Capucino Fuzz - Percolator/Pepperspray demo

[midwayfair]

Just finished uploading this.

Went to my parents' house to shoot so I could actually turn up the amp.

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I shot a demo of my Clipper Ship, too, but I'm deciding whether the demo is actually usable. I was attempting to overdrive my Imperial, which apparently isn't possible even when feeding it 30dB of boost. Instead I ended up overdriving the camera's mic in a lot of places. I'll probably reshoot it tonight, maybe using my HRD instead. It has an attenuator to drop the voltage, and the input section is much less efficient than the Imperial, so I might be able to do a good demo of it at a reasonable volume without pissing off my neighbors.

[Bret608]

Wow! Thanks for doing this. I haven't heard much in the way of Albini-spec demos, so I didn't have a way to know if I had the sound as it should be. I just know mine was more OD-like and not so much like the stock spec builds. You seem to have a bit more gain and volume than mine, but then again I play a guitar with rather weak pickups (Mustang), and I can't normally turn my Blues Jr. up louder than "4" without my daughters complaining! 

You mentioned that pretty much any 2n404 sounds good and quite similar. Did you find the same with the 2n3565? I only got one from Smallbear; the transistor tester on my DMM said it was 227 HFE. Just wondering if that might be something to tweak when I get more of them. Also, I used 1n914s for my "odd" setting, and it's definitely in the ballpark of you OA126 setting. Of course, those have something pretty special going, but you see what I mean...

Also, I have to say--you kind of look and sound like Steve Albini here! And I mean that in a good way. He seems to be quite the gentleman these days.

[midwayfair]

Wow! Thanks for doing this. I haven't heard much in the way of Albini-spec demos, so I didn't have a way to know if I had the sound as it should be. I just know mine was more OD-like and not so much like the stock spec builds. You seem to have a bit more gain and volume than mine, but then again I play a guitar with rather weak pickups (Mustang), and I can't normally turn my Blues Jr. up louder than "4" without my daughters complaining! 

You mentioned that pretty much any 2n404 sounds good and quite similar. Did you find the same with the 2n3565? I only got one from Smallbear; the transistor tester on my DMM said it was 227 HFE. Just wondering if that might be something to tweak when I get more of them. Also, I used 1n914s for my "odd" setting, and it's definitely in the ballpark of you OA126 setting. Of course, those have something pretty special going, but you see what I mean...

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the demo.

The amp is definitely part of the equation here as far as gain and volume goes. A Blues Jr. is going to have less headroom and so you're probably getting some compression from your amp itself. The pickups in my guitar are pretty low output -- they're Reilander's Vintage Strat pickups, right around 6K. I think Mustang pickups are in the same range.

Any 2N3656s you try are going to be really, really close, and I've never heard a bad one (though my experience is limited to three or four circuits that use them, so take that with a grain of salt). I didn't even bother experimenting with Q2 since 2n3565s are known to be a great sounding transistor.

Also, I have to say--you kind of look and sound like Steve Albini here! And I mean that in a good way. He seems to be quite the gentleman these days.

Puffy-haired bespectacled guitarists, unite!