Effects Layouts Truth Bender

[danfrank]

Hi Everyone,
I bought some PCBs from Effects Layouts and one of them was the Truth Bender which is basically a clone of the Fuzz Bender. For a modern fuzz, the Fuzz Bender is great! It has the sounds of a Tone Bender style 60s  germanium fuzz with the added versatility of very effective tone controls and a "bias" control that sets how sputtery you want the fuzz to sound.
I also have an original Fuzz Bender and had to take it apart to find out what specs the Ge transistor inside has.
It's an NPN Japanese Ge transistor with a hfe of around 117 and a leakage of 1.08ma! You read that right, 1.08 milliamps! So this is a great project for all those leakey trashcan bound transistors.
The two silicon transistors have an hfe of 150-200 each. It tried a couple of 2N3903s with an hfe of around 50-60 each in these locations and the 150-200 hfe transistors sounded better.

[storyboardist]

Nicely done!

[jjjimi84]

Looking good!

[jessenator]

Nice 'n clean insides!

[danfrank]

Hi David,
By chance will you be restocking the out of stock boards on your site? I hope so.

[storyboardist]

Hi David,
By chance will you be restocking the out of stock boards on your site? I hope so.

Just put in an order with the fab house that should cover everything that's out of stock yesterday. Should be stocked back up in a couple weeks.