[Radio Wrangler]

The design of the circuitry of a fuzz pedal is crude in the extreme. This is where the distortion comes from. However this also makes the biasing very crude and very dependant on the current gain of the transistors. So the bias currents vary significantly from unit-to-unit, and the bias currents set where the onset of distortion happens and the subsequent amount of it.

Did the guitar greats each buy a load of pedals and pick the ones they liked? or did they keep their roadies swapping transistors? Or maybe they got invited to the pedal factories to trawl through six months produce to cherry pick the one that sounds right?

I don't think building one replica fuzz face to try to replicate a magical sound. I think you also need the right tranistor from their manufacturing spread.

David