zero leakage fuzz schematics?

[darron]

hey all! have't posted in ages....


just wondering if there's any information from people who have played with this idea before?

i have hundreds and hundreds of zero (0.00, 0.02, etc.) leakage PNP germaniums... lots of different manufacturers from different times. i reckon these could make some of the best ever fuzzes, but the circuits would all need a large retune obviously.

are there any schematics for circuits to see what others have done in the past?

[reveal]

This page at small bear talks about things you can do with low gain germaniums.  Low leakage would be a plus. 

https://www.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/GeDarlingtons/GeDarlingtonPairs.htm

[darron]

This page at small bear talks about things you can do with low gain germaniums.  Low leakage would be a plus. 

https://www.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/GeDarlingtons/GeDarlingtonPairs.htm

i haven't read that in a good while. the zero/low leakage ones usually do have lower gain readouts to the darlingtons might be fun to try actually. just wondering if somebody has something predone though. thanks for the reminder, might give it a revise. maybe a fuzz face with Q1 as a darlington? (:

hopefully that wouldn't be noisy as hell....

[LucifersTrip]

yes, the low leakage transistors are excellent for Q1/Q2 in a Tone Bender MKIII, MKIV or Buzzaround.

But, the common Fuzz Face or Fuzz Rite both don't need leakage to work. The FF is best with low leakage.

It's the FZ-1, 1-A, Tone Bender MKI, etc that need leakage.

[R.G.]

It's worth doing a careful look at them to see if they have Vbe of about 0.2-0.3V and are, in fact, germanium.

Even the best germaniums have 1000 times the leakage of ordinary silicon. It's the nature of the beast. Worth looking into in an age of counterfeit parts.

[IvIark]

Most of my Russian PNP are identified as germanium and show zero leakage on a Peak, and minimal leakage using the RG method.  I also got a batch of 2N404s and Japanese Toshiba's which are also extremely low.  The only germanium PNP transistors that I've excessive leakage out of are NOS Newmarket.

[smallbearelec]

This page at small bear talks about things you can do with low gain germaniums.  Low leakage would be a plus.  

https://www.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/GeDarlingtons/GeDarlingtonPairs.htm

i haven't read that in a good while. the zero/low leakage ones usually do have lower gain readouts to the darlingtons might be fun to try actually. just wondering if somebody has something predone though. thanks for the reminder, might give it a revise. maybe a fuzz face with Q1 as a darlington? (:

hopefully that wouldn't be noisy as hell....

The low-gain/low leakage parts are usually quiet, as well. I, also, had thought of lining up an NPN Sziklai pair for an adjusted gain of 80 or so and using that as Q1 in an FF. I have several other projects that I want to work on, so if if you get to this before I do, please let us know how it works.

Regards
SD

[R.G.]

Hmmm. It occurs to me that if one wanted a silicon transistor to leak like a germanium, all that's needed is to parallel the collector-base junction with a germanium diode junction, reverse biased. That's what happens in a real germanium, after all. T

his would give the silicon the leakage of a germanium, but would not fake the temperature sensitivity very well, because the leakage element is outside the semiconductor chip, isolated from it thermally. It would still respond to environmental temperatures with drift, but that's usually a much simpler problem.

[Thecomedian]

I ran 20-80 gain PNP germ Txs inside a fuzz face schematic. They all worked to create fuzz just fine.

a post fuzz gain stage if you think the volume is too low? Honestly, the fuzz was too much on first gen 2n2222's to use the volume control above 5-10%. the germanium ones have less gain so give you more fine tune range. Play by ear.

[darron]

i guess i was also considering effects like the rangemaster, as reveal was point out in the smallbear link.


i've made fuzzes with zero-ish leakage trannies of many sorts. they work and they fuzz. no problems with output level of course to answer that question. not always the best character of sound though and the gain might not be up to scratch.

i'm talking about all the supposed mil-spec stuff like cv7003's, millions of japanese hifi style pnps like mitsubishis and sanyos.

the fuzz face basic building block is a very simply circuit with a lot of assumptions on the transistors and the signal input.



i'm usually more interested in changing the circuit to suit the part than finding the exact part to suit the circuit. was just curious is someone else had their personal favourite starting point for trannies like this.

not too interested in the ussr late 80's sort of style ones that float around everywhere.

[duck_arse]

I was given a bag of 2n990 ge's. turns out they are planar construction, have bugger-all (<20) gain, and hiss and noise to make them unusable.

[earthtonesaudio]

"Help, my parts are too ideal"

[Thecomedian]

"Help, my parts are too ideal"

so helpful.

i guess i was also considering effects like the rangemaster, as reveal was point out in the smallbear link.


i've made fuzzes with zero-ish leakage trannies of many sorts. they work and they fuzz. no problems with output level of course to answer that question. not always the best character of sound though and the gain might not be up to scratch.

i'm talking about all the supposed mil-spec stuff like cv7003's, millions of japanese hifi style pnps like mitsubishis and sanyos.

the fuzz face basic building block is a very simply circuit with a lot of assumptions on the transistors and the signal input.



i'm usually more interested in changing the circuit to suit the part than finding the exact part to suit the circuit. was just curious is someone else had their personal favourite starting point for trannies like this.

not too interested in the ussr late 80's sort of style ones that float around everywhere.

I also like modding the circuit to suit the transistor. This is pretty hard though. if you have mastery over circuit building, it would probably be easy to look at it and see solutions like a car mechanic that has spent hours and hours to learn their craft. Doing such manipulations with limited knowledge is extremely time consuming and tough, since you are basically creating a "new" circuit when you're wanting to put in a different transistor and then also change the simple components to suit the Tx.

Have you tried late 70's USSR? I have boxes of them and they seem to work fine.

[darron]

Have you tried late 70's USSR? I have boxes of them and they seem to work fine.

yep. there are some that are within good gain ranges. as long as you don't get the larger power trannies. tried a dozen different sort so far.