YADFQ (Yet Another Dumb Fuzz Question)

[pinkjimiphoton]

so like... gotta question.

ya know how a good fuzz will clean up nice as ya turn down?

and start to act like a bit of a treble boost? right. that part.

if you wanted the tone to stay more consistent as you turn your guitar down,
could you do the opposite of a "treble bleed" and make a low pass filter by using the resistance of the guitar being turned down to shunt more treble to ground?

i'm thinking a simple cap to ground before the input of the circuit... i'd expect i'll have to play with values some to get it where i'm happy, but maybe somewhere between 10n and 100n ought to do it maybe?  i'm thinking right before or after the input cap. before it actually seems like the only way it wouldn't be isolated from the guitar by the input cap itself. that should produce a treble roll off as the  pot is turned down, right? or am i missing something <<<<<what i expect, that...
is there a better way?

i love the fuzztones. like nothing else. but i would like to find a way to combat this aspect of them. be nice to have my les paul not sound like a tele when it's barely on.

thoughts and edumakashun gratefully accepted

i don't want to kill any high frequencies when the guitar is pegged... can use the tone knobs for that. only as the guitar is turned down.

FWIW, i leave my fuzz face generally wide open into an overdrive (suzy q) and control the whole mess from my guitar. that's the basis of my guitar sound generally. (and it's not a fuzz bomb fest like ya may expect   )

[amptramp]

When the guitar is turned all the way up, you have the pickup with the volume control (usually 500K) in parallel with it.  As soon as you turn it down, you add resistance in series with the output which isolates the inductance of the pickup from the subsequent stages. If your first pedal in the chain is a Fuzz Face, you have a low-impedance input that is isolated with series resistance that raises the impedance seen by the pickup because instead of the ~50K input impedance of the Fuzz Face, you get the resistance from the top of the volume pot on the guitar to the slider in series with the Fuzz Face input impedance and the resistance seen by the pickup is higher, removing some of the tone sucking and raising the treble level.

Adding some numbers, with a 500K pot at half resistance, the pickup sees a 250K resistance in series with the parallel combination of the 250K from the pot to ground and the input impedance of the Fuzz Face.  This is higher than the resistance seen with full volume where you have the 500K of the volume control in parallel with the ~50K of the Fuzz Face.  Therefore, you get more tone sucking at high volume than lower volume and the treble appears to brighten somewhat as you turn the volume down.

If instead of using the slider of the volume pot as the guitar output, you could wire the pot with the slider connected to ground and the top of the pot being the output.  As you turn the pot down, the resistance in parallel with the pickup is reduced and you get more tone sucking that uses the inductance of the pickup and the varying load from the pot to roll off the treble.  If you want to fine-tune this effect for consistent response at any volume control position, use the existing pot connection but add a moderate resistance between the top of the pot and the slider.  This allows you to select the change in response as you turn the pot down.

Another answer is to add a buffer between the guitar and the Fuzz Face but with a 50K resistance in series with the buffer output.  This gives you a high impedance that does not change seen from the input (guitar) side and an acceptably high but fixed output impedance with no inductive component as seen by the Fuzz Face.  No tone sucking and no treble brightening as the volume is turned down and you don't have to modify every guitar you use.

[allesz]

But will the buffer preserve the effect that turning the guit volume down brings on thr ff? I adimt I never tried it   , and a lot of people rave about buffer+resistor + fuzz face 
Actually a lot of people likes this side effect of the Fuzz 

Bigger caps for les pauls? Don't ask me, only sort of humbuking I got in years is the series pickups position on my tele.

[pinkjimiphoton]

When the guitar is turned all the way up, you have the pickup with the volume control (usually 500K) in parallel with it.  As soon as you turn it down, you add resistance in series with the output which isolates the inductance of the pickup from the subsequent stages. If your first pedal in the chain is a Fuzz Face, you have a low-impedance input that is isolated with series resistance that raises the impedance seen by the pickup because instead of the ~50K input impedance of the Fuzz Face, you get the resistance from the top of the volume pot on the guitar to the slider in series with the Fuzz Face input impedance and the resistance seen by the pickup is higher, removing some of the tone sucking and raising the treble level.

Adding some numbers, with a 500K pot at half resistance, the pickup sees a 250K resistance in series with the parallel combination of the 250K from the pot to ground and the input impedance of the Fuzz Face.  This is higher than the resistance seen with full volume where you have the 500K of the volume control in parallel with the ~50K of the Fuzz Face.  Therefore, you get more tone sucking at high volume than lower volume and the treble appears to brighten somewhat as you turn the volume down.

If instead of using the slider of the volume pot as the guitar output, you could wire the pot with the slider connected to ground and the top of the pot being the output.  As you turn the pot down, the resistance in parallel with the pickup is reduced and you get more tone sucking that uses the inductance of the pickup and the varying load from the pot to roll off the treble.  If you want to fine-tune this effect for consistent response at any volume control position, use the existing pot connection but add a moderate resistance between the top of the pot and the slider.  This allows you to select the change in response as you turn the pot down.

Another answer is to add a buffer between the guitar and the Fuzz Face but with a 50K resistance in series with the buffer output.  This gives you a high impedance that does not change seen from the input (guitar) side and an acceptably high but fixed output impedance with no inductive component as seen by the Fuzz Face.  No tone sucking and no treble brightening as the volume is turned down and you don't have to modify every guitar you use.

holy cow ron, thanks for the explanation.
it sounds like, in my case, the best bet may be to try the guitar pot rewiring. i've tried buffers in front of a FF before, and added a 47k resistor (or 50k pot) but i've never been happy with it.
willin to try tho

but the rewired pots seem interesting. i've wired pots wrong before a few times this sounds intriguing to me.
so basically, use where ground would normally connect as the input, and ground the wiper so ya can use it as a variable resistor instead of a potentiometer?

i've seen old kays and teiscos wired like that and they sounded great (for what they were, anyways)... i will give it a try, maybe this afternoon before tonites gig i can mess with it a little bit and see how it does.

i LOVE that crystaline treble boosted compressed sound.. but sometimes i can have my tone pot nulled and it's still too brite on my les paul (i guess that's why it has a neck pickup)

very appreciated and man, the presentation... even i understood it!!

also gonna try doubling the cap on my treble cut... i wire my tone controls so the top is a low pass, and the bottom a high pass filter.

right now i've been using a 22n cap for the treble cut, and a 2.2 for the bass cut. gonna try a 47n cap and see if that will get me there if the pot rewiring doesn't work out as expected.
SOMETIMES i HAVE to turn the fuzz off for a LITTLE while, so nice to have the guitar still function well in that case too.

once again... thanks bro!

[digi2t]

Would using a pickup simulator between the guitar and FF help?

[pinkjimiphoton]

i think it's jusy me being kinda anal and trying to do something i should just accept as an improbability.

i've been using 57 classic style paf's... i love them. but they tend to be a little microphonic in the high end, and down low, too. i kinda like the sweeter harmonics that are there, but it makes me have to ride the tone controls endlessly and is a pain in the ass.

it's not such an issue on a larger stage, but most of the time i'm stuck almost against my amp, and that close can get dodgy. so i often have the guitar just barely on, and then boost the fuzzface/suzy q thing with a pink's clipper for solos or when i need to cut thru everything. that is one unholy trio of pedals right there, and can make one HELL of a racket!

being able to decrease the treble boost seemed a valid way to try and combat this, but probably just easier to throw some duncans in there instead.

or go up in value on the low pass filter in the guitar maybe. by the time i got a chance to get near my workbench, i had to split for last nites gig. so hopefully today sometime i can mess around a little.

thanks brothers