Help modding an Ibanez FZ5 60's Fuzz

[Adamo]

I picked up one of these really cheap because I heard that it was basically an OD 850. Well, I've never played an OD850 but the sound on this pedal is really thin and lacking any 'bottom' whatsoever. I'm looking for some advice on some small changes that I could make to maybe improve the sound.

Here's a schematic:

[img]http://www.freeinfosociety.com/electronics/schematicsp/audio/pictures/ibanezfz5.gif/[img]

I found this on another website, does any of it make sense?

'I'd recommend first thinking in terms of sound. If you're happy with it, leave it. If there is something you might like different--and, having owned a couple of FZ5s, I'd say that it lacks bottom and sounds a bit thin--You can think about modifying it to improve those aspects. As I said above, one place to focus on is coupling caps. In the FZ5 and OD-9, they are .1 uf. In the 850, they are 1 uf. You may find that the larger value is too woolly. Or you may find that the smaller value is too thin. You might try .47 as a compromise, or a combination may work--Mark Hammer recommends going small on the first stage and bigger on subsequent stages, IIRC. All depends what you hear and what you are after (and also on your guitar and amp).

Other things to look at are the values in the tone stack (try modelling them in Duncan's tone stack calculator to compare, but make sure to account for the different impedances feeding the tone stack--the FZ5 is the only one with a buffer); the smoothing filters in the feedback loops of the clipping stages, and the and the emitter resistors on each of the gain stages.'

Thx