Ge Fuzz Face: Leave well enough alone?

[bwanasonic]

For my second homebrew pedal project, I managed to make a Ge FF that I am quite pleased with. Just plugged in Ge trannys from smallbear and Steve's recommended resistor values that came with them. In learning more about this circuit I took readings on the transistors:

Q1 C -.66, B -.10, E 0
Q2 C -6.78, B -.65, E -.5

Is the collector on Q2 a little high? Steve's supplied values advised a 39k/470/3.9k with a 150k feedback resistor. The 3.9k is about half the *stock* 8.2k. Would raising this lower the collector voltage? Should I care, since I basically am happy with the sound?

Ever tweakish
Kerry M

[RDV]

A 10k trimpot would give you the option to tweak w/out having to lose what you've already got.

Regards

RDV

[bwanasonic]

A 10k trimpot would give you the option to tweak w/out having to lose what you've already got.

Regards

RDV

I wasn't sure which value to try changing first, but I did indeed just replace the 3.9k with a trimpot, and dialed the collector down to about -4.7v. Seems to clean up better now. Can't test it too much at 3am, so I'll see how it does at the gig tomorrow.

thanks
Kerry m

[Craig V]

Is the collector on Q2 a little high? Steve's supplied values advised a 39k/470/3.9k with a 150k feedback resistor.

Funny, my matched pair had the same exact resistor values.  I was getting about 7v on Q2, but replaced the resistor with a pot, and it seems to sound better.