Shin-Ei/Companion Fuzz-Wah Pedal

Piece of cake to get your ultimate fuzz....
Two rotary knobs to set the amount of fuzz and volume, a footswitch to kick in the fuzz, a slide-switch to choose from Fuzz-1 or Fuzz-2 and a 'toe-down' footswitch to engage the wah.
The In and Out jacks are reverse to the modern set-up.

Let me start by saying that this pedal is certainly not a very versatile one, but incredibly good sounding ! It has two fuzz-modes: mid-scoop and mid-boost. The scooped is rather metal-like, the boosted has a great tendency to give you octaver-notes. Both entirely destroy youre tone... Doesn't matter if I use my SD loaded Epi Les Paul or my Tele or whether I play it to my tube- or hybrid-amp, the Companion's strong voice speaks in it's own way ! The amount of Fuzz can be dialed in, but even at very low settings it changes your tone.
Personally, I don't mind at all, because I only use this beast for very rough power-chord work in a song or five, and it really beats everything. The mid-scooped tends to get lost in the mix when the drummer gets too enthusiastic, but the mid-boost gets everyone's attention all right ! This mode is the only one you could use for solos, but then again...better use this one for two or three stringed chords.
Can I compare it's qualities to another fuzz ? Well, I put it up to a bunch of modern low-budget fuzzes and re-issues of all the great Fuzzes from the past: the Companion blew them all away in sustain and especially on character. It's really got a unique sound that I really fell in love with.

Fuzz-level on mine is positioned at about 60%. Dirty enough, great sustain, no noise... my favourite setting. Noise level is amazing for a pedal this old.

The wah is crap though. It functions as a bit of a high-pass filter instead of a wah. I recalibrated it a bit but that didn't really help. I tried to use it before or after my Crybaby but that didn't work at all either. Too bad, one point down...

It survived some abuse from it's previous owner and I baby my pedals, so I'm not afraid of it breaking down. It even survived with a battery of 1979 until I bought it in 2001 !!! Thank God the battery didn't start decomposing and leaking. Better still: it even functioned with the battery !!!!!

It's hard to find any information about the company. Probably very short-lived.

It's funny that it wasn't a success at the time, but I absolutely love it now ! I bought it from a guy who bought it himself years ago and hardly ever used it. He even had the original box. I treasure it in a closet; looks fantastic.
I would never sell this thing, because I'd probably never find one again. And the mid-boosted fuzz inspired me to write one my favourite songs, so I should keep it for that reason alone !

This pedal isn't any more confusing than it would be to press a button and move your foot when you want to.

Well i have two of these, and the sound quality is different on each. On one the fuzz is weaker, on the other the wah is weaker.
you can get schematics for the pedal on the bottum, but if they are worn out just do a search on yahoo for Shin ei companion schematics and you'll find a page that has them. Then run a search on vintage effects pedal repair. You should find someone who will fix the pedal for you perfectly if you have the schematics. I haven't sent mine out yet, but am going to very soon.

And i only give this a 10 if the pedal is either fixed or in a new condition. I know that that sounds silly, but i got my two pedals used, and do not now what the hell they went through. I also have to say i only got mine for the fuzz. It is the sickest sounding fuzz. So so so ugly that it is beautiful. If you haven't heard this pedal yet check out track number 4 on Radiohead album OK Computer. The bass player Colin Greenwood uses a companion fuzz (non wah) pedal. that is the reason i searched for the pedal.

The company is not to be found anymore, well at least by me. If anyone out there can find them, let me know! Otherwise just run the searches for the schematics if you need them and go to a vintage effects repair man.

The best fuzz ever. Try it on bass!!!! It is nasty! I also found a companion fuzz box that doesn't include the wah. I got very lucky looking on ebay, and found a family run music store that went out of business in the early seventies. They recently went through their garage and emptied out all items that they had laying around since their music store days. So i lucked out and found a brand new never used Companion fuzz box. It came in the box with instructions. The rubber feet were even perfect. That's why i haven't sent my other two wah/fuzz pedals out for minor adjustments. If you can get ahold of one of these do it!!

Easy to use, Fuzz selector switch, vol and gain pots on the side, fuzz on/off on top, and wah switch under the pedal.
No manual for this thing - not too hard to figure out.

Setup - 73 Thinline Tele (h'buckers) and 79 Strat (Singles) thru 70's Orange Graphic amp and Rivera 4x12.
This baby is quite noisy, hummy, and should use with a noise gate.
The two fuzz fx are best described like this: RUDE. UGLY. Yet strangely beautiful!!! Possibly the most unusual sounding fuzz I have ever heard. The wah on this is not much chop IMHO, but the fuzz is down there in bigmuff styled territory.
As another reviewer mentioned, when you get to neck pickup territory on a guitar with humbuckers this weird Octave fuzz thing starts happening. For power chords, this gives the most gruntiest sounding fuzz, but get up into anything above the d string and its not that great. If you want a detuned, heavy as effect without actually detuning you gtr then this would be for you. But sometime its hard to imagine where this might be useful :-) except to scare the neighbours cat off your lawn.

Looks pretty sturdy, all metal construction, but I haven't had it long so can't speak too much from experience. Seems to have survived OK this long though.

No idea where these ppl might have got to.

Good for heavy stoner style rock but not much else. It definitely gets the heavy rock creative juices flowing, you can almost get a "bass doubling the guitar" type of fuzz happening. I have used it with an Ibanez TS10 after this, with the drive and tone all the way to the left and the level adjusted to suit. THis gets me a bassier sounding fuzz, as my preferred mode on the Companion is the treblier one for the overall fuzz qualities, but you can shape it a bit with another pedal set as toneshaper/booster after the companion.
I guess for overall usefulness this isn't that great, if you are looking for heavy dist I'd probably go a bigmuff if I had my time again. But its good for a muck around to get some ideas!!!!

