Since The Pedal Show traced the beginnings the Vox Tone Bender to Macaris in London, I went ahead and emailed them. To my astonishment they responded almost immediately. It is indeed a 1968 and was made after the MK1s. They said the enclosure gave it away. They also said:
"Hi there - thats an Italian Tone Bender c '68
Interesting circuit based on a 1.5 but usually not too much care taken on the transistor selection .
The result was some terrible sounding pedals and a few astonishingly amazing sounding ones - ha !
Our 'El Diablo' Tone Bender is based on this version"
Luckily I got an amazing sounding one. They confirmed that the transistors I had should be good.
Yeah, they really shine with Humbuckers. But also give a great sound with single coils. What's nice is that you can really clean it up quick with the volume knob on your guitar.I tried one about a month ago in a music store listed for $999. It was a gray housing which I think might be a little older but not sure. It sounded so good we were using a Les Paul and I think a Pro Reverb.
Mine just came in the mail today. I’m not normally a fuzz guy, but after seeing some demos of its versatility and the descriptions here, I had to dip my toe in. What a blast! The Bias & Impede knobs really change the feel of the pedal. I think there’s a lot of tones there waiting to be discovered.Check out the twin bender from ramblefx
a 1.5 switchable to a II I got one recently and sounds right to me in both modes