Black Cat D&S

Like the Bee Buzz, the Black Cat D&S began as a request from their Japanese distributor, who asked them to make a custom replica of the Ibanez/Maxon OD-801. The design first appeared in 1974 as the Maxon D&S, and the circuit was similar to the Version 2 (Rams Head) Big Muff. But the tone stack was quite a bit different than what has been used in any version of the Big Muff. In many ways it is much more versatile, and usable throughout the entire range of the control.

On a traditional Big Muff type pedal, the tone rolloff gets very muddy, resulting in a loss of definition and mushy sound. Maxon redesigned the tone circuitry to dump some resistance to ground, allowing much better definition in the low end. This gave the D&S a much more versatile tone control with a wider variety of sounds.

When Black Cat examined the circuit, they found that there really wasn’t very much that they could improve upon for their version of the D&S. Hence, they decided to leave it as it was and go for a faithful recreation. Even the choice of components was essentially the same as the early Maxon version – metal film resistors, stacked metal film caps, Nichicon electrolytic capacitors; They even sourced the original Toshiba 2SC1815-BL transistors that Maxon used. Just like the original on which it was based, the Black Cat D&S is a great sounding Muff-style fuzz pedal with a highly versatile wide range of tones.

• Modern replica of the original 1974 Maxon design
• Cool Black glass epoxy PCB with yellow silkscreen
• Metal film resistors and audio grade capacitors
• 3PDT true-bypass switch and Switchcraft jacks
• Uses 2.1mm Boss style power jack or internal 9V battery
• Hand-wired, Boutique quality, Made in USA