It's a Wah with a built in Fuzz. Even a kid could understand it.

The sound quality of this thing is not you typical wah, or typical fuzz. On mine the wah sounds almost like it is turned off when the toe is down. Then you move your foot back and it scoops the highs out... Wierd, and it very definitely alters your tone, but I basically leave the wah on full time. The fuzz is so freakin' cool that all I can say is... Damn. Played in the Low setting going into my amps built in overdrive I can get the sickest growl ever!

All this, but it does add extra unwanted noise to your system... Use a noise suppressor.

Just watch the battery.

I am looking for another.

you put your foot on it
move it back and forth
add fuzz if needed

fuzz : is shit but put a overdrive before it (guitar >fuzz/wah >o/d)
the fuzz lasts longer and sounds 10 times beter
wah : the best sound i have a dunlop and this sounds way better (to me anyway)

all i have done to it is change the rubber feet
and the two screws that the rocker sit on

clean or dirty the wah is great (dunlop woofs with amp dist.)
if you look you can still get bargains

Simple stuff. Step on the fuzz or step on the wah or step on both.
On the left hand (foot?) side there are two pots and a two-way fuzz filter switch - called "fuzz pitch". The pots controls fuzz amount
and volume output and the switch selects between a scooped fuzz and one with a midrange peak. On the schematics on the inside of the bottom plate it says "8Tr FUZZ WAH". My guess is it's made between
1973 and -75. The only drawback in this category is that sometimes
you can't get back to the exact sound you thought you had at a certain setting. Specifically the octave-fuzz sound you can get with both
effects on, the right fuzz setting and your neck pickup selected.
The fuzz is really sensitive to a weak battery.

I run it through a big fat tube amp and a Strat or a Les Paul replica.
Still, this is an ugly sounding fuzz. In a cool way. For the old school afficionado or break-neck avantgardist. Forget chords (except fifths or fourths) and playing Toto or Dire Strait covers with this box - unless your a comedian or the Thelonious Monk of rock. The sound is not very compressed and I would say almost superrealistic with strong attack and a tone sensitive to fingering and vibrato.
Some would probably say it sucks.
On the other hand the wah sounds very clean and vocal or phaser-like. I actually prefer it to my CryBaby. It doesn't distort like the CryBaby and isn't so nasal sounding. The effect is a bit weaker but that is why I like it. The frequencies outside of the hot spot of the pedal don't disappear like on the Crybaby.

As I mentioned before there is a cool octave-fuzz sound available with
the fuzz-pitch selector in the forward position, the wah on and the neck pickup selected. With the fuzz-selector in the scooped position you get a very mean industrial power chord sound. Try fourths on the low strings for a suboctave harmony that goes way down in bass territory. Use a clean to semi-clean amp sound for starters.
I read about a young band in GuitarPlayer that claimed this pedal to be their secret weapon and they suggested that anyone who had one should send it to them. Unfortunately they forgot to print their address ;-) .

No real problems. I've had it for over ten years and all that is needed is a little maintenance. I usually don't gig with it due to it's excentric sounds.

I play all kinds of stuff and this pedal covers none of them ;-).
I've been playing forever and this is as ugly as I can remember.
If I had the chance to buy another one I would - for ten bucks - but otherwise there are lots of other interesting fuzz machines I would like to try (ZVEX, Lovetone etc). Lately I've been getting a alien cello or tenor sax sound that is pretty unique. If only it would be a bit more stable... and the nine inch power chord thing is awesome.

This is a follow-up to my earlier review - a) to provide my e-mail address and b) to mention that I have just seen an identical pedal to my Companion Fuzz-Wah in a Cash Dealers shop but with a "Kimbara" badge, priced (used, and at least 20 years old) at 89 UK pounds.

This is an early 70s Japanese pedal, very much in the Jim Dunlop style. The fuzz is switched on and off from a foot-switch on the top of the pedal, and there are rotary knobs for fuzz volume and fuzz level on the side. There is also a two position "fuzz-type" sliding switch on the side. So far so good - these controls are all easy to use. The wah-wah is switched from a foot-switch under the pedal itself (i.e. you push down extra hard on the pedal to switch the wah on or off.) Not so good! it's very easy to accidentally switch the wah off when moving the pedal up and down.

The fuzz effects are excellent. There are two fuzz types to choose from (labelled "1" and "2"). One is fat and bassy, the other harsher and more "hollow". Whichever you choose, you can manipulate the "fuzz volume" and "fuzz level" controls to give a good range of classic early 70s sounds. This pedal gives a great fuzz sound to any guitar you put through it (even an electro-acoustic with a piezzo pick-up).
The wah-wah is not so good. The wah kills off too much treble, and doesn't have the tonal range you'd hope for. It's passable for chords but not so good for lead work. To be fair, the rack-and-pinion that works the pot is probably a bit worn - it probably had a better range when it was new. As for the problem of accidentally switching the wah off, this has also probably been exacerbated by wear on the switch.

The pedal is very solidly built, with an all -metal construction. I bought it used in 1976, when it had already had a fair amount of use. The fuzz-type slider switch was a bit crackly, and I have mentioned the wear to the moving parts in the wah. The metal labels under the switches have come unstuck over the years. I'd rely on it for the fuzz, but not for the wah. The battery lasts well.

I've never heard of Companion before or since.

As the rest of this review makes clear, it's a great fuzz pedal and a not-so-good wah. The 7 pounds I paid in 1976 (35 pounds in today's money) was a fair price. I've no desire to replace the fuzz. If I wanted a good wah (I don't) I'd go out and buy one. I keep it mainly as a curiosity, as my current playing style (electro-acoustic accompaniment) doesn't call for it.