Sparkly Blue Pepperspray.

[JakeFuzz]

Finished this up tonight. Its been completed for a few days but I felt the need to do some tweaking as usual. Knew I had to have one of these when I saw the schematic and heard Albini's demo. Built mine to the Albini spec and it sounds nothing like his. I have heard that his was very unique though, the lower octave sound on his is ridiculously prominent. Mine does sound pretty interesting though. Very aggressive, fuzzy overdrive is what I would call it. Very interesting sounding mid-range harmonic content. I find the Germanium diodes too fizzy. After tweaking for the last few days I've settled on a high gain BC108C from CDIL (hfe~450) for Q2 and a GE 2N404A (hfe~80); I tried a ton of higher gain devices in this position but I really liked the sound of this one better for some reason. The diodes I liked best were one orange super bright 3mm LED and a BAT46, had a real hard time choosing between the BAT46 and 41 though. Also R2 is now 47K and R1 is 100K, got these values by putting in trimmers. R1 is good after about 50K but there is definitely a sweet spot on R2 from ~50-150K.

Overall very cool. I like it a lot, it sounded way different than anything else I have or have heard so I felt the need to box up this bad boy!

[Bret608]

Hey I'm glad to see your take on this! This is still my only completed build to date...I live in Wisconsin and it's been a bit cold in the garage for soldering...

Your assessment of the sound is very much what I found with my build. I agree about it not sounding like Albini's, but I think his pedal is way too idiosyncratic to duplicate exactly (you could probably say that about his whole setup). That said, if you listen to some samples from the Big Black album Atomizer, you might here some of that fuzzy, aggressive overdrive.

I love that huge 2n404! Is that the ol' G.E. symbol? I used the 2n3565 for q2 but am curious how the BC108 sounds. I'm guessing that's the same one that you told me works really well for the Cosmo. I'd love to hear a demo of your version this thing. I'm not a fantastic player so it'd be cool to hear someone who could bring out the best in the circuit...

You went a way more exciting route than I did for the second set of diodes. I just did some 1n914s. Sounds pretty good, actually quite like a "normal" overdrive and almost as loud as the no diodes setting. I enjoy the fizziness of the GE diodes; just a little something different I suppose. On my Mustang, I don't get too much fizz unless I have both pickups on. With just the bridge, it's quite tweed-like.

[JakeFuzz]

Thanks! Ill try and record something maybe later today if I get the chance. Yep this is a very old General Electric 2N404A, I have a few of them that look like this. I have an RCA one around here somewhere too. These are my most recent batch of BC108C's, The ones I used before were the Texas Instruments gold pin kind and I really liked those in my Cosmo. I am not sure about these CDIL's in other fuzz circuits yet though, I need to do more tests with them. I did all my first tests with the 2n3565 and it sounds amazing too. The gain of that was about 180. The higher gain of the BC sounds slightly more squishy and compressed but has more bite and sustain. The 2N3565 has better note dynamics and is more harmonic.

I am a little concerned with the fizziness of my Ge diodes. They just sound wrong, I am going to try and pop some 1N34's or 1N60's in and see what those are all about. As for the other diodes, I tested with almost everything (not two 1n914 though). I really liked the higher Vf sounds (LED) but felt it was missing some of the gritty fuzziness that this was all about so I added the Schottky diode for the other polarity. BAT46 and BAT41 are my favorites and the differences between them is surprisingly noticeable. The 46 is more bitey and gritty while the 41 is super smooth. I frequently swap these two to get different textures, you should see my KoK after diode testing; ended up with this crazy combo of everything (LED, BAT46, BAT41, 1N4148)

[Bret608]

Awesome! I for one will look forward to it.

Hey, that is kind of concerning about your 1n695s...I've heard of folks trying out 1n60s with good results, so that does seem like something to try in terms of troubleshooting. Mine certainly has that kind of germanium "rip" or "rasp" to the notes, but nothing unpleasant to the ear. Like you said, gritty fuzziness. I wish I had socketed my additional diodes too so I could try out the combo you did. As I mentioned, it's good but a bit clean with the 1n914s...I like how you kept it in the spirit of the circuit.

Ah, I see about the BC108Cs...let me know how you like those. I'm building up my cart for an upcoming SB order and am definitely looking to get some interesting silicons for the Cosmo, and now maybe even for the Pepper Spray. I agree with you assessment of the 2n3565 in the circuit. The transistor tester slot on my cheap Centech DMM consistently came up at 220 for mine. Of course, I have no idea if the tester is crap or not, but good to know I was in the ballpark!

[nzCdog]

Sparkles!
Cool pedal man

[gtr2]

You really do earn the name jakefuzz!

Love the pedal.  I love the color as well.

Josh

[Om_Audio]

Nice- love the big knobs and color. Let's hear it!!

C

[JakeFuzz]

Tried some lower gain trannies for the germanium slot. Definitely some interesting sounds to be had there. It gets overly compressed especially with a GT308V, really weird and dark sounding. Tried a lower gain 2N404 and 2N1304 but they just had less bite to them. 100 seems to be a good gain range for this position. I stuck with the original combo, sounds the best to my ears. I also decided to swap one of the germanium diodes with a 1N5711 schottky diode that I picked up from work (the one not in series with the resistor), couldn't hang with all that fizz just wasn't useful at all to me. Demo is up! Gonna crank this bad boy up into some dudes 4x10 deville this weekend, should be fun! 

[Bret608]

If it's the demo you have up right now, it rocks! Your tweaks seem to bring out the best. My 2n404 has gain of 57, according to what Small Bear wrote on the package (couldn't get a good read with my DMM's gain tester). Glad I socketed everything 'cause now I feel like experimenting!

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

So many mods and experimentation!!! I'll be coming back here for a second read when I'm ready to populate my pepperspray...