Fuzz factory

[The Tone God]

Obligtory Simpsons quote:

"My eyes...the goggles do nothing!" Rainier Wolfcastle

Andrew

[Ansil]

SWEET LEAPING JESUS HERE WE GO AGAIN .  Christ if you want to clone a fuzz factory grow balls buy one and reverse it if that is going to float your boat man.[no offense to any parties above.] but i mean lets get over it already its a great pedal well thought out sounds great and is smaller than i would ever have dreamed something should be.  

just don't post the schematics man  there have been plenty of us on this very forum who have looked at zachs work and thought ahh  pretty damn crafty Zach  crafty indeed.  myself included.

i have seen the insides of most of z's pedal line. and i have to say i can appreciate what he has done.   do i have schematics.. yes in my brain. i didn't ever comit it to paper or computer for that matter cause i am not out to steal bread from my fellow builder.

i think if you want to build a factory the best thing to do is to search all the whole forum and look at all the fake ones out there and look at all the times Z has corrected us and helped us out.  he has practically given it away. [i say practically so please read that twice.] at least he has told us how to get close.

look at the nano thread, he showed us where he drew inspiration from.. i say let the fuzzfactory alone.  buy it used man you can get them pretty cheap compared to a new one. or use it as a stepping stone to get your brain working in the same fashion or a new direction.
and for a look at a few people who have cloned things  take this one on for size.

theres a well known pedal builder who's site is down who copied
the bobtavia, part for part.
the bmp and removed the diodes and made it three channels of boost.
and the dearmond square wave or the mxr distortion.. same pedal. different case.

so what goes around comes around.  personally i like RG's article on dirty tricks to make it hard for people to reverse it.  but i like the multilayered board of zvex too as that alone will keep most away since they dont' want to trace down every point with a multilmeter.

[Doug_H]

;lkj

[lightningfingers]

hey mr vex, in them thar pics of the nano head, whats making that bluish glow?

just curiosity  

[coreybox]

tubes...

[zachary vex]

hey mr vex, in them thar pics of the nano head, whats making that bluish glow?

just curiosity  

that's not the nano head.  that's the prototype of the 'model zero' stereo hi-fi tube amp.  the orange glow is the tubes, while the blue glow is LEDs.  they're used in the audio path and indicate when the high voltage is active.

[Alex C]

Hey Zach, sorry, but blue LEDs have already been used before, you cheating, lying, twisted thief!  Check out this key ring:


You know what I'm gonna give you?  I'm gonna give you to the count of ten to get yer ugly, yellow, no-good keester off my property, before I pump your guts full o' lead!

[zachary vex]

so those blue leds are in the audio path of the keyrings?

[puretube]

that`s a video device...  

[zachary vex]

oh, jesus, you're right!  gahh... they're in the VIDEO path.

just for shits and giggles, i have 5 components per channel in the audio path of my little prototype stereo amp.  it's +1/-1.5 dB from 40Hz to 20KHz.  .5 watts clean.  i don't know how much distortion it has... it's certainly low enough so that the sound is really enjoyable, but i know there must be a lot of bizzare artifacts that i can't measure with my fuzz-specialized collection of test gear.  8^)

the signal path is input transformer (50 ohms)->damping resistor->tube(class AB)->LED (cathode bias)->output transformer (center-tapped custom) with 8 and 16 ohm output taps.  the power supply consists of a toroidal transformer->full wave rectifier->filter cap.  there are independent power supplies for each channel.  the inputs are balanced (RCAs for convenience, but floating grounds) and the outputs are classic brass thumbnuts.  they're pretty clear in the picture.  the schematic, verbally, is this:  input transformer has centertap grounded on secondary with damping resistor across outer windings.  outer windings feed two grids on 6021W.  the cathodes are shorted and go to ground through an ultra-bright blue LED for biasing.  plates are connected to output transformer's primary outer windings, and center tap is connected to HV power supply's output.  hum is canceled.  no preamp tubes means no intermodulation between output and input power supplies!  full balancing means you can strap this baby easily for more power.  low output wattage and voltage means you can re-record directly off the outputs when connected to a speaker load, preserving the bizzare reactive load's interaction with the transformer!  unique shit going on here... i can think of lots of fun applications for adding harmonics to bass and vocals using mild distortion, and what's really fun is you can hear exactly when it's getting sweet through the speaker coming from the amp, before you capture the signal back to your recorder.  think about this... at .5 watts max, if you push the output to .7 watts for added harmonic distortion, an 8 ohm load will result in a 2.3V RMS audio signal isolated electrically on the output, which is well within the range of most consoles using a 20dB pad on the input!  remember, 1V RMS is 0 dBV!

i'm pretty excited about making a commercial product out of this thing.  it's got some little issues right now, but i think they're mostly solvable.  there's some hum from the toroidal transformers coupling directly to the output transformers, and a bit more hum from the input transformers being trapped physically between the toroidal power transformers, but all in all, it's not that noisy for how convenient and small it is.  it would make a really fun headphone amp i think, and a great mixing amp to keep you from turning up too loud... and at maximum power, it would tell you quickly if you had something out of whack balance-wise, or too dynamic in the mix... the offensive item would distort and stick out like a sore thumb!  8^)

[puretube]

great!
have you tried different mounting angles between the xfrmrs ("hum")?
nice schemo there! (nothing for me with those video devices, though)
:wink:


[of course I`m already pondering over a pure-tube 100W booster for that goodie... :lol: ]

[zachary vex]

hah!  i wish i could change something.  once i put those toroidal trannies in there the real estate disappeared completely... i'm lucky to have room to mount the transformers at all!

[Ansil]

theres a well known pedal builder who's site is down who copied
the bobtavia, part for part.

Someone tried to market the bobtavia? Now that's funny! :lol:

Doug

he even asked about how to fix  aproblem on this board.  hlmmm  i bet a search of it will show... on page 2