Axis Face Silicon built

[Branimir]

I used the Fuzz Central's layout for the AF, and used 2N2219A tranistors (140 and 170hfe), and all I can say is : WOW!

500k vol pot instead of 100k, and I found the smooth pot no use for me (P90 guitar no need to tame the output).

Acts like a Ge fuzz face, has more dirt (hfe's are too high for FF I guess), it's dark enough and sustains excellent. Tone is just right for me, guess the input cap rids the farty bass response and it works excellent with my lower tuning...




Thanks Phillipe for this nice design, I'm going on a 13 day tour next week and this will be my main pedal for the job! Knocked out the Ge FF and the Rat of my pedalboard easily!!!

I'm still amazed about how my guitar sounds natural with a fuzz face type circuit that doesn't choke on the deep tones, and my amp finally sounds like a truck!

Hehe

[tcobretti]

The Axis Face is possibly my favorite fuzz.  It is the one pedal that is always on my pedal board.

[John Lyons]

I like the Axis Face as well. I used 90 and 110 HFE transistors in mine.
Travis, did you mean Axis Face or Axis Fuzz?
The Smooth control works well to clean it up a bit.

John

[tcobretti]

I love them both, but the Axis Face is my favorite.  The only fuzz that gets used as much is the Orpheum - I love its nastiness.

[mac]

Mine has two 2N2219A (110,117), input pot, variable input cap, no gain pot. Sounds excelent. Hard to distinguish from a good Ge pedal.

mac

[roknjohn]

I agree as well. I think the Axis Face does an excellent job of replicating a germanium fuzz face. In fact I'm in the process of building one for a friend.

[brett]

Yep, it's a certified killer.

[yeeshkul]

any chance for a soundsample? please

[Branimir]

Hehe, I'll try!

offtopic/ps:
Ahoj z Chorvatsku, jsem student cestiny, mluvim spatne ale mam rad cestinu!

[drewl]

You people are killing me.....I'm hooked dammit!
Anyway, the idea of a good sounding silicon fuzz got me all excited, so I built this one and it looks great on an oscilloscope!
I made a box out of an old RF coupler and have one coat of paint on it.
I'm bringing the rest of the offboard parts to work tomorrow to finish it up if I get the box painted.
Can't wait to actually HEAR the damn thing!

[alex frias]

I've made a couple of very good sounding Ge FuzzFaces, NPN and PNP and I really love them.

I've stayed away from Silicon FF's, but building a large number of other kinds of Si fuzzes with very interesting sounds (FoxxTonen Machine being one of my favourits).

As I liked the sounds I've heard from SeymourDuncan Tweak Fuzz, Í decided to give myself a chance to experiment the Si FF side of things.

First I built the Fuzz Central Axis Silicon Face (is that the right name?) with BC108 for the Q1 (hfe = 80) and 2N3904 for the Q2 (hfe = 150) and what a great sound it has. It's hard to believe how good it sounds. I've adapted the TweakFuzz idea of six diferent input caps using a rotary switch to change them, so you get a pretty interesting tone shaper and an adaptive fuzz generator. It does not clean the sound as my other Ge FF's do even with the fuzz pot at the maximun, but it cleans up very well anyway..

I've tried the Twek Fuzz FF version scheme but didn't like it, the combination of Axis FF and the rotary input cap switch is terrific.

[yeeshkul]

offtopic/ps:
Ahoj z Chorvatsku, jsem student cestiny, mluvim spatne ale mam rad cestinu!

offtopic/ps:
Ahoj z Prahy , mluvis dobre!

[Gus]

A Si FF type made to take all kinds of Si not just the 2n3904s on the schematic

  Open loop Q1 gain is OK even with high Hfe transistors.

  Also has the Low pass and a 47K feedback R I do not understand why people keep using 100ks with Si type FFs if they want "touch" control.
R1 can be a fixed resistor 820 to 1.2k should work.

As always one can tune the circuit the input cap change is an OLD thing to do.  Look at Plate to Plate. Look at OLD fuzz schematics Like the 2 transistor Vox's.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/pedals/gusFuzzFace.gif

[brett]

Hi

I do not understand why people keep using 100ks with Si type FFs if they want "touch" control

Nor do I.  IMO a lot of people are stuck in a rut concerning that resistor.  From 33k to 100k offers an interesting range of fuzz flavours if you ask me.
cheers

[mac]

Also the 33k can be modified to get better bias. IMHO, Q1 has a very narrow sweet spot around 1.2v - 1.3v, 0.5v - 0.6v for Ge, IIRC.

mac

[drewl]

Well I finished painting the box and put it all together today.
Sounds really good, the notes do a nice "blossom" thing as they sustain.
I'll have to take some pix.
I'm getting a weird "ticking" sound from it after it warms up though....I'll try filtering the supply and see if that helps.