muff fuzz question

[compuwade]

About two years ago I built a muff fuzz. It sounded pretty good but it didn't seem to sound like a fuzz at all. Instead it sounded more like a overdrive/distortion. Never the less it pushed my amp pretty well so I decided to house it and keep it. Recenty I pulled it out to play some riffs, but instead of plugging in my Charvel I decided to play my Jackson. And behold....FUZZ. I can only assume that it reacts differently with my Charvel because it has a built in preamp and it changes the impedance. I like the way it sounds with both guitars but I would like to be able to get both the fuzz and the overdrive sound with just my Charvel. So my question is, how can I go about achieving that?

Thanks.
Wade

[Stellan]

If it is a matter of impedance, maybe you could use a bypassable buffer before the fuzz.

[compuwade]

Thanks, I should have noted that I already tried that. Adding a buffer just makes the pedal act like an overdrive with both guitars. So it has something to do with how my Charvel is pushing it. I'm very puzzled.

[Mark Hammer]

I used to own a Muff Fuzz many years ago.  Now I own a Muff Fuzz chassis, and some 2N5133 transistors in my parts box.  Let's just say I was less than thrilled with it.

More recently, though, if only because I can do it quickly enough now, I put a Muff Fuzz together wioth some 5088s.  I noticed in the schematic that, although it shares many attributes with a Fuzz Face, one that it does NOT share is the use of an emitter cap to ground in the second transistor, and a variable resistance to adjust gain.  So, I stuck one in.  There are several ways you could do it.  For example, if you had a 2k pot, you could stick a 680R fixed resistor between one outside lug and ground, attach the other outside lug to the emitter of Q2, and run a 10uf cao to ground from the wiper.  Or, you could just leave the 2k7 resistor in place and run a pot (1k-5k) from the emitter to an electrolytic cap then to ground.  In my case, I left the 2k7 in place and attached the wiper of a 5k pot to the emitter.  The two outside lugs then went to different valued caps tied to ground.  In the middle position, the circuit would have stick gain.  Rotating in either direction applied more gain, but at different starting points.  Use of smaller-value caps would apply the increased gain to mids and highs, but not bass.  Use of a larger-value cap (e.g., 22uf-47uf) would apply gain across the entire spectrum.

Long story short, bypassing the 2k7 resistance with a cap and something less than 2k7 will increase overall gain and fuzziness.

[CynicalMan]

EHX is actually marketing the muff fuzz as the muff overdrive now. I have a modded muff overdrive and I find that, with a guitar with no preamp plugged directly into it, it's pretty saturated sounding but cleans up as you turn your guitar volume down. With a buffer, it gets more nasty and fuzzy. The series impedance going into the pedal has a HUGE effect on the distortion.

[compuwade]

Thanks for all your replies. I have it breadboarded now so I.m gonna try some of Mark Hammers mods and see what I come up with. I appreciate the info!

-Wade