Anyone else get beaten by their first Fuzz Face build?

[SeanCostello]

I banged my head against the Fuzz Face for a year back in 1993. I was following the Craig Anderton Guitar Player article on the Fuzz Face from 1984, which shows the input schematic in the wrong place - inside the feedback loop. Apparently that makes the circuit not work.

I thought I was a complete idiot, until I got some new schematics in 1994. I put together a Tube Sound Fuzz, which worked right away. Next was a Vox Tone Bender, which is very similar to a Fuzz Face, except that the circuit worked.

By the time I first discovered the WWW back in late 1994, Leper's Schematic site had a bunch of fuzzes online, all of which seemed to be accurate.

Postscript: In 2005, I was giving a demo to Craig Anderton at the AES convention. I mentioned to him that his Fuzz Face article was what started me off in this whole audio business. His reply was "Oh, you mean the article with the broken schematic?"

Sean Costello

[Stompin Tom]

My FF worked with very little hassle, but it sounded pretty bad... really woofy. I just assumed that it really wasn't the circuit I was looking for and moved on. Then, over a year later, I had the chance to try analog man's sun face... Wow, that circuit actually sounds really good. I gave up too easily. I've been thinking of rebuilding it since.

(I do think you can get very similar tones out of a lot of different designs, though... say a well tuned dist+, even!).

[Meanderthal]

 My 3rd worked... first 2 not at all. 4th and 5th working fine too. I never did figure out where I went wrong the first 2 tries...   No biggie, the bonepile has grown from other projects too. It happens.

[MetalGod]

I had one of my early Fuzz Face builds in my 'salvage' box for ten years before I decided to try and fix it.  just turned out to be some simple jack/switch mistakes, the actual circuit was fine.  I tried building the Jordan Bosstone twice too and never got a peep out of it - one day that little b'stard will make noise if it's the last thing I do 

[Stompin Tom]

Many have said it before... the Bosstone is worth the trouble.