Fuzzy Weekend 2013 pt 1: 1590A Muff on perf, Tea&Crumpets, & Whisker Biscuit

[midwayfair]

I built or boxed five fuzzes this past weekend. Here's part 1.



Pushestij Zelonij Pirog. It's a muff in a 1590A. On perfboard with full-sized parts. Yup, it can be done. Green Russian values, but slightly lower gain transistors for a bit more raggedness (I'm going for the sound in my friend Keith's real GR Big Muff Pi). the script says Fuzzy Green Pie, and there are stink lines coming from the green pie. This was the artwork in which I discovered that I don't actually know how to print in Cyrlic, because I ended up writing a few letters in cursive.

Transistors are BC549B -- the cheapies from Tayda. They have a slightly less gain and more ragged sound than the 5088 or 549C. I really didn't feel like modding this circuit at all; I'm supposed to clone my friend's Green Russian for him, and I think I can get exact with just using the right transistors rather than playing with the cap and resistors values. We'll see.

The diodes are some little Russian silicon diodes. They clip a little lower than a typical 1N914. That could also be part of it.


A Light Fuzzy Quiche #2. Another Whisker Biscuit on CultureJam's PCB, this time with a ! switch. Waaaay back when I made the first one, I made a serious error in one of the capacitor values, which resulted in a totally insane mids boost (rather than the typical mid scoop of a muff). I "fixed" the first Quiche, but I might just have to add the switch to that one as well. The tone stack in this approximates the green Russian big muff's. More Bone inspired art. A rat creature can dream ...

The transistors are kind of weird for this one. I used a 5089 in Q1, but an MPSA18 in Q2 (instead of 13) and a 3904 in the last stage. I also cut the volume pot to 10K.

This still has the weird gating/dropoff sound on the final decay of the note. I'm not totally sure I don't want to rip out Q2 and the biasing resistor and use an MPSA13, but the noise goes up so much when I do that and it gets a lot louder. I think I'll have to accept that it's just one of the vagaries of the circuit. Also, the slight gating is probably what keeps it from sounding exactly like a BMP, so maybe that's okay.


Tea and Crumpets. My build of Alex Frias's Boss T-bone Trumpet Fuzz. I've had the PCB soldered up for a while, but hadn't put it in a box. I ended up reflowing a lot of solder points, making a few last minute mods, and changing the transistors. (I've since updated the layout to be a little cleaner, too -- this was almost an exercise to see how small I could make it.) This pedal has a few interesting quirks: It does octaving with the voltage sagged, but also does a 5th drop down on the decay of a note in some settings. It also has something that could be a feature or a bug, which is that in certain highly sagged settings with the input maxed out you get a low-frequency carrier wave that does ring modulation. Utter insanity in three simple knobs. I might do a short demo of this one.

[selfdestroyer]

Awesome builds and names. I love your hand painted look you have been busting out. They look like a great piece of folk art.

[G.G.]

Great! It's cool you can just tweek some values and get a new twist on these circuits.

[midwayfair]

^ thanks guys. 

I swapped out the Q2 on the biscuit tonight for a socket. I do prefer the MPSA13 after some testing side-by side with the other biscuit. The decay is much more natural now and it sounds far more like a BMP.

[Stomptown]

These look great Jon! I'm always amazed by your artwork and I'd agree with Selfdestroyer. Folk art indeed! Whoever wins that hand painted enclosure this month is extremely lucky. 

[Thomas_H]

Your output of pedals is enourmous. In sheer quantity and quality!
You always have a special tweek on existing circuits and you come up with new stuff yourself.

I am most impressed!

[fendman]

Looks like you are the King of 1590A...

Great builds Jon and the artwork I have always liked, that was some weekends effort

Mike

[Cortexturizer]

great ones john!
please do the demo of the trumpet I would love to hear that even if it's just a sound sample and no video

[pickdropper]

Sweet builds, Jon! 

Totally agree with everybody about the artwork.

[croquet hoop]

This 1590A Muff on perf with full size parts is quite impressive. Great artwork as usual, and i'm curious about how the Trumpet sounds as well! Is this Boss T-bone a variation on the Bosstone?

[midwayfair]

Is this Boss T-bone a variation on the Bosstone?

Yup -- with a voltage sag pot and different transistors/gains and asymmetric clipping on the output instead of back-to-back silicon.

[nzCdog]

i like tea and crumpets... with a little butter and honey... yum yum