Bee baa mods??

[Bernardduur]

Hey all!

I just finished my Bee Baa and I really like the pedal; on higher volumes the tone section really shines (something that sounds a bit dull on lower)

As I tend to add stuff to my pedals, are there any mods out there to make this little beast a bit more versatile? Or just for the fun of it

[Yun]

schematic please 

not to "flip the thread", but this one seems a bit too interesting, i MUST give it a try:

[Bernardduur]

I used this schematic; the fuzz is really awesome and likes to interact with other devices on my board. There are two settings; the mid fuzz is quite big and lets you turn up the tone to more treble. Only with a high volume setting the tone really comes to live with subtle nuances of bass
The other one is highly mid cut that with a tone at 0 makes great doom like nuances

This fuzz is in my ears a keeper but I miss the subtle fuzzes; with the sustain at the minimum it is more a splatter fuzz with octave up
Great!

[zarathustra]

Oddly enough, I'm also working on a Bee Baa clone. I'm going to try out a voltage sag to see if I can get some cool sputter effects, but I'd love to hear about other possible mods.

[Mark Hammer]

There's some weird features in that thing.

There is no real bypass in the unit, so to speak.  The switch goes between a variable "clean" booster and a distortion with no bypassing of the unit per se.  Seems to me that the clean boost option could simply be omitted and the first stage used as the initial gain stage for the distortion alone.  As boosts go, there are better ones out there, I'm sure.  In that spirit, skip the 220k/.0068/10k path, and replace the pair of back-to-back 1uf caps with a .47uf plastic cap, wiring the collector of Q1 more or less directly to the base of Q2 through that cap, instead of going through a switch.

The tone switch selects between a midscoop, à la Superfuzz/Shin-Ei, and an attenuated and slightly treble-cut signal of approximately equal volume.  Personally, I recommend using the variable scoop instead, since it permits more variation.  Omit the 33k/10k/47k/4n7 network and stick a 25k lin/log pot between the 0.1uf cap and ground, wired as variable resistor.  Naturally, the switch can be omitted in this instance.

You might want to consider splitting up that 68k fixed resistor at the input to the volume pot with a pair of 33k in series.  One goes between the mid-scoop filter and the tone control, and the other goes between the tone pot and the volume pot.  That should give a little better control over treble cut.

Someone explain to me whatthat .0047uf cap between the base and collector on Q2 is doing and why it would or wouldn't be a good idea to do something like that on Q3.

[Meanderthal]

 I agree about the clean boost part- more or less useless since it's either boost or distortion.

Schematic link is down. Was curious if it was the GGG 4 transistor version, or a 3 tranny version I've seen? I built the GGG version. Evil, Evil distortion, Kinda Sabbath in a box.(without the notch that is) Gotta love it!

[zarathustra]

Yeah, now that you mention it, that clean boost does seem kind of unnecessary. Would it be possible to use it in conjunction with the fuzz circuit as a sort of fuzz boost, e.g., a gain/volume boost to kick on during a solo? Or would that be a different beast altogether?

[Dan N]

Someone explain to me whatthat .0047uf cap between the base and collector on Q2 is doing and why it would or wouldn't be a good idea to do something like that on Q3.

There are pads on the original for another .0047. R.G. has it on his Baa-baa project.

It smoothes the sound. I prefer without, but with a switch it might be cool for those who want more distortion and less fuzz. I never tried removing the first one. Might be worth a try to see it it could get any nastier.

[Bernardduur]

Thanks Mark! The unit now even sounds more awesome!

[zarathustra]

Okay, after looking at the schematic more closely, I've realized my previous question doesn't make any sense. Haha. Sorry guys, still learning this stuff. 

I'd like to remove the clean boost, but I've already drilled my enclosure for three switches. I like Mark's idea about using a pot for variable scoop; would it be possible to make that mod switchable? E.g., so that in one position you get the stock Bee Baa while in the other position you get variable scoop? I'm thinking I could install a DPDT, using one pole to pull the 33k/10k/47k/4n7 network out of the circuit (sever the ground? sever the path to the switch?) and the other pole to insert a pot between the 0.1uF cap and ground. Does that make any sense, or am I totally off-base?

[Bernardduur]

Maybe just leave the whole thing intact and just adds the pot to the mid scoop and make that switchable.....

(well, I did)


I once removed the first stage from the circuit altogether and it made the fuzz sound dull and splatty.

[zarathustra]

Okay, I'll give that a shot. Thanks!

[JustinFun]

Nothing to see here.

Great mod to the boost but it screwed up the fuzz. Apols for threadromancy. More if I get it to work.