Frogg Micro Fuzz speculation...

[edkoppel]

OK, so I was net surfing and came across this old ad for the Frogg line of pedals:
(you can click the photo to see it quite a bit larger)

What really caught me was the "Micro Fuzz"
After some more research I found out that it was originally designed by Steve Ridinger and then updated by Doug Talley, not many were made at all, and supposedly they received a cease-and-desist order from MXR for copying their BUD box enclosure style!

ok, all of that is cool, but LOOK closely at that Micro fuzz...
what does it remind you of?
-Two knobs on the front; 1 for Sustain and 1 for Tone.
-One knob on the top for Volume
-Reversed In/Out Jacks
-Bud Box enclosure









It would appear, to me at least, that it could possibly be related to the Sam Ash Fuzz Stainer, wouldn't it?


Maybe the MKII on the Fuzz-Stainer is because it was an update of the discontinued Micro Fuzz?
or maybe it was an early clone of it?

or maybe it has nothing at all to do with it?

either way, something I thought was pretty interesting to mull on for the day.
---

[mjkk]

interesting find Ed

[daCod]

very interesting indeed. makes me miss my jerms fuzzstainer

[Creepyfingers]

Our old drummer (In Fu Manchu) Ruben has the flanger. Both the flanger and fasor were for sale at the local Salvation Army in our town ($15 a piece). They left the Fasor since it wasn't working The pictures on Bart's site of the Flanger were taken by me. The board inside was a MXR board actually. I wouldn't be surprised if all the circuits were other circuits in Frogg clothing although I'm not sure what the Ring Modulator would be. I've been bugging Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo. forever to borrow the one attached to his guitar so I can see inside it. The Flanger sounds great. we used it on some early Fu Manchu stuff. Ruben has actually thought about selling it

[edkoppel]

I wonder if that what the cease and desist order from MXR was really about?
I also wonder if they ripped the idea from Fuzz Stainer, not the other way around?

[agoldoor]

Wow, that is VERY interesting indeed Ed. When Jerms did those demos of your fuzzstainer, that was a total revelation for me on the level of The Cap'n hearing his "The Wife" for the first time. I still can't thank you enough for buying that randomly-painted thing and discovering it for us!!!!

It would be so cool if there were more of them out there... now who do we know who might have this Frogg pedal that we can get a look at?

[Creepyfingers]

Given the fact that the actual PCB inside the Flanger says "MXR" on it I think its clear who was ripping off who haha

[edkoppel]

MXR


Frogg



hahahah, i feel like that had to be a rehouse!
there is almost no way they would have just reboxed the MXR like that...

but I guess it has been done before.

[Creepyfingers]

Frogg sort of seems like a company that ended before they really started. Its possible that they used a MXR board in their mock ups in anticipation of copying it later. I speculate that the two pedals that ended up in El Toro CA were possibly from a former employee as its about an hour or so south of where the original company was based. The MXR enclosures are more robust than the Frogg. It would be odd to pull a MXR board out of a nice die cast MXR enclosure and put it in a thin folded steel unless you had a reason like this to do it. Like I had mentioned the only other person I've heard of that has any Frogg stuff is Mark Mothersbaugh who I assume got it in California. Has anyone mention that Frogg is supposed to be a post Foxx venture? The Dearmond wah enclosure is representative of that.

[edkoppel]

Interview with Steve Ridinger, from the Stompox book by Art Thompson:

and here is Mark Mothersbaugh's guitar and Frogg Ring Modulator: