Thistledown #2 (yet another modded FF with BIG mids)

[midwayfair]

This was another box that I had drilled a few months ago that I just didn't know what to do with. I had drilled it for normal metal jacks instead of plastic low-profile jacks, and for two pots, so I was pretty limited to have could fit inside. Then I realized I didn't actually have a germanium Fuzz Face boxed up despite messing around with it on the breadboard so often. [Well, I have my BYOC FF sitting in the box of fail ('twas my first kit lo those many months ago ...), but I broke one of the AC128s and have never really had much interest in fixing the board to get it working.] I guess I just wasn't really inspired to box up the classic circuit because I prefer a little less .

So I made this today, based off of Brian's schematic for the Hipster more than the Mangler, and with a few changes listed below.


It's got really low gain transistors (both 60 with leakage around 70). I used some of the same mods from my silicon Hipster (http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=4759.0), like a 100pF cap between the two collectors to reduce the treble and a 1uF input cap. I also reduced the volume pot this time to 100K and used the calculator CultureJam posted about recently (http://sim.okawa-denshi.jp/en/CRhikeisan.htm) to rework the output cap for a cutoff of ~71. Finally, I used 1.5K in place of the 470Ohm to boost the output and mids.

The end result is a fuzz with more cut (even getting a small amount of honk), with some really high frequencies rolled off to reduce noise, perfect cleanup (no fuzz at all with my guitar below 7, OD on 8, grind on 9, smooth fuzz on 10), and zero mush. I biased it correctly, but I may go back in and slightly underbias it instead. It was really interesting around 3.5v on the Q2c. It really suits my tastes as-is, though.

Kind of embarrassing that it wasn't a completely uneventful build, though. I made a really stupid mistake in my layout with the placement of a resistor in the bias network and wasted a lot of time trying to figure out why none of my transistors would bias correctly. I lost a lug on the out jack back when I wired up the box (before I knew the circuit would fit without bending the lugs), so it's actually soldered directly to the tip. And the DC jack from Tayda was the worst ... I broke one of the lugs on two of them, so the really short wires up at the top started to get a little ratty. Then the paint bled a little when the clearcoat went on, so I had to touch up the lettering on top of gloss clearcoat. I guess it turned out alright in the end, because I'm happy with the sound and the look, but I was planning on a 3 hour distraction including testing transistors and it turned into almost my entire day including the painting.

[nzCdog]

Nice one Jon.... those Fuzz circuits are so addictive when it comes to tweaking huh?  Cool paintjob

[midwayfair]

those Fuzz circuits are so addictive when it comes to tweaking huh?

There are times when I think I should just have done with it and built one with trimpots on all the resistors and internal dip switches for all the caps ... but then I wouldn't have an excuse to make something like this.

I'm pretty close to having something in most of the fuzz families. I still need to make a Tonebender, a real muff of some sort, something like a Shin-Ei, a Maestro, .... it never ends, does it?

[Bret608]

I'd be really curious to hear what this sounds like with that big mids boost, since this kind of circuit so often ends up with scooped mids. I'm working on a Fuzzhead-based thing right now (with a cool board etched by irmcdermott), and I'm hoping that's what it will do! Just need an appropriate GE tranny and an enclosure...

[midwayfair]

I'd be really curious to hear what this sounds like with that big mids boost, since this kind of circuit so often ends up with scooped mids. I'm working on a Fuzzhead-based thing right now (with a cool board etched by irmcdermott), and I'm hoping that's what it will do! Just need an appropriate GE tranny and an enclosure...

Well ... note that a "mids boost" in a fuzz face means that the tonal response is closer to flat, not a mid hump like in a TS or something like that. It can be done, but it means sacrificing most of the fuzz (because you have to cut the input cap to something like .1uF ... it'll get some hair on it but won't roar).

It might be a while before I can film a demo of this. I had some problems with noise complaints from the neighbors recently  and have barely touched the electric guitar for anything other than testing circuits. After I finish building the isobooth in my basement, I should have a handful of fun circuits to demo, including this one.

[GrindCustoms]

Looks really nice!

I've never been into fuzz box...until i started to build some,  it's truly addictive....you can do anything with them...mod wise. Love it!

Rej