Fulltone '69 "Niagara Falls"

[btraynor]

Hi,

I have Fulltone '69 from a friend that hisses more like the Niagara Falls with all knob settings. I had one before and have heard a few others, and this one hisses A LOT more than the others. I cannot imagine Fulltone would sell this pedal and I think it's damaged. The board looks original with the nkt's and all the glue, so my question is: Could something different than the trannies make the pedals hiss so bad (bad caps?) I wouldn't like to change the trannies.

Thanx for your help and excuse my poor english

BT

[smoguzbenjamin]

Maybe the caps have gone bad. You could try replacing all the caps and see if it hisses then.

[AL]

Isn't that a fuzz face derivative?  Try moving the wires away from each other.  I know it sounds weird but FF's are really sensitive to ... well just about everything and there may be some cross talk going on in there.  Just a thought.

AL

[gez]

So, I take it you were using '%^&*ney rhyming slang' in this thread's title?!

http://www.%^&*neyrhymingslang.co.uk/search.asp?expressionid=608&keyword=Niagara%20Falls&method=slang

[gtrmac]

Doesn't this pedal have trim pots? Maybe the tranny bias has drifted.

It's more likely that the trannys have gone leaky though, germaniums I would guess.

In your situation I would send it back to Fulltone though. A pedal like this should last for decades if not abused.

[Mark Abbott]

Dear BT

I do own one of these pedals, I don't think it is as noisy as you have mentioned. Perhaps if you give me some details I can help you get to the bottom of the problem.

As you know the pedal has only one pot in it. This is to adjust the collector resistor. Mike Fuller recommends the user adjusting this pot. It does effect the tone of the pedal in this way. The larger the collector resistor is the fuzzier the pedal sounds the smaller the resistor is the more the pedal sounds like an overdrive (kind of.)

Yours Sincerely

Mark Abbott.

[btraynor]

thanx for your replies. compared with two other '69 pedals it hisses very very bad, i think it's unplayable. if it would be a homebrew pedal i'd say "you have some very bad trannies in it", but it isn't.
the bias is okay, the wiring is okay, so i thought there are two possible reasons:
1. transistors gone bad (by what ever)
2.
i think about changing the caps but if someone says "no, the caps cannot cause that hiss", i don't have to mess with the massive glue that covers the half of the board and holds and is just everywhere... :-(
in this case i would just give it back to my friend and say trash it or sell it on ebay ;-)
the pedal is quite old and we are in europe, so sending to fulltone wouldn't make much sense.

bt

[lightningfingers]

well if its really that bad then whaT have you got to lose? replace all the caps and if its no betterTHEN get rid of it, but hey it might work

[Nasse]

:? I remeber reading somewhere maybe FAQ or Fuzzface FAQ that sometimes transistors can go bad and noisey if they get reverse voltage.

I once replaced zapped transistors at the circuit board component side, just cutted the transistor legs near the transistor case as possible, and soldered new trannies on those cutted longish tranny legs. I pretinned new and old transistor legs with long nose pliers as heatsink, so it was quite easy and quick. Not very reliable though but it worked for me

[Mark Abbott]

Okay I know this does sound simple enough, and things could still go wrong, but this is what I'd do.

I would get some 2N3906's (or whatever is locally available with a gain of around 100) and substitue them for the NKT275, if the pedal is much quieter, then email Mike Fuller for replacements.

You could email him for advice anyway, he may be able to shed some light, and suggest something we haven't thought of.

I don't think you have anything to lose.

Yours Sincerely

Mark Abbott

[btraynor]

ok, thanx guys. i think i’ll rip it apart and do some testing with other transistors first and then ask mr. fuller for some replacements :-)

bt