Can anything be eliminated from my octave fuzz creation?

[Ben Lyman]

I didn't get as much time with it today as I had hoped for. I turned it up for a couple minutes and it started squealing if the gain and volume were turned all the way up. not good   
I hope it is just related to my messy birds nest of a breadboard but I fear it may be something more. it sounds fine otherwise but I need to be sure there won't be an issue if I ever want to turn it up past unity. Maybe Q1e needs something to tame the distortion? or it needs something around the 100k vol pot at the output? I dunno

[PRR]

> my messy birds nest of a breadboard but I fear

Don't live in fear. Neaten-up shorten-up so output can't radiate into input.

[Ben Lyman]

Thanks Paul, done and done, and moved it farther away from my amp with a longer cable, too. Sounds better, seems like all thats left is the usual noise I would expect when turning it up really loud.
I also got rid of a few more parts so I'm really happy with the way it's coming along... one small gripe tho... at max volume and gain it's just barely above unity... at max volume and minimum gain about unity, maybe a hair less. Seems like this renders my volume knob useless, it would be nice to get a little more boost but I don't really want to add another transistor...   

Here it is after the latest removals

EDIT: changed to show correct output cap... and tried to add more dots but software just won't cooperate!
This just in: 150pF across Q1 c&b eliminates squeal

[PRR]

> more boost but I don't really want to add another transistor...

[Ben Lyman]

Thanks again Paul, way better now, I love it. As a token of my appreciation, I spent no less than 20 minutes trying to get those dots to appear. It was no small task, I was tapping away on my mouse, doing the double tap, triple tap, double double swipe tap, triple swoosh and glide tap, etc. but I think I managed to make enough dots.
It's a wrap, gonna start drilling and working on a layout now.
Here's the final final, I changed a few more things with the guidance of some anonymous advisors and I tried to renumber all the parts so it makes more sense (I hope)

[Kipper4]

Good work man.

[Ben Lyman]

Thanks Rich, I owe a great deal to the folks who helped me along the way, both in this thread and through PM's. Especially AMZ and PRR's mods and the  150pF "squeal choker" and the 22k at Q1c, tons more fuzz and sustain.
I know this ain't no Tychobra or Moon Rock but hey... look at how cheap and easy this one is, just barely more than a Green Ringer and so much better. I'm gonna try an audio pot for the volume real quick and then after I get it boxed up, I'll shoot another sample vid.
Thanks everyone!

[Ben Lyman]

Final final final, I promise  It's going in the box like this with one possible exception, B100k volume might be an audio taper instead. EDIT: ya, A100k for volume... now I'm done

[Ben Lyman]

It's boxed up and sounding good to me. It can be made with matched diodes but then all you get is octave in the middle of the dial and left or right is only a slight change. You could even use two unmatched Si or two unmatched Ge I suppose and get pretty much the same as what I got, or switch the order of the Ge and Si on Q3 and maybe get more prominent octave from the Ge, I dunno. Fun to experiment with.
I left the DC jack unconnected so I can easily yank everything out of the box and paint it but here's a sample first.
I'm always a bit camera shy and tend to forget all the cool things that I planned on showing so here's a just few of the noises it can make, it does a lot more crazy twisted ring mod tones and regular smooth fuzz tones than what I show here. In regular fuzz mode at high volume, the octave slowly fades in when you hold a note for a long time until it feeds back, pretty cool stuff, I'm very happy with it.

[Ben N]

Great work, Ben. That's as musical an octave as I've heard, quite a bit better than a bare bones Green Ringer, and simple and compact to boot.

[Ben Lyman]

Great work, Ben. That's as musical an octave as I've heard, quite a bit better than a bare bones Green Ringer, and simple and compact to boot.

Thanks Ben! I jammed it with my band and it sounded fantastic, totally lovin' it!

[Kipper4]

Yer Great work Ben. You killed it, I too like the octave sound.
Keep it up mate.