the Filthy 9 fuzz

[Cortexturizer]

I wanted to post this as a contest entry, but since my photos are not very well lit, I decided not to. [still, if Brian and the gang sees this as no major obstacle, they should let me know!]
I used a cross-process AS film, it never lets me down, but this time the photos have incredibly bad contrast and are overall too dark. Still, I like them, I like the increased lo-fi-ness of these, hope you will too.
I built this for a friend, I gotta fetch it off him sometimes and make better photos cause I failed quite epicly with this macro shots, which doesn't happen to me that often... oh well.

It's a Pharaoh version of the Muff yeah [like 4th or 5th that I did], and I added an extra pot which makes a ton of difference, no other mods than moded to extra quality components

Pics and demo now, my comments on the build and parts, a little later Cheers guys!









and the sound demo, not a particularly inspired one, just 3 files concatenated, I commented on the file where are the boundaries of every file...sounds MUCH better in person, much more organic, and creamy, and there's no slight buzzing like heard in this file, the sound is just studio ready!

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/kuato-design-stompboxes/filthy-9-fuzz[/soundcloud]

[angrykoko]

Sweet, I think it looks great. And on perfboard!
I haven't seen the pregain mod for this before,  do you like it?

I've been thinking about building a pharoah for a while but I already have a ramshead, is it different enough from a std muff?

[midwayfair]

Post this for your contest entry. If you're able to take better photos before tomorrow night, replace the pictures in your thread.

If you turn down the contrast in those photos and bump up the midtones, you might be able to make the guts clearer.

[pickdropper]

I really think you should enter this.  I would like a few clearer photos.  Not just for the contest, but because this looks like a really cool build and I'd like to admire it up close.

[soldersqueeze]

High contrast photography is the new goop- you have to protect your secrets somehow!

Love this build, really digging the style.

[Cortexturizer]

Nobody's commenting the sound, what do you think?

Thanks guys, but I fear I can't get better images in time, still it is YAM [yet another muff right] so what the heck, as much as I would like to be a part of the competition it doesn't matter, I'll enter it next month. Haven't been building lately that much to tell the truth. Though I have a Ge od/fuzz coming that will rock your world. It has been the end of my perfect fuzz quest, I hope I will show the finished build to you in a month or two.
Onto the Filthy 9 =>

This time I used carbon comp resistors, Evox Rifa, Silver Mica, and Styroflex capacitors, as well as some Panasonic electros. The transistors I ended up using with this particular combo of parts were BC192's, I liked them best in this circuit [though I have used 2N5089, 5088, and BC550C with this build very successfully] but all of the others gave too much gain and I ended up having a horrible fizzy sound. Then I switched for the bc192 and the sound became much better. It came to me as a great surprise when I measured those and got something a little bit over 200 in the HFE range. That's some crazy low gain, compared to 2n5089s! Still, the pedal never lacks sustain or gain, quite the contrary! This may be the gainiest, bassiest, and smoothest one yet.
Carbon comps do contribute a lot. They make the sound very silky, and milky in a way, "produced" if you will. Really, you can record this one with just about any type of gear and it should sound great on the tracks. Sweet.

As I have already mentioned, this is my 4th Pharaoh inspired build, in a nutshell, these are my findings:

-use metal film resistor for the tightest sound possible, great with crushing chords, riffs and whatnot, really a fantastic Mastodon-alike rhythm type of sound, and great for neck pickup work
-carbon comps will give you the smoothest sound you can get out of this circuit [Evox Rifa's in this particular build of mine really contribute to that as well], incredibly silky Gilmour type solos, and powerfull wall of sound power chord riffing that's not too tight or fast. You will experience some added noise, but it is much less than I have expected.
-use carbon film resistors for an in-between type of sound
-ceramic [mexican] KPDU caps proved to be very raspy in sound, which I quite liked
-metalized polyester film caps will give you smoothness
-if you would like to have a fantastic one-knob tone control on this build, I would adwise putting a 15K resistor instead of Highs, and reducing the Tone pot to 50K. Really, If I ever make this for myself, that's what I am gonna use. I had it on my test build for months, and it was fantastic. Did a simulation on the Duncan tone stack app and it looked interesting, tried it, and it is the bomb folks!
-the added pot is R12 [or 13 depending on the schematic] and what it does is limiting the amount of signal to the second clipping stage. How does this affect sound? Well, without loosing any sustain [okay maybe a little, it's not infinite any more] you get fantastic pick attack clarity and articulation, you can really hear the way the plectrum dances over the strings, and the character of your guitar way more. I love this mod, it is the best thing to do to a Muff based pedal!
-if you use a power supply, and experience hum no matter how well your power supply is filtered, use a 47R resistor in line with the + power rail and then to the circuit, it will work as a charm.

The placement of the battery on this particular build [first time I have ever done something like this] is weird, I know. But my friend wanted me to make this pedal exactly the way I made one of the previous ones, but have the footswitch in the middle lower part of the enclosure. So i did what I could to wire everything according to how I was experiencing the least noise and still respect his wishes. Not my best wiring, but hey, sounds great, it is reliable, and replacing the battery is not hard at all.
In a years time, the battery in my previous build dropped from 9V to 8.2V! No need for the power supply at all!

Somebody asked me if I had a blog, and thus I have created one recently...it's simple, and has only two posts, but tomorrow I will post my Sunkings for example. Cheers!

http://kuatodesign.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-filthy-9-fuzz.html

[sonarchotic]

I think it sounds great though I know no recording ever really captures how things sound in person.

[jkokura]

I think it sounds awesome!

Also, you can't enter this pedal next month, because you posted the build report this month. Builds need to be posted in the month they're built. So, include it in this months contest for sure! I think you'll get some votes, cause that's a super build.

Jacob

[Cortexturizer]

Thank you Jacob so much.

What I meant was, enter the next month with another build, not this one

I'm gonna skip this one, it was my fault not shooting a couple more ones at least with my mobile phone just in case. Lots of great builds in there, voting will be really hard as every month is.

[jkokura]

Dude, put it in already and stop analyzing the pics! If you hadn't said anything, I would never have noticed.

Jacob

[soldersqueeze]

I'm gonna skip this one, it was my fault not shooting a couple more ones at least with my mobile phone just in case. Lots of great builds in there, voting will be really hard as every month is.

Do the pics really have to be good enough to clone the pedal with one glance? I can see switches, a circuit, a battery and some pots- if these pics aren't good enough to enter the monthly contest I might as well pull my entry, because I don't see a great deal of difference.
In short, just enter the thing! It's a beauty and deserves to be there.

[wstimson]

yeah, man... that thing looks great.

The pics are fine.  More than adequate to see that you actually built it.
Toss it up in the contest, duder. 

[billstein]

Beautiful build. Love the pics.

[atreidesheir]

std muff

[gordo]

No, that's what I like about the photos.  They're so stark and harsh.  That's a very cool look.  Plus the pedal just rips.  Nice demo.  I've never built a version or variant of a Muff that has panned out.  The other guitar player in my old band in Canada and I get together every few years and I can play his rig with his mid 70's Muff and it sounds like crap and when he plays the same setup it's magic.  I keep hoping I'll "get it" one of these days.