hurst's Tone Bender), but if so, it must have had a modification carried out. John used the unit to play alternate notes clean and distorted on Bombay Duck and Tennessee Waltz - and this required the use of a non-latching footswitch which would only deliver the fuzz effect whilst depressed, rather than switching from one state to another until pressed again. Take your foot off the unit completely, and it returns to clean.

The Shadows played Bombay Duck live on UK TV in 1967, and John was plainly tapping his foot on a stomp-box in time with the music...

I wonder if this would be an easy mod?

JN

[Didier]

It was a Burns Buzz-Around ... Music Ground are reissuing them at a huge price...

£349 !...
Better get a Behringer UZ400 for £33, it's likely to do the same job for much less !

Didier

[StuartD]

I didn't know that John used the Burns Buzzaround (the Baldwin/Burns repackaged version of Gary Hurst's Tone Bender), but if so, it must have had a modification carried out. John used the unit to play alternate notes clean and distorted on Bombay Duck and Tennessee Waltz - and this required the use of a non-latching footswitch which would only deliver the fuzz effect whilst depressed, rather than switching from one state to another until pressed again. Take your foot off the unit completely, and it returns to clean.

The Shadows played Bombay Duck live on UK TV in 1967, and John was plainly tapping his foot on a stomp-box in time with the music...

I wonder if this would be an easy mod?

JN

Quite right Jim. John used it when i saw Bombay Duck played at Blackpool. It was the same unit - Brian Bennett told me - that Dave Richmond used on Get Back on Shades of Rock.

Regrds

Stuart

[Bill Bowley]

Bruce,

I saw the same thing (John Rostill playing 'Bombay Duck) at Chequers in Sydney at about the same time as you. remember it well! If you saw them during that period (they appeared on two different occasions about a year apart) you would have also seen the one piece scratchplate Baldwins too I would think, I know I did!

[David Martin]

If you Google the Buzz-Around, you'll find pages and pages about its circuitry... the mod would be just to replace the latching switch with a momentary version : but I guess you could arange it with an additional socket on the side to bypass the internal switch and substitute one of these http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=10004 or just replace the switch with one of these http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=35033

[ErikMAMS]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260521529492&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:GB:1123

[Bruce Cramley]

Thank you David, Jim, Bill, Didier, Stuart and Erik.

Many, many years ago I put a momentary switch on my Vox ToneBender and it worked like a charm. I must admit at first t'was a bit of an exercise in coordination with both hands playing and trying to press the footswitch on the off-beats - but once mastered the effect is brilliant.

I still have an original Burns Buzzaround, but with the sort of crazy money these things are now worth, I don't think I'll be making any mods to it.

Back to JR's fuzz-box, its a pity no-one has a photo of his one, or knows of its whereabouts, it belongs in a museum.

bruce.

[Bill Bowley]

On the subject of 'Bombay Duck' (which is in fact a lizard fish, but that's another story) the following bit of info is on note:

The popular instrumental rock band, The Ventures, famous for such tunes as the 1960 hit "Walk, Don't Run", "Slaughter On Tenth Avenue", among countless covers, covered their own rendition of the title "Bombay Duck", and was featured as the closing track of their 1968 album "Pops in Japan No.2". Besides The Ventures, The Shadows also released a cover of "Bombay Duck" as a single in 1967.

That came from Wikepedia.

As for the The Shads version of the tune itself (from Malcom Campbell):

"RECORDED 26 FEBRUARY
BOMBAY DUCK
This fine composition by Japanese jazz bassist Toshio Honda, which elicited a bravura performance from The Shadows, was released prior to their tour of Japan in June 1967, and was to prove a great favourite in that country"

So, was the Ventures version a cover of The Shads version, or whatever? And, a version of it was also done by Rick Wakeman too!