Fender Blender

[DaKurt]

Hi,

a friend of mine would pay me if I built him the Fender Blender (it's very expensive).
So I wanted to ask if this schematic would sound like the original, because I don't (can't) use the vintage electric stuff (germanium trannies...)

So would this sound really good als with new parts?

http://fuzzcentral.tripod.com/blender/schem.html


Thank's Kurt

[Bill_F]

Fender Blender doesn't use Germanium transistors does it?

[Mark Hammer]

There is only one thing in the Fender Blender that you *can't* easily buy these days, and that's the chassis.

Seriously, all the needed components are pretty much standard items in most places, including the transistors.

Your buddy picked a good one.

[DaKurt]

so it would sound like the original?
and germanium diodes are common, right?
and it would also be worth building such an effect yourself, because of the price, right?

[smoguzbenjamin]

That looks pretty cool actually. Man oh man another one to put on my ever-growing list of need-to-builds

If you built it per the schematic, it would sound the same if and only if the schematic is correct. But give it a try anyway if it sounds cool then what the hell :mrgreen:

[Ed Rembold]

The schem at R.G.'s (GEO) is correct.  It does not use Ge trans. but Does use Ge diodes. Steve at Small Bear has everything you need including the "right" Si transistors, but you can use use any "medium gain" Si NPN trans, if you want.
There are some Modern mods that should be done- true bypass, pull down R's, octave on/off switching. I just remembered- One of the schems R.G. did that's floating around is missing a cap (output I think) but it's obvious.
If there's interest, I could draw up a "modern FB" schem.
Ed R.

[Mark Hammer]

so it would sound like the original?

Well, that's a judgment call.

Very often, what we call "the original" is an example of a given vintage item.  There may be considerable variation across examples of the same model of pedal simply because of tolerance variations in the components.  Look at the schematic for the Fender Blender, and you'll quickly realize that adding or subtracting 5% to/from the nominal value of any of those parts will produce a LOT of permutations and combinations.  Some of those may sound unbelievably good, and others will make you shake your head and go "They paid HOW MUCH for this?".  

Obviously, the known variations in germanium transistors and the role of things like hfe in some simple pedals like FuzzFaces draw our attention to the difference between "good ones" and "so-so ones" for some types of vintage pedals.  But that doesn't mean there is no variation in other pedals as well.

Usually, even when you hear a sound clip, it is a clip of only ONE example of that pedal, rather than a collection of clips from multiple examples of the same pedal with the same control settings.  It would be nice if one could extrapolate the idealized sound of a given pedal by hearing many such clips and mentally averaging across them, but obviously that's never going to happen.

So, the possibility exists that your friend WILL like the sound of the completed pedal the moment you power it up.  There is an equal possibility that it will require some tinkering after initial power-up to arrive at the sound he imagines it will have.  And there is a much larger possibility it will, like many of those that came off the assembly line during peak years of production, sound somewhere in the neighbourhood, but not the perfect dream.  Obviously one of the goals of this forum is for folks to eventually understand enough to make even the mediocre examples of a given design do what they *want* it to do, rather than being at the mercy of whatever combination of component value variations happened to end up inyour particular pedal.

[amckinley100]

I did that - built a FB for a friend.  Although I wish I hadn't - I now miss the sound !!!

The one I built I made according to RG's specifications (thank god for keeping a lab notebook!) but sought philip bryant's advice when it came to wiring the 'boost' switch - not necessarily a trivial matter, since it basically bypasses the tone pot, and when teh tone pot is bypassed there is an appreciable increase in the level, but a substantial decrease in the treble.  I wanted to stick another LED in, but was not sure which position could be called 'on'!!

IN short, I thought this pedal ROCKED!  I was able to play 'easy' blues (albeit with a rather 'sharp edge) right through to bone-crumblingly loud grunge

If you like fuzz pedals, I would recommend building two of these (but build your mate's one first - you'll learn things while doing that which will help make yours better )

BTW - does anyone reckon it'd be possible to put this pedal in a 1590BB case? You'd need some seriously optimised design parameters, but is it ultimately possible?  I stuck the other one in a 1590DD, but there was a lot of empty space...

Cheers

[DaKurt]

ok, thank's for all the answers. The problem is, that I'm not from America, and here is no smallbear...and that sucks sooo much, because, we have very big electronic-shops here, but non of them has the right things. Man, I'm so angry. Does anyone know a german shop, where I could buy them online?

Normally I buy parts, that are similar to the ones in the schematic when I can't buy them here in Munich, but I want to make a good pedal this time :/

[DaKurt]

and could anyone tell me what a 1k5 or 3k9 resistor is?

[Arn C.]

DaKurt wrote:  
[/quote]and could anyone tell me what a 1k5 or 3k9 resistor is?

1K5 = 1.5K ohms = 1500 ohms
3K9 = 3.9K ohms = 3900 ohms

Arn C.

[DaKurt]

ah thank's

[moosapotamus]

The problem is, that I'm not from America, and here is no smallbear...

Smallbear is everywhere... www.smallbearelec.com

And, afaik, Steve ships internationally.

~ Charlie

[Skreddy]

To answer your question "will it sound like an original?"...

The originals used 2N3391 transistors (actually the 1st 2 transistors are 2N3391A and the rest are 2N3391--I suspect the *A models are lower noise).  These had a gain of 250 - 800.  The gain of a 2N5088 is in the 350 - 900 range.  Substituting higher gain transistors in a distortion pedal will have a noticeable effect on the tone.

I suggest that if you want it to sound close to the original, use 2N3391s.

German electronics dealers?  I'm sure a web search will pick up quite a few; for example, http://www.material-stock.com/485316.html

[Mark Hammer]

BC109, 546 or 549 ought to be just fine.

[amckinley100]

I used 5 2n3391's to make "The Blender", but once it was made, i did a 'taste test' and substituted in 5 BC109's, 5 BC109C's (not quite sure of the difference between the two...), and 3 random mixtures of the 3 different transistors (I kid you not, i stuck 5 of each in a bag, jiggled it about and stuck them in for Q1, Q2 etc in the order they came out.

To my ear, there was no discernible difference between them - I think that the 'original' specification of 5 2n3391's sounded ever so slightly warmer than the BC109's.  I made a recording on my PC, and i've converted them to 128kbit MP3, but I kid you not, there is *no* difference apparent in the MP3, and I'm *not* going to post a 17Mb wav file

Seriously though, i'm honestly not sure it matters, since both transistors are very close in price (well, 30p each for the 2n3391 and 20p each for the bc109 - not much difference when you're buying 10 of them - perhaps if you buy 100 of them it makes a difference...)

Hope that helps

Cheers

[DaKurt]

so maybe it's a good idea including sockets, so I can easily exchange the transistors and diodes at the end...

[Mark Hammer]

Sockets are a good idea.  My hunchis that you can get a lot of transistors to work optimally if you play with bias.  Of course, there are an infinite number of combinations with respect to the passive components.  Much, much easier to simply try out the transistors you have, with a socket, and go with the ones that sound best to you.