Peacock Parallel Fuzz

[Aleph Null]

This project started when I was toggling between two different dirt boxes with very different characters and thought to myself, "These would sound great in a mix together if I double tracked guitar with them!" My next thought was, "Why double track when I can just split the signal and run the effects in parallel?!" The result is the Peacock Parallel Fuzz: two distinctly voiced fuzzes that can be run independently or in parallel.



I had originally planned a two-tone finish on the enclosure with water slide decal graphics and labels, but a defect in the powder coat precluded this. I went for hyrdodip instead.



Boxing was as thrilling as a 1590A build despite being a 125B. This was a cram!



An input buffer feeds two fuzz circuits which are then mixed by an active mixer at the output. The "bybpass" switches really just cut off the clean input when the fuzz is engaged and ground the LED, or ground the fuzz output when the fuzz is off.

The yellow channel is a Harmonic Percolator that has been voiced to be as mid-range focused and percussive as possible. This stock circuit does not like being placed after a buffer. I tested a few different ways to address this including series resistance at the input and a pickup emulator and found that a mosfet in Q2 behaves much more nicely than a BJT and doesn't require any of these other, more involved solutions.

The green channel is a Fuzz Face doing its best Big Muff impression. The feedback resistor has been greatly increased to increase the available saturation. The mosfet in Q2 helps with this as well (and makes the circuit play nice with the input buffer). The tilt eq is voiced to be especially scooped. This leaves room for the yellow channel to poke through when the two fuzzes are used together.

Here' s a demo:

Here's the vero layout in case any one wants to build their own.



And here's the bypass layout since it might not be obvious from the schematic.

[Invertiguy]

Damn, not only is that one hell of a unique build, but it looks and sounds awesome as well! My hat is off to you, sir!

[jessenator]

amen to the above!

Super job on this one. Love the parallel controls on the 45* (30*?) at any rate I like it and the demo makes me want to breadboard this one up just like the Otolith! Well done.

[Bio77]

Very cool! Nice build.  Agree about the knobs, they kind of tell the story of the raspy fuzz sitting in the middle of the scooped. 

[jessenator]

QQ on the schematic: are these two crossings junctions or wire hops? I'm assuming junctions, but am dumb sometimes. Thanks!

[jimilee]

Junctions


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[Aleph Null]

Thanks for all the kind words, guys!

QQ on the schematic: are these two crossings junctions or wire hops? I'm assuming junctions, but am dumb sometimes. Thanks!

Yep—those are junctions. I generally try to draw schematics in such a way that there are no wire hops. Also, yes: 30° angled controls. 

[dawson]

This is really great!

The sounds are awesome and I really dig your splitting/switching set-up.

[gordo]

I LOVE the sound of this thing.  I haven't done any vero boards other than a few utility things and printed this out.  Right about the time I figured I'd never have the b*lls to get a real piece of vero to work this one out I get a PIF from over at PedalPCB and now I'm committed....

[Aleph Null]

I LOVE the sound of this thing.  I haven't done any vero boards other than a few utility things and printed this out.  Right about the time I figured I'd never have the b*lls to get a real piece of vero to work this one out I get a PIF from over at PedalPCB and now I'm committed....

YASS!  What better way to loose your vero-ginity than to a double fuzz?! You might also wait a month and see if anyone else makes a PCB layout. 

[dawson]

With permission from the creator of this genius design, I'm making an attempt to hack the switching system out of this circuit.  My aim is to make a PCB that can be built as a standalone parallel switching box, or used as part of a larger multi-effect.
*Edit: this probably won't make a great standalone unit since I can't really begin to goof around with phasing or input buffers, but my hopes are that it can still used to stitch together different flavors of parallel drives/fuzzes.

Here's Version 1:

*I added extra holes so that I can use my thicker gauge of wire for the In/Out/Send/Return leads and create the option to use either an external 16mm POT or a trimmer as the balance control.
Only 2/3 gangs of the foot switches are used, but I went ahead and made the PCB for a 3PDT since that's what's always around here.

Thanks again for sharing the schematic for your awesome circuit, @Aleph Null!

[gordo]

Not so subtle reminder that I need to get my head back in this.  Vero is drilled and jumpered.

[Aleph Null]

If you want to buffer the returns, you could use a BJT buffer. This would also allow you to switch the phase (which you'd really only need to do on one return). It's probably pretty cheap insurance to make sure effects play nice with each other in parallel

Not so subtle reminder that I need to get my head back in this.  Vero is drilled and jumpered.

Yeah! I want to see that build report! 

[jwin615]

I LOVE the sound of this thing.  I haven't done any vero boards other than a few utility things and printed this out.  Right about the time I figured I'd never have the b*lls to get a real piece of vero to work this one out I get a PIF from over at PedalPCB and now I'm committed....

[Aleph Null]

I've updated the schematic in the original post after finding a minor value error. The layout was correct. Thanks, Dawson, for pointing them out!