Bazz Fuss and No Joke Fuzz

[zpyder]

Last night I put a Bazz Fuss and a No Joke together on protoboard just for fun.  They both seem to work (they're practically the same circuit), but both seem to have crap for sustain, especially on higher strings/notes.

Consensus?

cheers,
zpyder

[Seljer]

I rember getting plenty sustain with my Bazz Fuzz (gave the thing away), I used a darlington transistor and a regular silicon diode in it, can't remember what the resistor on the collector was (basically I followed the 2nd one on the homewrecker page)

Mess around with the values on the thing, there aren't even half a dozen components so I guess that makes tweaking easier

[KerryF]

Yea, I did put together both.

1. Bazz Fuss- It had decent sustain and was rough.
2. No Joke Fuzz- I have a layout for it in the gallery.  I put it together, tried different diodes and transistors and capacitors and couldnt get a good fuzz out of it.  The best I got was using 2 silicon diodes clipping symmetrically in the spot of the 2nd transistor.  Maybe try LEDs clipping symmetrically as the 2nd transistor spot.

[brett]

Hi
The no joke fuzz is a low gain fuzz and won't give much sustain unless you put a darlington device (MPSA13 or 14) in it.
In that case, you might want to modify the collector resistor.
cheers

[zpyder]

Well I think I know what I did wrong... the output cap on the schem I had (for both if I recall) was .1uF  I grabbed a capacitor that said 102, thinking the rule was "take the first 2 digits and then move the decimal left as many space as the third number"  WRong.... unless the guide I just read is misleading, 102 would be .001uF ... I want a cap saying 104.  Not having my cap value chart in front of me...ahhh the joys of moving.

I'll give em a toss tonight or tomorow...

I kind of enjoyed the sound from a .001 output cap I gotta say.  No sustain whatsoever, but on chords it produced a very destroyed sound-almost really really dirty bit crusher.  I also plugged both a 5088 and 5087 in parallel and liked that sound better (I recently read this thread: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=16784.0).

cheers!
zpyder

[zpyder]

Oh yes.... one more thing.

I found it odd that both of these circuits call for a polarized a electrolytic input cap!?  I don't quite understand how anything but the bottom half of the signal could get through this thing!? (Since the cathode is pointed to input)  Are we just abusing the capacitor in this instance???  Could anyone explain to me the significance of this polarized cap in the signal path?

thanks,
cheers
zpyder

[Seljer]

I believe the polarized thing applys to the difference in voltages on the 2 sides of it, not to whats flowing over it.

The + side is towards the input of the transistor, which is biased to a couple of volts positve while the negative side is at 0V.

[christian]

Could anyone explain to me the significance of this polarized cap in the signal path?

Like the name says, its a bass fuzz, i.e originally designed for bass. That's why it has a big caps.
And that's why its just a low overdrive ultra-simple box with no thrills. You can use smaller cap for guitar, but it aint no fuzz after that. Oh yeah, and do the buzzbox mod, sticking 2 of these in series with the first one having a ge or schkottky diode. Wild octave-up.
With just a silicon diodes it sounds like plain old fuzzbox with more sustain and power.

ch.

[zpyder]

I believe the polarized thing applys to the difference in voltages on the 2 sides of it, not to whats flowing over it.

This would seem to be true of the 9v DC being pumped into the circuit, but the AC signal is constantly flip-flopping + to - to +....One moment the AC voltage difference will be in one direction, and the next it should be in the other. As far as the DC, it is my understanding that a capacitor shorts DC current, since the frequency of DC is 0, and the reacantance of a capacter at 0Hz is going to be (theoretically) infinite... Hmmm... Am I missing something?

sticking 2 of these in series

Yea..... I put the No Joke and the Bazz Fuss in series!  It was cool 
I LOVE finally having a stocked bench!  So fing sweet... I can FINALLY experiment!!!!!
still need to toss dem proper caps into these fuzzes though... can't wait till I'm done working and moving and cleaning!!!!!!!

cheers
zpyder

[zpyder]

I found it odd that both of these circuits call for a polarized electrolytic input cap!?  I don't quite understand how anything but the bottom half of the signal could get through this thing!? (Since the cathode is pointed to input)  Are we just abusing the capacitor in this instance???  Could anyone explain to me the significance of this polarized cap in the signal path?

Could anyone address my confusion here?  It seems to me that a polarized cap would half-rectify a signal, like a single diode... but obviously not...

thanks,
zpyder