Shin-Ei/Companion Fuzz-Wah Pedal

Couldn't be easier.

I give 10 points for the fuzz.

It brings a smile to my face every time I hook it up. It has that over the top in your face fuzz sound. I believe I hear some octaver in there as well sometimes. Not sure though.

Is is said to have the same internals, come from the same factory, as Univox's super fuzz. Can't vouch for that. It does have the same controls...

Of course the fuzz is not too versatile. 2 sounds and that's it.

The wah is nothing special. Never use it.

Still works after all these years.

...

Luv it.

Being a vintage fuzz its as simple as could be, a pot for volume, another for fuzz amount and a two way tone selector.
The big rubbery pedal on top is the wah!!!

I hate all these "it sounds like a chainsaw" reviews but this pedal kind of does, its a nasty crunching gristly fuzz. The two stock tones are both good, but i replaced the switch with a pot to give some more tone control and its well worth doing, can be done in 2 minutes and easily put back!!! But it well worth doing.

The Wah is kinda the same story, its not good but it offers a welcome alternative to the more brash modern wah's its nicely understated. But the range is somewhat short if you want a rock/metal wah you want a crybaby or a snarling dog.

I cant say i have had any noise problems with it, and the only other gripe i can muster is the volume drop/boost with the fuzz and wah respectively.

I use this with an epiphone les paul/squire jazz bass and various pedals into vintage traynor mark 3 and sunn coliseum heads with matching cab.

I play everything from punk, metal, doom, drone etc... and it sounds awesome with everything.

Its simple as anything i havent had any problems with mine, and schematics are widely available if not still stuck to the chassis!!!
So pretty simple to fix or even re-build entirely.

See reliability

This is one of my favourite pedals, i dont have much money and i get good stuff as and when i can at prices that i can afford. If it got stolen or destroyed i would be majorly sore and i doubt i could afford to replace it.

It is a fantastically horrible pedal but i dont believe any pedal can truly warrant the prices i have seen paid for this. I am rating this on the price i paid for it, note i got lucky!

easy to use. adjust the volume and fuzz to where you want it, and step on the pedal.

agile hornet---->fuzzwah---->marhall 15 watt
not noisy if your amp is clean
the effects are great...when its set to high fuzz, the bottom end and power chords are very defined. if you try playing barre chords with high fuzz, they sound like shit, but obviously because its a fuzzwah. as for clean, it is all beautiful. picking and strumming is great....perfect amount of sweep. Two Fuzz settings...hard and soft...hard is more intense obviously. kinda like less sustain but louder...soft is thick and full.

i got it broken for 10 bucks, and spent 80 to fix it. well it is a little better now, but still not perfect - only works right on certain days!?!?...i cant really say because i got it broken. surprisingly lightweight for a wah pedal too.

again cant really give a rating. never dealt with them.

i already have a Snarling Dogs Wonder Wah 2 which is also a great wah, but i wanted a wah that worked well with fuzz. the shin-ei companion fuzzwah is great for classic rock/altenative with fuzz. another feature i like about it is when you turn the wah off, it makes for a great fuzz box with hard and soft fuzz settings. Only problem with this is to get bypass, you gotta push a lot of buttons. this is great for any kind of music mostly, except metal. i tried it on clean settings with distortion, and fuzz settings with not so much distortion, and both ways, it was muddy and undefined...so if youre looking for a "metal wah" get the crybaby from hell...if youre looking for a great wah, with unique fuzz, get the Shin-Ei Companion FuzzWah.

So... the only cons i could really think of were...
1)metal and really heavy stuff isn't really reachable with this pedal
2)NO AC ADAPTER INPUT????? BUT its great on batteries.
3) appearance is straightforward wah pedal...kinda wish it looked funkier

This may not be the appropriate site to ask this question However,, I have an 8Tr Fuzz Wah & I think these vintage pedals have a sound that todays digital effects cant come close to. My problem is that several of the wires soldered to carious connections have come off & I have no friggin idea where thier correct placemnt is. Woulkd sum KIND SOUL please op thewir unit ( Not very difficult 4 screws) and take a close up picture of the wires & circuits. I should be able to then solder the wires to the correct terminals. I woulkd greatly appreicate anyone who could do this THank you..Dr Undies

Great warm soft & Harsh Fuzz ( nuffink digital comes close) and the wah wah pedal is fair... overall though this vintage pedal is worth its weight in cocky shit.

