Harmonic Peculator Build Report

[replaceablehead]

I finished my second harmonic peculator. I put used two pots wired as variable resistors as first described by pinkjimiphoton in much earlier thread.
https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=99596.260

The resistors in question effect the bias. As described in the above thread the 91k (10k/20k in other schematics, 91k in the pepperspray) has the greatest effect, basically it adjusts the splattyness and fizzness of the fuzz, taking it from a really splatty compressed tone 10k-30k, to a tighter OD at about 90-100k.

And by adjusting the bias you do indeed effect the feedback frequency and overtones.

I have to say regardless of the setting the outstanding thing about this circuit is the way it feels to play. I've played a lot of amp like distortions and I own a hotcake, timmy, rat, ts, fuzzface, treble boost etc, but this is different. Tonally it may actually be closer to a solid state distortion. It is profoundly nasty, in a way that has nothing to do with splatter, it's hard to describe, kind of like... comb filtering? Phasing? Maybe.

When some people think of aggressive distortion they might be thinking of tone, or compression, or clipping, or just sheer ooomph. This is aggressive in another way, this is aggressive like flange in filter matrix mode played through an exploding tweed amp. It's metallic and nasty, but it responds to the touch and sags and blooms more like a tube amp.

The other thing I noticed is the way it responds to eq, there's something going on with this, maybe to do with loading, but if I flick my bass cut switch (I have a rotary setup with various caps) it does incredible things. It's like as I cut the bass the pedal compensates with more volume, so instead of getting quieter it just cuts more and more. I'll have to see if any of my other fuzzes do this, but I don't remember them doing it.

Anyway, I think this circuit is easily the most interesting distortion I have ever heard outside a tube amp. It's unruly and maybe it's technically a one trick pony, but it's just amazing.

Its got all the sag and harmonic overtones of imploding tube, but with this nasty solid state quality.

I will endeavor to make some recordings.

[rankot]

I suggest to add this as a comment to original thread, it's much easier to follow when all the comments about a specific pedal are in the same thread.