Why does a fuzz face clone distort only when it´s turned up?

[small fish]

Hi,
maybe a silly question, but I just completed a Fuzz Face Clone, layout by GGG, and I didn´t expect it to distort the same way, as the cherrybomb. It produces a nice sound, but only turned the fuzz knob nearly completely up (although it´s a B1k pot). I can´t believe, that this is the function the pedal was designed for.

Is there any way to tweak these layouts to get an earlier distortion / fuzz or is the whole layout designed to distort only at high settings? Change the pot will be useless, I think.

I´m a little clueless at the moment 

Any help / advice will be highly appreciated.

Thx to all.

[stecykmi]

The fuzz face is really a beautiful circuit because it cleans up so nicely, but you might have particularly low gain transistors and that might have something to do with it. Also check component values so ensure everything's good.

if you still want more gain, you can either that add a small resistor (maybe 470ohms) in series with the fuzz pot (on the 3rd lug), or increase the pot to 2k.

[aziltz]

the original fuzz face was designed with the wrong taper pot.  a 1kC pot or 5kC pot will give a smooth control of the fuzz.

[mgwhit]

I asked the same thing on the BYOC forum after I built my ESV Fuzz and was essentially told (a.) that that was just a quirk of the circuit and (b.) that most people find a sweet spot with both knobs up in the last 25% of their rotation and then control the fuzz with their guitar volume.  The antilog taper (i.e. C) Fuzz pot sounds like an interesting solution and I'm going to play with that on an upcoming build.

Also keep in mind that the classic Fuzz Face circuit prefers lower output pickups and really doesn't like being placed after other pedals in your chain.  If you want to know what it's supposed to sound like, make sure you're evaluating it in that context.

[madbean]

If you really want to get the most out of a Fuzz Face, keep the fuzz control at maximum always and adjust the gain by using the volume knob on your guitar. It cleans up much better via changing the load at the front of the circuit rather than varying gain at the transistor. The 1kC works, but you still have the problem of it getting somewhat muffled when turned down.

[dwstanford]

Yeah, just turn both knobs all the way up and glue them down.  . Just kidding.  I have thought of building a fuzz face with fixed resistors for the pot values so that there are no knobs (except a bias trim inside).  Screw your one knob fuzz!  Mine has zero knobs.  Suck on that! 

[small fish]

If you really want to get the most out of a Fuzz Face, keep the fuzz control at maximum always and adjust the gain by using the volume knob on your guitar. It cleans up much better via changing the load at the front of the circuit rather than varying gain at the transistor. The 1kC works, but you still have the problem of it getting somewhat muffled when turned down.

Wow! That´s why I like this board so much!   
Thx for your fast response, everybody.

The effect of the volume knob, is quite useable.
I´m using it in front of a tube amp, so there´s no huge chain of fx in front, just a wah-pedal sometimes.
I´ll try the different pots next.
Does it make huge difference using these "matched pairs" of trannies? I used the combination of a 2n2222a and a 109a, and it sounds quite nice (just like the cherrybomb) to me. Maybe I´ll try some other trannies...

thx again for your fast response!
regards
Carsten

[cjkbug]

500k reverse audio gives a more useful taper for the volume as well.

[mgwhit]

500k reverse audio gives a more useful taper for the volume as well.

That makes absolutely no sense to me given that this is exactly the type of volume control that standard audio taper pots are designed for.  Is there any sort of rationale/explanation that you know of or did you just experiment and find that that value worked best for you?  Thanks!

[madbean]

The FF has pretty low output compared to other types of distortions. Setting the volume knob at noon on either a linear or audio taper pot does not get to unity. By using a reverse audio you get to unity earlier in the turn and therefore have more room to play with at the end of the taper.

[mgwhit]

Cool -- thanks!