Difference between MKI and MKII ToneBenders?

http://www.stompboxes.co.uk/History.html

 

MKII has more saturation and higher gain. The MKI is more primitive sounding, but has more output. The MKI packs some serious output. Mick Ronson and Jeff Beck/Yardbirds were 2 MKI users. I believe it was also used on The Spencer Davis Groups "Keep On Running". Page used a MKII during the Yardbirds and sparingly on the 1st album and Jeff Beck used a MKII on his Truth album.

 

Here's a great video featuring the MK1. Right before the solo they even show a closeup of the pedal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwODy5xSrcc
and you can hear Beck kick it one for the solo in Shapes of Things @ 4:20.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHjPxBdhGBQ

 

MKi are very hard to find and or make well. I also think the MKii is a more immediately pleasing sound for high gain/ sustain fuzz.

 

You'll have to make it yourself. I've only seen one other pedal maker other than D*A*M offer a Hurst MKI and it didn't sound like a MKI. BTW, The Music Ground Hurst RI is a MKII circuit in a MKI enclosure.

 

Awesome tone - funny it is now the modern sound again - thanks to guys like Jack White, that Muse guy I forgot the name and others, this raw, unpolished tone is back to the mainstream - or something close to that.

 

I have the Hurst MKI Tone Bender which has the MKII circuit and I have a DAM 1966. The Hurst sounds very nice and is a high gain monster. It sounds great on every setting. The DAM 1966 is pretty sensitive to settings and has a unique low gain sound, but it sounds amazing with my amp turned up to the edge of overdrive. Lately I have been gigging with my Hurst Tone Bender. The MKII sound is what I have been using lately, and it can be gnarly.

 

I have a MK1 circuit on my breadboard right now and it's total Mick Ronson.

 

Sorry....

 

The transistors and proper tuning are a pain in the ass with the MKI. The circuit is sensitive to excessive transistor leakage and gain. Once you get that squared away, it's really an amazing sounding fuzz. Especially with humbuckers. I just started getting into building and probably should have picked a simpler circuit!:Spank

 

Do you have a layout for this? I've got it on a breadboard as well and am procrastinating with drawing up a layout. Will probably do it on tagboard though, since I don't have stripboard here at the moment.

 

I'll repost the layout after I get it corrected.

 

:BEER Thanks!!

 

This is a turret board. The turrets are little posts to which you make all the connections. In some ways it's even easier than using perfboard and pcbs. You can make your own or buy them prefab.


I think the "tuning" difficulty of the MK1 is somewhat exaggerated. If you want it to sound 100% exactly like a real one then yeah, it might be tough, especially since the TI 2G381 trannies are VERY hard to come by, but since there's really only a handful of people out there who have even heard a real one in person it kinda leaves it to you to decide how it should sound, which means tuning isn't that hard. Also, keep in mind that of the three or four known MK1s out there, none of them is the same as the next which means there may not even be an exact MK1 sound as they all sounded somewhat different. As long as you throw in a few transistors that don't have too much leakage and high enough gain then the circuit will work and will sound like fuzz. The tuning part is pretty much selecting transistors until it sound best to you.