Lovetone Cheese Source/Big Cheese build question

[ahiddentableau]

I just finished a pair of lovetone builds using alanp's boards--Cheese Source and the Meatball--and I have a question about the Big Cheese side of the Source (thank you alanp).  Is the gated fuzz position supposed to have output at all gain settings, or only when you push towards the last section of the range of the pot?  Mine doesn't seem to quite have enough signal to push the bias to "on" unless I go towards the end of the dial.  Also, the trimmer which I've read is supposed to set the level of "gated-ness" (if that's a word) doesn't seem to do anything much at all.  Is this normal?  Or am I looking at a build that's almost-but-not-quite-working?  Any insight would be very much appreciated.

[Betty Wont]

I just finished a pair of lovetone builds using alanp's boards--Cheese Source and the Meatball--and I have a question about the Big Cheese side of the Source (thank you alanp).  Is the gated fuzz position supposed to have output at all gain settings, or only when you push towards the last section of the range of the pot?  Mine doesn't seem to quite have enough signal to push the bias to "on" unless I go towards the end of the dial.  Also, the trimmer which I've read is supposed to set the level of "gated-ness" (if that's a word) doesn't seem to do anything much at all.  Is this normal?  Or am I looking at a build that's almost-but-not-quite-working?  Any insight would be very much appreciated.

On my Big Cheese (fuzzdog stinky cheese) builds the gate amount INCREASES as you turn up the gain knob. With the gate trimmer at noon the gate starts to kick in about noon on the gain knob, and gets more gated until no output at all at full clockwise.

[ahiddentableau]

On my Big Cheese (fuzzdog stinky cheese) builds the gate amount INCREASES as you turn up the gain knob. With the gate trimmer at noon the gate starts to kick in about noon on the gain knob, and gets more gated until no output at all at full clockwise.

That's exactly what I wanted to know.  Thanks trog.

[ahiddentableau]

Okay.  I did a lousy job with my question the last time, so I'm gonna give it another go.

On my big cheese, the gated setting only works in a one particular "sweet spot" on the gain knob range.  Before hitting that spot, there's basically little fuzz to speak of and no gating.  Then there is a small area where the fuzz and the gating both come on.  Then there is a spot where there is both fuzz and gating, but it's very small.  If I take the fuzz knob any further than that, then the output just fizzles.  If you hit the strings, you might get a brief fuzzy thump sound before the gate chokes it off.

The other thing I'm wondering about is the trimmer.  Because it really doesn't seem to do very much on my build.  Is there a noticable difference on different settings?  Or is it supposed to be very subtle?

Is that how it's supposed to work?  If so, then I'm good.  It just seems a bit odd to me that the functional spot would be so small.  I guess I'm comparing to a fuzz factory where if you tune the thing to a gated setting you basically still get the full run of the gain knob.

[m-Kresol]

my build behaves like torgoslayer described above. The gated-ness increases with the gain and especially prominent in the "cheese" setting of the selector switch. What you are describing is not how I remember mine, it was glorious fuzziness and drive all over the range
To me it sounds like you could have a wrong resistor or cap somewhere. Check the usual suspects and maybe start a tech help thread with the usual details.