Damn I inherited from a bother-in-law &about 5 wires have broken off the soldering points & I have NO IDEA where they connect to. I this was thru wear & ter it would be no good But I suspect it had human intervention :o)

I have no idea who maufactured the 8Tr Fuzz Wah. If I can find out they may have a circuit schematic or at least be able to advise me how to rectify the problem if nobody on this site is able to help.
Does anyone know who made this pedal?

I use mainly Boss effect pedals... I dabble in guitar & keyboad but play the drums as my main instrument.

Played guitar over 20 years but ya wouldn't know it :o)

I doubt if I could find anudda one

I love the warm analogue sound the fuzz is awesome & the wah acceptable

has 2 knobs, volume and tone i think(doesnt do much), a switch to change the style of fuzz and a wah.
pretty damn easy to use coz theres not many different tones u can get out of it

I am using squier strat or a Dearmond M-75 into DS-1, into a solec phaser, into the wah and into my Kustom amp. i love the sound of this fuzz. It is very rawk. Sounds like a chainsaw cuttin somethin.
only problem is there is some background noise but if u have an effects loop this should eliminate the problem.
The wah is not that great, i mainly bought the pedal for the fuzz.
Ive started to play a bit of punk but mostly originals. Also this is the same pedal as used by Ed O'brien of Radiohead so it sounds great on bass.

Um had it for a day so i hope so. look s pretty sturdy and has lasted 30 or so years so i guess so

I play a range of music but this pedal is not so great for all styles. You wiill either love it or hate it.
Has the most intense sound ever. THe reason i bought this is because of the sound that can be heard on radioheads Myxamatosis.
Some one should start a fan club for these fuzz pedals.

8TR FUZZ/WAH. Mine is labeled, oddly enough "Thomas". It's made in Japan. Has two pushbutton switches (one for wah and one for fuzz) wired in true bypass.
Two rotary knobs to set the amount of fuzz and volume, a footswitch to turn off and on the fuzz, a slide-switch to choose from Hard or soft fuzz and a 'toe-down' footswitch to engage the wah. Battery only.

It's strange sounding, but useful. It can get a bit noisy, but its worth it.

It has COSMO pots good switches and is built in a metal case. It should last.

Manual? Standard wah-type pedal. My tone-deaf non-musician friends can work it out in the space of seconds. The one I have is so used that the switches don't always, well, switch. Two, three (hard) presses to activate the wah, which can lead to some confusion due to the noise this machine produces anyway. Fuzz is an understatement.

Another reviewer said that he couldn't imagine what kind of music could be made with this pedal, and then went on to speak of Neil Young's "Arc" CD. I'll technically agree with the latter. I can't really imagine a "style" (I hate that word) this machine was designed for. Face it, guitar players in general are a fairly conservative bunch when it come to sound, which is reflected in the huge amount of available effects based around about six-seven circuit designs. Outside this sphere is your "avant-garde" (I hate that word) realm. This pedal is in that general area. Personally, I put a (more or less) homemade fretless bass through this purely for the sounds that all the synths and samplers I have just cannot make. If I need controlled noise, this little black box will provide it. Therefore no "sound quality" opinion. It's arbitrary.

Depend on it? Depends on it. All the moving parts on mine are in ribbons, but I don't use it on the road, as it were. Constant daily (ab)use would probably add to it's charm (will the wah kick in now?) but the circuit is, as far as I know, as it was when it left the factory/sweatshop all those years ago. This thing is older than I am, and I feel the years sometimes. I would like to try half a dozen more to compare the sound. I doubt it's the same. A ten all the same, it does what I want it to occaisionally and something new frequently.

Yeah right.
But Shin-ai were kind enough to put the schematic on the baseplate. Companies did that in the seventies, it seems. So theoretically this pedal can be cloned in the space of a few hours, although it's taking me rather longer. The end is in sight.

All the specifics of this pedal have been discussed. I feel that it slipped through the common-or-garden guitar effects net and a few thousand examples of a really original sound producing machine came into circulation. Maybe mine is just warped. It's far too extreme for "ordinary" (I hate that word) "music" (whatever) but as a truely different sound effect it is a treasure trove of frequencies. As I've said, I usually put a fretless bass through it, but am not adverse to drum machines, synths, microphones (just for ambient/room sounds)... it's all there to be used.

