"Armageddon Fuzz", or "Third Time's the Charm!"- DBA Fuzz War v2

[Invertiguy]

So this build actually has a bit of a story behind it. It started out in August of last year as a Spaceman Titan 2 clone (hence the missile in the graphic), but it never sounded quite right. Whereas the Titan 2 was thick and meaty in the demos I've watched, this one was thin and buzzy and, while far from quiet, didn't seem quite as loud as it should have been. I double and triple checked all the components on the board, took voltage measurements, sorted the transistors for gain, and despite all my troubleshooting efforts I couldn't find anything obviously wrong- after all, it mostly worked, it just sounded like crap. And so, frustrated and at a loss, I gave up and into the box of shame it went!

However, despite this abortive attempt I was rather proud of the artwork I'd come up with for the enclosure and didn't want it to go to waste so I set about finding another appropriately apocalyptic-sounding 3-knob fuzz circuit to replace the Titan. After watching a bunch of demos I settled on the Death By Audio Fuzz War, specifically the 4-transistor second version (both because I wanted to avoid the headaches associated with getting the 7-transistor version working correctly and because I preferred the sound). The story doesn't end there, however. I tried initially to build the circuit on vero, which I'm not overly fond of but did have on hand, and was met with failure. Once again, it sounded weak and buzzy and definitely put the idea into my head that this enclosure might be cursed. Once again I did some cursory troubleshooting (verifying component placement, checking vero cuts) but turned up nothing obviously amiss. In retrospect, I had socketed the transistors with the intention of experimenting with swapping them out later and I believe one of the sockets was rather loose and making poor connection. Checking voltages probably would have confirmed this, but I was sick of troubleshooting so I decided to scavenge what components I could and start over with a more comfortable and less error-prone technique.

Enter phase three. Since I had previously designed a couple boards in Eagle with good results, I drew up a board for the circuit to match the footprint of the Titan 2 board I had originally drilled the enclosure for and ordered a set from JLCPCB. This was my first time ordering from them and I was definitely a bit apprehensive, as I figured that anything that cheap had to be at least a little sketchy. Turns out my fears were completely unfounded however, as not only was the turnaround blazing fast but the boards turned out to be really nice! I assembled the board, wired it in, and hooked it up and not only did it fire right up but it actually sounds like it's supposed to!

And so at long last here we are. After 7 months and 2 failed attempts my perseverance has paid off and I finally have a build I can be proud of! This thing sounds BRUTAL. It's in the Muff family, but it definitely doesn't sound like any other Big Muff variant out there, mostly due to it's unique and rather versatile tone control that almost resembles a cocked wah at times. If crushing walls of thick fuzz that sounds like the Earth is caving in around you are your thing, this is the circuit for you!

[Bret608]

Looks great, and I have to hand it to you on perseverance! I think your layout is nice too. Now I want to revisit sound samples of this circuit.

[Aleph Null]

Looks good, inside and out. Glad you were able to pull it out of the fail pail.