Os Mutantes dilemma

[blackieNYC]

I've been working a lot on the OS Mutantes.  Couple weeks of tweaking.  Started with the "original", and moved on to the slightly updated madbean version. I'm back to that now. http://madbeanpedals.com/projects/Deadpool/docs/Deadpool.pdf
I've added a 470pf from collector to ground to get rid of some hiss, which didn't affect the sound much.  A friend of mine wants to buy this from me - a big fan of the band and all things 60s and Brazilian.
My dilemma is, does this thing.....  suck?   I've tried BC109s, didn't like it, and now I'm using 2N3565s.  I have the 10k bias pot, as in the schematic, and it offers some interesting squishy sounds, but it's not very very fuzzy (let's leave aside the clipping diodes in series with the pot for a moment).  I tried hitting it harder with a FET booster in front, and there seemed to be some potential there but in order to get thick fuzz that way, I'm crushing the thing and the voltage supply (I believe) is getting pulled down so much the notes cut out.
It's very farty, though there is a nice human voice-like envelope to it.  On single note passages.  There is no setting (bias, clipping pot, even a500k input attenuator was attempted) in which chords are of any interest to me at all (and I do like some very ugly stuff).  The IM distortion is thru the roof(I've tried reducing cap sizes to get rid of that).  The clipping diodes mask some of the crappy sound, giving it more of a MXR dist+ sound, but the awful sound still comes thru.
My friend's eyes light up like a puppy dog when I tell him the backstory - guitarist's bother, homemade guitar, sewing machine motor, etc.   I've told him tthat Claudio and Sergio used a hex pickup, but a song sample he gave me is played only on the low E string. I can't get this to sound like that at all.  He heard mine on the breadboard very briefly, he was drunk and still enthusiastic about the whole idea.
There are so many other fuzzes I'd rather build for him at this point. I'm sure he'd like them much better in the long run, but I haven't been able to tell him it sucks, so I go home and tweak it some more.  I haven't really sold any before.  I don't want my name on this thing. It is really designed to be a useful fuzz?

[Bret608]

The version of this circuit that I thought sounded the best can be found in the following clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AECvJA-Nd9Y

Are you getting sounds anywhere close to this? I am not sure what all mods Brad did to the circuit, but it looks like he drew from the Madbean ones at least somewhat. I've been kicking around the idea of building one of these too, but wasn't sure what I'd be listening for (just thought the circuit looked interesting) so started the usual you tube-ing.

[Mark Hammer]

To my ears (through the speakers in my work monitor) that doesn't sound a whole lot different than an Orpheus Fuzz or Fuzz-Rite.  A decent fuzz, but it would seem a whole bunch of other designs nail a sound not discriminably different.  To my ears, anyway.

Why don't you make your friend an Orpheum Fuzz, see if he does or doesn't like it, and resume the Deadpool if the Orpheum doesn't pass the test?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF3d4YBoGgI