Mangler thoughts..

[Sigesmundninja]

I thought I would run this by you guys and get your point of view. I'm about to build me a new sweet mangler equipped with NPN transistors. But I all so want to build a Silicon fuzz pretty soon, so maybe I should combine the two?

In an ideal scenario this would be the specs:
The box would have both internal and external bias control ( so three knobs on the outside )
2 switches:
one for switching Q1 between a BC108 and OC140      ( 3PDT)
one for switching Q2 between BC108(+internal bias) and OC140(+external bias)  (4PDT)

I made a terrible job in photoshop to illustrate my thoughts. I might to this fuzz on turretboard so "bias 1 on board" (as it says in the picture) actually means bias 1 on the schematics.

I know a saw a guide somewhere on how to switch transistors with just a DPDT switch and in that guide i remember C, B, or E on the transistor being connected like in my picture. I just cant remember witch one.

Would this wiring cause lots of popping when I switch between transistors? And offcourse... Would this work?

[jkokura]

That's a really cool idea. I have no idea if it will work in the least, I'm not really a fuzz guy. But I can say that's a really innovative idea I haven't seen yet, so good stuff!

Jacob

[JakeFuzz]

I've done this before on a big muff clone I built. There is a little pop. You only need a DPDT; in my pedal I made the common connection the base of the transistor but if you leave any two of the connections open the third connection is open which allows you to save a pole on the switch. You may actually be able to just put the base on a switch and make the collector and emitter common but I am pretty sure you would need to ground the base connection (maybe not  ) and with germanium the leakage current is still there.

As for the biasing it should work. You can't make the collector the common connection in that case, but either of the other two connections should work just fine.

EDIT: After looking at your diagram I am pretty sure you don't need an additional connection to the bias pots and could get away with a 3PDT. In fact I am almost sure there is a way you could wire the entire thing to a DPDT switch. I can draw a diagram when I get more time to think about it tonight (and in this case the collector would be common and you are just switching the connection to the 470ohm 9v dropping resistor).

[Sigesmundninja]

Thank you for your input. I just cut me a peace o board to mount turrets on tomorrow, hopefully a will be able to give this a try this weekend. Just after I posted the picture I figured I could just wire the "1 and 2"-connections from the bias-pots directly to the Emitter-lugs on the swich, that would save me one pole and then I could use the last pole to wire a led that shows when the Extertior Bias-pot i "engaged"


What do you guys think of hybrid-Fuzzes? Is there any chance a BC108 in Q1 and OC140 in Q2 will sound any good?

[JakeFuzz]

Thank you for your input. I just cut me a peace o board to mount turrets on tomorrow, hopefully a will be able to give this a try this weekend.

What do you guys think of hybrid-Fuzzes? Is there any chance a BC108 in Q1 and OC140 in Q2 will sound any good?

Yes, I've tried that combo actually. It sounds very good. Try the Ge in Q1 as well. I find that Q1 has a greater impact on the frequency response of the fuzz. I don't fully understand the affect of germanium or silicon in the different positions as it seems to change with gains and transistor types but it is definitely worth a shot to try backwards.

I drew a little diagram on my lunch break and it does look like you can make it using a DPDT! Cool! It would be fun to have two switches so you could switch Q1 and Q2 to see what the different sounds are.

[Sigesmundninja]

Yeah thats the idea, the 3PDT in the picture is for Q1 and 4PDT is for Q2.