It's pretty damn easy to use - you press the toe-switch for the wah, the other toe switch for the fuzz, hit a chord and deafen yourself. Working out exactly what the hell is going on can be confusing the first time...;)

The band that everyone is talking about is probably the Jesus and Mary Chain. The pedal is heard on most of their albums - try 'Never understand' and 'I hate rock and roll' (the last half of the song) for two excellent examples. I'm 99% sure it's the only pedal used for that shrieking sound on those songs, played through William Reid's trademark 355 hollowbody.

I use this with any old bass amp and any old bass guitar (I'm not picky) and it makes the sound from hell. There's a bit of hiss, but it doesn't bother me because it's high-end. Also picks up radio when the guitarist uses it with his Peavey amp. Sometimes I use it with a Boss Distortion (which is broken, in a good way). I usually have the fuzz running, stomp the Boss - which creates monstrous levels of deep feedback - then stomp the wah, which creates gales of white noise and screaming feedback. It's an unbeatable crescendo of noise. On a good day just blowing on the strings makes it cry like a banshee. I would love to use this with a Big Muff, but I had a choice of one or the other and after one spin on the Shin-ei the decision was easy.

It really has only one sound, so if you like it, go for it. A friend likened it to having his teeth drilled.

It can be a little random, but I put that down to the age of the moving parts - I suspect the wah slips now and then, making it hard to get the exact sound and maintain it.
Other than that it's great. Hasn't failed to (dis)please yet.

Never heard of 'em other than this pedal.
My friend the pedal builder says it would probably be hard to repair because of it's age, but he didn't take a close look at it.

I'm in a very noisy avant-rock band (Sonic Youth/Dead C etc) and it's a gift from hell. I really can't think of anything quite like it. I'd sell both my amp and bass before this thing. Seriously.

I do agree with Michel, though, that the wah is very much like a pass filter. If I had the nouse to build one I'd probably dispense with the wah pedal and set the pot as a set-and-forget pass filter next to the other two pots on the front of it, with a stomp switch for the fuzz and a flick switch for the filter, which would make it more reliable for recording a 'just right' sound. But as it is I won't complain, the wah allows some serious deviations in pitch for the feedback in a live setting.

turn your amp on and step on it (look at the faces of the drummer and the bassplayer ;)

the wah is very sweet, a little bit softer than my crybaby and my vox.. i love it
the fuzz sounds? very very strange, but beautiful. you never know what happens nextespecially when u try to play mora than 2 notes at a time ...hendrix, kyuss... use a strat/neck PU and you get a octave fuzz like heard on jimi's purple haze. i use it with a ibanez tube king overdrive ,a digital delay and a MXR phase 90. any sound is possible now ;)

i play it all the time (ah no... not in every song... that's probably too much for the audience..;)

the best thing i bought for years (except the tubeking). i'm playing for 20 years now and i had A LOT of wah's, fuzz boxes, overdrives and so on. this is the best/strangest i ever heard. it's not bad to have another overdrive for more "normal" sounds ;)
but matches my needs (style somewhere between hendrix,zappa, RATM and korn & kyuss
sorry for the bad english ...i'm german

Fuzz button, off on and side-switch for two possibilities. Some knobs to turn. Wah off/on button. I moved the Wah button next to the Fuzz one to avoid switching the thing off by mistake.

I run a LP and a Marshall half-stack. It's incredibly noisy.
The effect sounds absolutely weird. The fuzz is harsh, stinky, brutal, totally void of 'dynamics'. The wah is not too bad, but the wah-sweep is a bit to short.

It has it's completely own noise character! I can hardly imagine any music that fits this pedal! I'd love to hear it.

No. It can make any kind of noise at any given moment. Including silence. I never dared to gig it. Didn't even dare to bring it to the rehearsal room.

This thing is completely weird. It fizzes, howls and screeches. It's impossible to make it sound like anything like a decent guitar sound. Sometimes, you get metal-saxophone sounds, old synths and things out of it.

The closest I can imagine is some of Neil Young's farthest out work on the special Arc-Weld disc or similar (it's one complete CD album of feedback endings to songs from the Weld tour).

I read in Guitar World or a similar publication about a band who used one of these things, noone out there whou found them?

I'm amazed to find so many reviews of the thing, made me real happy!
If you find one, buy it and treasure it for it's abilites. If you manage to harness the sound, you'll be the next Hendrix.

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.