18 minute fuzz build!

[jmusser]

No, there's not really any advantage to be able to build a fuzz in 18 minutes, but it was just something I wanted to challenge myself at. I had a couple minutes this morning before a long road trip, so....   I've had the little schematic around for quite some time  http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/fuzz.htm  I have read in the archives, that this is the fuzz circuit that Darksied eventually made the "741 Fuzz Effect" out of (search under "Does this look right?" ) I'm not sure who's circuit this is, but it does a pretty darn good fuzz for a simple 10 component circuit. It really goes ballistic if you do two string bends, and doesn't seem to know what to do with it. I like that weirdness though. This has a gob of gain, and goes wayyy above unity, and pretty decent sustain. It has pretty decent fuzz, and I believe would be a good starting point to do something with like Darksied did. I thought this would be a great 101 type circuit for a gracious person to guide me through on what each component does. The two diodes, and the 1 meg make up the feedback loop as far as I know. If I remember right, the resistor in this keeps the feedback from the output from running away like a run away freight train into the input, and also has to do with how much available gain you have. I don't know if the diodes in this case, chop the top and bottoms of the wave form off or not, as in "clipping", or whether the wave forms just gets chopped off naturally because it would be so far above and below the 4.5V reference. C2 and C3 would be the input and output caps, and I've always thought of them as having do high and low pass filtering, because they usually effect the tone of a circuit (the more the capacitance, the more bass, less more treble). But, they may also have to do with coupling, which some how eases the transistion between guitar and effect, and effect and amp. Since R1 and R2 are both 100K, and have a 100uf cap between them, I would have to believe that all this is, is a voltage divider to cut +9V to +4.5V to give the op amp the reference it needs for the incoming AC (guitar pickup voltage changes). This is what I have always assumed is going on, but I would like some clarification. This also brings up another question, what is an op amp? I have always figured that it was a series of transistor amplification stages like we would normally assemble with individual transistors, biasing resistors and coupling/ decoupling caps, but I may be way off.

[jmusser]

I'm just bumping this to see if my interpretation of the components of this circuit are correct.

[MartyMart]

Seems like you have it right jeff, R1/R2 and the big cap is a voltage divider to supply
the + input with 4.5 volts and therefore "bias"
The "largeish" input/output caps could be 0.047/ 0.1uf's to get it a little
thinner and the 1M resistor would be nice as a Pot, perhaps 500k log
to have a "gain" control.
Perhaps also a 200pf to 500pf cap also across the feedback loop to tame
some "highs"
Dead simple ... LOUD  and NASTY  !!   

MM.