Fuzz Face Help

[Drewmeyer]

Well, funny thing happened when I plugged the pedal in today. After swapping the two resistors and reversing the polarity of the lytics, nothing seemed to have changed. But today I plug in and suddenly the effect starts to come on. Now, it seems to work completely. Except for one thing, which is the noise. The pedal produce a horrendous amount of noise at full gain (which seems to be the only really usable setting) sort of like sputtering and popping along with hum. And it picks up the radio, which is a problem I've heard of before but don't know much about fixing. Any help here?

[rousejeremy]

They are pretty noisy until they are housed in a metal box. Finish it up and see if it clears up.
I find my finished pedals still pick up radio when the gain is on ten and I roll the guitars volume off. Apparently a small value cap across the input and ground can filter out RF interference.

[Drewmeyer]

They are pretty noisy until they are housed in a metal box. Finish it up and see if it clears up.
I find my finished pedals still pick up radio when the gain is on ten and I roll the guitars volume off. Apparently a small value cap across the input and ground can filter out RF interference.

Well, that actually did the trick! Looks like my fuzz face is in proper working order at last. Except now I need to build one with germanium trannies. Thanks for the help everyone! Glad to know I have such helpful folk at hand if I every need it  
EDIT: Rolled the volume on my guitar down and, like you said, I'm picking up radio and it becomes pretty noisy. What do you mean by a cap across the input and ground?

[rousejeremy]

A 100pF cap from the input jack hot to ground can get rid of interference. It's a good idea to use shielded cable from the jack to switch, and then switch to board input as well. I don't think I've heard a fuzz that wasn't kinda noisy unless it had some bias pot that dialed in some gating, like the Woolly Mammoth.

[Drewmeyer]

A 100pF cap from the input jack hot to ground can get rid of interference. It's a good idea to use shielded cable from the jack to switch, and then switch to board input as well. I don't think I've heard a fuzz that wasn't kinda noisy unless it had some bias pot that dialed in some gating, like the Woolly Mammoth.

Awesome, that worked! Totally quiet when the volume pot is down now. Except now when I bypass the effect, my dry signal is muffled.

[rousejeremy]

Yup, that'll happen. 

[Drewmeyer]

Yup, that'll happen. 

Oh haha, well in that case I'll just deal with the radio. Is there no other way to get rid of the interference?

[nocentelli]

A 100pF cap from the input jack hot to ground can get rid of interference.

Awesome, that worked! Totally quiet when the volume pot is down now. Except now when I bypass the effect, my dry signal is muffled.

If the cap to ground is wired to the effect input rather than to the guitar input, it won't affect it in bypass. I assume this is what rousejeremy meant. Alternatively, you can put the 100p cap across Q1 base/collector.

[LucifersTrip]

Also, are you talking about voltage of the transistors?

now that you have it working, make sure you mark down the transistor voltages.  it'll help for future builds and with possible troubleshooting & tweaking.

...and you can get noise if the transistors voltages are way off from typical values.

sample from ggg:

Q1
Collector
1.4v
Base
0.6v
Emitter
0.0v
Q2
Collector
4.5v
Base
1.4v
Emitter
0.8v

[rousejeremy]

A 100pF cap from the input jack hot to ground can get rid of interference.

Awesome, that worked! Totally quiet when the volume pot is down now. Except now when I bypass the effect, my dry signal is muffled.

If the cap to ground is wired to the effect input rather than to the guitar input, it won't affect it in bypass. I assume this is what rousejeremy meant. Alternatively, you can put the 100p cap across Q1 base/collector.

I've never tried the Q1 base/collector cap. Same RF cancelling effect?

[LucifersTrip]

A 100pF cap from the input jack hot to ground can get rid of interference.

Awesome, that worked! Totally quiet when the volume pot is down now. Except now when I bypass the effect, my dry signal is muffled.

If the cap to ground is wired to the effect input rather than to the guitar input, it won't affect it in bypass. I assume this is what rousejeremy meant. Alternatively, you can put the 100p cap across Q1 base/collector.

I've never tried the Q1 base/collector cap. Same RF cancelling effect?

don't know about RF, but that'll tame the highs/sizzle similar to Q2 base/collector

[Buzz]

Hi Drew,

Beginner here too. I'm just a few pedals down the track from you 

Looking at the back picture  ( solder side ) of your PCB it looks like you have gone to a bit of effort to make sure all of the copper trace has been covered in solder.

You don't have to do that, and it probably heats up the components unnecessarily.

Someone here ( who knows their salt ) might correct me, IDK.

I only solder the joints where the wire passes through the hole and have no problems. Might save you a bit of sweat and make your pedal last longer to do it this way.

[rousejeremy]

A 100pF cap from the input jack hot to ground can get rid of interference.

Awesome, that worked! Totally quiet when the volume pot is down now. Except now when I bypass the effect, my dry signal is muffled.

If the cap to ground is wired to the effect input rather than to the guitar input, it won't affect it in bypass. I assume this is what rousejeremy meant. Alternatively, you can put the 100p cap across Q1 base/collector.

I've never tried the Q1 base/collector cap. Same RF cancelling effect?

don't know about RF, but that'll tame the highs/sizzle similar to Q2 base/collector

Ah, that's one of the Fulltone 70 mods.

[Drewmeyer]

Hi Drew,

Beginner here too. I'm just a few pedals down the track from you 

Looking at the back picture  ( solder side ) of your PCB it looks like you have gone to a bit of effort to make sure all of the copper trace has been covered in solder.

You don't have to do that, and it probably heats up the components unnecessarily.

Someone here ( who knows their salt ) might correct me, IDK.

I only solder the joints where the wire passes through the hole and have no problems. Might save you a bit of sweat and make your pedal last longer to do it this way.

Oh yeah, that was my own foolishness. When the effect didn't work, it was the first thing I thought to try, just to make sure I didn't screw everything else up when something as simple as that was the problem, which it wasn't. But I agree, I think it ended up heating everything up more than necessary and made some things harder. Anyways, thanks for the tip! I probably would have continued doing the same thing on future builds had no one said anything

[Buzz]

Yeah I'm hearing you. It doesn't work... replace some components... then try ANYTHING! Then find out you swapped the output jack wires accidentally 

Oh well, we learn as we go 

[Drewmeyer]

Yeah I'm hearing you. It doesn't work... replace some components... then try ANYTHING! Then find out you swapped the output jack wires accidentally 

Oh well, we learn as we go 

Haha how true that is Glad I had such a helpful bunch of people, though, or I might not have learned for a much longer while