Tell me about Aron's Rocket Fuzz.

[Burstbucker]

I was wondering if any of you out there have built Aron's Rocket Fuzz.  What's your opinion of this pedal and is it similar to a Big Muff?  Are there any changes to the original schematic that you would recommend or is it pretty much perfect as is?

Here's a link:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=96

[Crawf]

Hi, Yes i`ve built the Rocket and thought it was great, a lot better than some of the commercial pedals you can buy IMO  plus if you put sockets you can try different caps-see the notes on the schematic, after i built it i gigged it and was very pleased with the tone, then i built the Rodent and the BSIAB and now i like them all!!!!!!!!!!!!! cheers Crawf.

[jmusser]

I built it back probably 5 years ago. It's a real good pedal, and if you adjust to a certain sweet spot before it distorts, you can really get some good Dicky Dale tones out of it.

[Burstbucker]

Dicky Dale?  You mean Dick Dale, right?

That's the last thing that I would have thought to use a pedal such as this for, oh well I guess anything is possible.

[Burstbucker]

Something else I was meaning to touch on is the noise issue.  I've read numerous posts from different people that have tackled this pedal and they seem to be dogged by squealing.  Has this been your experience too with the Rocket Fuzz?

[jmusser]

It seems like the squealing is related more to how the bias pot is adjusted. If you have it adjusted to where that transistor is at the high end of it's gain, and then crank the drive pot to max, it will squeal. At least that's what I've found in my build. It's been awhile since I've had mine out, but it seemed like the bias adjustment is pretty finicky, and once you get it adjusted to the sweet spot, leave it alone. I made the mistake of having my bias pot out on the pedal face, instead of keeping it as a board mounted trimmer.

[Burstbucker]

jmusser,

Thanks for sharing that info, makes a lot of sense.  I'll make sure I watch out for this when I build mine.

[Gus]

The three tran and rocket are buffered FF variations.  The 3 tran gain is controlled in the "standard" FF way.  The rocket 2nd stage is run at full gain and has a voltage divider vol control before it.

If you look the 2nd stage is a Si FF type.  Si FF types will often  squeal at full volume if the layout is not 100% right.

A person building the rocket might want to try a 100 Ohm at the top of the bias pot.  The 100 ohms  not bypassed by the cap across the 4.7K, 5K bias pot.

Years ago I built a FF that would squeal at full gain.  I measured the resistance (out of circuit) before I changed the layout of the last part of the pot before it squealed IIRC it was about 100 ohms.

Gus

[mac]

I breadboarded a rocket, first with Si BC549C hfe=450, and then with Ge 2SB176 hfe=200. I needed to mod some resistors in the input buffer. See my post at http://fuzzcentral.tripod.com (the enterprise vs. the rocket)
The Ge version sound a lot better if you get some high gain low leakage Ge.


mac

[RDV]

I like it. It was the 3rd build ever for me, and it's still in the original box(1590B).

RDV