Your Live Fuzz Face Experiences?

[Bearded Fish]

I'm interested to hear any stories or experiences you've had using a Ge Fuzz Face (or one of its many clones) in a live situation. Particularly those related to temperature changes, radio interference, reaction to other effects, etc.

As far as temperature goes, what temperatures above/below room do you find a significant change in tone for a properly biased unit?

Even if your FF experience relates to something non-audible then please chip in! Maybe you've used the traditional FF enclosure to beat off interrupting drunks in the roughest bar in town, I don't know.

Let me hear your tales...

[mac]

I built a FF for a friend and some months later I had to mod it because my friend had almost all the problems you mentioned, audible and non audible.
The biggest problem is temp drift. The SunFace uses an extra pot to change the bias. I added this third pot and a voltmeter sticked to the Al chassis to read Vc2 value.
About drunks & drinks, seal the pot-chassis junction and use big knobs, they'll act as umbrellas.

mac

[petemoore]

  Ham Radio Guy was checking in...the FF picked up the signal perfectly, he was saying my name, it was quite loud at the gig, mainly audible when I wasn't playing.
  Through a Cooold Tonebender, big power chord sounded like "GkHh. .", it got pulled from the chain. FF Failed to perform well at all that night also. Dist+ got to do all the Fuzzing honors.
  Had tonebenders, sound great, not sound, sound funny, tweek and mess with 'em..I now just get a FF going then 'Benderize' that with an Added "stage' or other.
  Rangemaster...what does a 'Rangemaster' *Actually sound like? ...we could start a talk show on that subject...could go on for years...never get a definitive answer on it until Somebody Figures out, to the exclusion of all others, What exact guitar and amp makes a Rangemaster, sound like a "Rangemaster"....not to mention transistor color/type/number/date of mfg./who touched it/if it got breated on in the last 10 minutes/and it's specifications, measured.
   Anyway I've had lots of these, and now have 1, OC44-RM, it distorts pretty heavy for a 1Q circuit. I don't like nuthin' but guitar as input, doesn't like to drive much except a certain type and setting on a tube amp, *maybe a FF or phaser...this one isn't 'too' noisy...as long as I observe and work around all the limitations it works 'great'.
   Fairly recently I've managed to accurately classify a FF Dern Reliable for a long time, uses Ge's [one has RevDiode thermal runaway limit trick],  Axis Face is very close to what it is, if you make the .047uf a .068uf, 'bump the gain resistor up' by 820ohm...uses Small Bear SB175 [I thnk it's 175] [Ge transistor, and an OC44 as Q2. Countless FF encarnations resulted in this as todays ' my FF#1'.

[formerMember1]

I play the Axis Face sili rev 3.  It is good for temp problems, adn the Ge fuzz tone.  I added the Mayer Mods to it. 

It gets great Jimi tones, but still doesn't have the germanium "feel"/'touch" sensitvity.  I love it though.  I like it biased at 4.37volts, it makes the fuzz more fuzzy and helps the silicon trannies to sound more Ge, at 5.0volts or even 4.5volts it was too silicony sounding.

I am building a real Ge probably with Oc140's and am gonna compare.  The Mayer mods are a must for me though,...not only cuz of jimi, but without them the fuzz doesn't sound like i want.

Also do like Fretwire advises, bias the pedal by the Q1C resistor, it will be a more crunchy fuzz than biasing by the traditional Q2C way.  Or trimpot both and experiment! 

[mac]

It gets great Jimi tones, but still doesn't have the germanium "feel"/'touch" sensitvity.  I love it though.  I like it biased at 4.37volts, it makes the fuzz more fuzzy and helps the silicon trannies to sound more Ge, at 5.0volts or even 4.5volts it was too silicony sounding.

Mine has a reverse AA117 Ge diode from Q1 base to emitter, or gnd in this case, and a switch. When activated the diode makes Vc2 drop from 4.9v to 4.3v adding more Ge feel to the sound (sorry can't find the words in english... 'cuerpo' in spanish). I guess that the diode shunts some signal to gnd that is not negative fedback to Q1 producing the opposite effect, more mids... not sure if it works this way. Maybe a big pot could do the same effect.

Also do like Fretwire advises, bias the pedal by the Q1C resistor, it will be a more crunchy fuzz than biasing by the traditional Q2C way.  Or trimpot both and experiment! 

I like to set Q1C resistor near the point where it does not produce a sound at all, and then adjust Q2C resistor to get near 4.5v. Not very useful with Ge because of temp drift, unless you use the reverse diode stab or other trick.

mac

[formerMember1]

Mine has a reverse AA117 Ge diode from Q1 base to emitter, or gnd in this case, and a switch. When activated the diode makes Vc2 drop from 4.9v to 4.3v adding more Ge feel to the sound (sorry can't find the words in english... 'cuerpo' in spanish). I guess that the diode shunts some signal to gnd that is not negative fedback to Q1 producing the opposite effect, more mids... not sure if it works this way. Maybe a big pot could do the same effect.

that is interesting!  Does the diode itself cause different tone, or can i do the same thing by just lowering the bias to 4.3volts? 

You are right, for this pedal a 4.37vol or so sounds more Ge than a 4.5or 4.9volt

[RDV]

I've got a good one that I've posted before.

I bought an aNaLoGMaN Sun Face many years ago and liked it pretty good and all. This was before the external bias control was available(remember this).

We were playing outdoors in FL in January which was OK till the sun went down. The temp dropped about 30 degrees over the course of about an hour.

Interesting things started happening. It was a bit like kinking a water hose till till there's just a trickle then finally nothing. No sound. On the way various shades of weeny mosquito tones were going on including at one point an interesting sort of octave sound.

Needless to say I had to turn it off then.

Froze my ass off that night!

RDV

[mac]

formerMember1,
I bet it was the diode. In the interval 4-5v it changed the tonal response. I should have to try again. The same effect but with less intensity can be obtained placing a Ge reverse diode from Q2B to Q2E (the black line to the base side in a npn version). The effect over VC2 is also smaller. And different diodes produce different voltage drops.
In the same way, placing two 47K in series, instead of the standard 100k feedback resistor, and a small cap of the order of pF from the junction of the 47K's to gnd increases the highs.

Of course this mod is fine for my laney, can't tell with a fender or marshall.

mac

[formerMember1]

thanks Mac, i will try this on my next fuzz this week!! 

[nightingale]

Hi,
I use a Ge/Si hybrid fuzz live full time and just use my tele volume to control fuzz.
I keep a RM axis fuzz on my board unplugged right next to it. If I get any weirdness whatsoever [only happened a couple times]. I just plug the axis fuzz in between songs or whatever and finish out the set with it. THe RM Axis was designed to not have any of the FF weirdness eg. temp, or RF.

hth,