volume dilema, need your opinions!!! [SOLVED]

[iainpunk]

so if you are tasked with building a fuzz pedal with no knobs or other controls, not even volume, just a bypass switch and a tone 1/2 switch, would you make the volume as loud as a humbucker, as loud as a single coil, louder than most guitars or quieter than most guitars??? would you error on the side of higher volume or lower volume is what im asking.

i'm thinking about going for vintage single coil volume, a little bit like the Kay Fuzztone and to some extent a bunch of other japanese fuzzes like the Shin-ei Companion Fuzz, although that one has a volume control, its maxed out volume is lower than most guitars. this tradition/association with those fuzzes and the buzzy nasty nature of the fuzz i'm working on leads me to this choice of slightly lower volume than most guitars. its about the same volume as a vintage single coil guitar (east-german strat copy) but like half the volume of my modded explorer (with the volume on 7, the o'scope says its the same amplitude as the fuzz, volume on 10 and the amplitude is double).

i would like to know all of your opinions, ideas and "2 cents"!!!!!

cheers, Iain

[Quackzed]

i'd put a trim pot volume control inside it, theres no way it'll be 'just right' in different setups with different guitars... if i HAD to i'd use a strat neck sc guitar with its volume rolled back till the fuzz had cleaned up to a good clean tone and use THAT as my slightly less than unity guide. but thats how I use a ff...

[stallik]

I'll second the trim pot and raise you a hole in the enclosure to access it.

[iainpunk]

well, the current setup has about the same volume as a that vintage bridge pickup, and there is no volume control in the circuit yet, i was contemplating about adding a little booster after the last gain stage to up the volume a bit, like a 2x gain (6dB), i hadn't even considered a trimmer yet because i was thinking about not having any controls, WYSIWYG

the enclosure is easy to open up (cigar box) so i'm not seeing a need for an access hole

would this work? yes i have a bipolar supply and those diodes are to lower the bias point, i think a RED LED would work fine, guess ill find out when im home


cheers, Iain

[PRR]

...would this work?...

Yes; but sensitive to temperature and supply; also puts DC through your guitar. (And will crap-out if the source has no DC conductivity.)

[iainpunk]

...would this work?...

Yes; but sensitive to temperature and supply; also puts DC through your guitar. (And will crap-out if the source has no DC conductivity.)

why would it be sensitive to temperature? the gain is fully set by the resistors, independent of transistor gain.

it is placed after the tone control in the wavefolder fuzz, the transistor i'll use is a darlington pair, it has an Hfe of 1500 or more so the current wouldn't be too high anyways

this is the latest iteration of the design


cheers, Iain

[antonis]

why would it be sensitive to temperature?

'Cause in your previous scheme there wasn't any kind of steady (firm) bias, not even a DC path to GND..

[iainpunk]

why would it be sensitive to temperature?

'Cause in your previous scheme there wasn't any kind of steady (firm) bias, not even a DC path to GND..

yeah, i should have specified that, sorry.

[ThermionicScott]

Maybe an automatic volume control (AVC) circuit could be tweaked for use here.  Not to force any input to the same output volume, but to nudge the output volume up or down a bit depending on the signal strength coming in.

[iainpunk]

Maybe an automatic volume control (AVC) circuit could be tweaked for use here.  Not to force any input to the same output volume, but to nudge the output volume up or down a bit depending on the signal strength coming in.

i honestly think that is kind of overly complex for a fuzz circuit that's mean to be minimalistic enough that ill even skip the volume control...

cheers, Iain

[Mark Hammer]

What's perplexing is the purpose of such a pedal, in the absence of an easily-accessible volume control.  How is it expected to interact with whatever comes after it?  How is it expected to produce a desirable result in tandem with whatever comes before it?

I'm not saying it is impossible to arrive at some particular preset volume, or even that a musician is wrong to want something that is simple and either on or off.  And certainly the little boxes from Dan Armstrong, and more recently from Henretta, that only have bypass switches on the outside, demonstrate that musicians can see such a form-factor as useful and desirable.  But, again, they are useful and desirable within a particular context, and it's not clear to me what the context is in this case.

[iainpunk]

What's perplexing is the purpose of such a pedal, in the absence of an easily-accessible volume control.  How is it expected to interact with whatever comes after it?  How is it expected to produce a desirable result in tandem with whatever comes before it?

i just want a fuzz pedal that is loosely based on how fy-2 and fy-6 pedals sounds, that ''japanese fuzz sound'' harsh, abrasive, one trick pony, i see this build as both an experiment and a challenge. the FY-2, the Kay fuzz and a bunch of other japanese 70's fuzzes (is that the correct plural?) have a volume that is lower than most guitars put out, so people tend to run them at max volume, that is where the idea came from. I run a slightly to heavily overdriven amp at all times, so it matters even less. i put modulation and reverbs before my dirt (or in between 2 dirt pedals).

i don't play 'nice music' only hard and harsh, the pedal facilitates that.
this pedal isn't designed for mass market, but a nasty niche.

cheers, Iain

[Radical CJ]

I've also been working on what was initially intended to be a no-knobs fuzz where "fuzz" and "tone" could be controlled simply by pickup selection and the dials on the guitar. But I have now conceded that a volume control is necessary for the device to work with all my guitars.

[iainpunk]

at the moment, its as loud as my quietest guitar is. i always run my amp slightly to medium overdriven, this lower volume keeps my amp from also overdriving and making it feel too compressed.

but the dilemma i was facing is this:
the tone circuit after my main fuzz circuit has a relatively high impedance, and i think it really needs an output buffer before i send to the output jack. if im having a buffer, i might as well make it boost a little bit. should i boost or not?
my answer is: the gain can of course be on a trimpot so i can still turn it up or down and just set and forget for the most part.

cheers, Iain