Used my Foxx Tone Machine clone last night

[aron]

I forgot I built it long ago.

I have it in a 1590BB box with 2 footswitches. One for bypass, the other for octave in/out.

I forgot how good this thing sounds! It was pretty darn fun and it sounded nasty at times and it got a great octave up if you rolled back the treble.

When did I build this thing?

I thought it was broken because I couldn't see the LED light up - but it's a bad match with the JFET and the Mill 1 circuit inside. It glows but dimly.

Thank you Justin P. and GEO for the early schematics!!!!!!

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Library/1355/tonemachine.gif

[Mark Hammer]

It really IS a nice unit.  I made two.  Crank her up, plug in a chorus, set your whammy bar to the "Adrian Belew" setting, and work that volume control!!

[aron]

Here's a fast build. Make a true bypass box, mount a Danelectro French Toast in it. Enjoy. :wink:

[RDV]

Here's a fast build. Make a true bypass box, mount a Danelectro French Toast in it. Enjoy. :wink:

Ya fergot the Syrup!! Yummy!!

RDV

[jimbob]

Here's a fast build. Make a true bypass box, mount a Danelectro French Toast in it. Enjoy. Wink[url]

A better Idea..Burn Anything by the Dano company and cook marshmellos over it..I hate that company :lol:  Seriously. They straight up jacked me man!

But the Foxx Tone Machine rocks! Build another Aron!

[aron]

Yikes,..... you do know... the president of Danelectro was the founder of Foxx right? :?

[jimbob]

Didnt know...hmmm

[jsleep]

Yes it's good to see that the Foxx guy is still in business.  I think he's done fairly well with dano, but I don't like the "disposable" attitude of the effects.  I've compared the French Toast to my FTM clone, and they are as close to identical sound as you can get!  Of course I have a footswtich for the fuzz/octave too and I can't get my fat fingers between the dinky little knobs to adjust the controls on the French Toast. my clone is servicable and much more heavy duty, So mine is far superior :-)

JD

[aron]

OTOH, I really like the fact that they less than $40. I have a number of them and heck, they work. I really appreciate the fact that they are cheap. Reminds me of EH in the early days.

[phillip]

I really liked my fOXX clone too.  Very versatile effect since the octave can be switched on and off and the tone control is a plus, too.

I would imagine that the Tyco Octavia could stand to benefit from an octave on/off footswitch like the fOXX since it also produces a very mean fuzz!  One of my Fuzz Central viewers emailed me about bypassing the transformer/diodes to remove the octave effect and here's what we ended up with:



The 220K resistor in series with the octave bypass pole of the switch gets the two output levels just about the same so there's no giant volume gain when the octave is bypassed.

Phillip

[cd]

Yeah, I like my Fulltone Ultimate Octave as well  The switch on the Octavia is evne easier if you just wire a switch to switch in the bottom diode.  THen you get the transformer saturation and a bit of clipping as well.

[Johnny Guitar]

I bought a fOXX Tone Machine in 1974 that I still have and use and love. I think it cost me about $35.

I want to note that the orignals didn't have a foot switch for the octave (which always bothered me as a kid) but a simple toggle switch in line with the knobs -- I added a footswitch to mine several years ago.

I also want to note that the components are mounted on a sheet of paper (!!!!) in what I imagine is a point to point conection so I have never removed that paper from the box for fear of causing problems with the circuit.

I also got an FTM board (with swell!) from Geofex a few years ago. I haven't finished my FTM board since I don't have the transistors. RG recommends 2n5088, but the original is said to use 2n3565. Since the 2n3565 is available from Small Bear, I will probably get some of those. Does anybody know the pinout on them (I hope Steve can provide it)? Has anyone tried different transistors in there and noticed a difference (RG mentions there isn't really a difference)?

J

[cd]

No difference in transistors, I tried 2N222A, 2N3904, 2N5089 with the same results.

[Johnny Guitar]

No difference in transistors, I tried 2N222A, 2N3904, 2N5089 with the same results.

Thanks! Maybe I'll just finish mine since I have a boatload of 2n3904s.

I think I'm going to wait to finish most of my other projects until I can get some transistor sockets -- that's the one thing I've learned in my battle with the Fuzz Faces that I've been having for a while now.

J

[petemoore]

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/ftmsc.gif
 THis is the one I built, it hasn't a transformer.

[Jason Stout]

For those who don't know, the schematic Phillip posted is a Tychobrahe Octavia with an octave bypass mod, not a Foxx TM/french toast.

[Lonestarjohnny]

I finally got my Sears copy of the tonemachine going, it has the best octave effect and fuzz tone that i have ever owned, but i changed a few resister's that were out of spec and it hurt the tone, I saved them back so now i gotta go back and change them out, while i'm at it i think i'll mod the wah while i'm in there.
Johnny

[jmusser]

I can't agree with the guy about Dano stuff. I don't know exactly what his beef is, but I feel you get a lot of bang for your buck with Dano. I have the French Toast, French Fries, Hash Browns, Chicken Salad, Grilled Cheese, and Black Coffee, mini pedals, and the heavy weight maroon distortion pedal I can't remember the name of. I have not found any crap sounding pedals in the bunch. So far the only pedal I've not liked, is the Pastrami Overdrive, which was a better radio than effect. The Chicken Salad should have never have had a battery compartment, as a nine volt won't even light it off, and the Grilled Cheese and Pastrami should have never been built, since their tones are included in the big maroon pedal. The only pedal that I know of that ever got a bad rap, was the Sitar Swami. I have never heard this pedal, but it got absolutely trashed in pedal reviews. I haven't heard enough difference in the tone machine to trade my French Toast, or enough difference in the Chicken Salad, to want to build a Univibe.