Thumbs up on the Danelectro French Toast

[Mark Hammer]

A local used-gear store had one of their intermittent sales today, and I picked up a French Toast pedal for $20.  Mostly, I just wanted it to compare against the unit/s I had made.  I have been blathering of late about the virtues of using Schottky diodes, instead of germanium or silicon, for the rectifier portion of octave-up fuzzes.  Well, I fired up the Dano, and was impressed by the robustness of the octave, and the ability to produce quite audible octaves below the 5th fret.  Given that, I just HAD to take it apart.  2SC1815 transistors used throughout.  Much to my surprise, whatever diodes they used for the rectifying/octaving had forward voltages of just over 170mv, which is far more common in Schottkys than germaniums in my experience.  Nicely done.  And I supposefurther support for my argument that more dependable octaving is achieved when the rectifier diodes have low forward voltage.

Twenty-one more to go.

[pinkjimiphoton]

its a great little fuzz, just a fox tone machine tho, innit?

have ya tried the frenchfries autowah? similar to a dr q, but out of all the autowahs i've tried, its my fav... my secret weapon on all the indie recording crap i used to do.

i too prefer shotkes in octave ups. less splatter than germanium, and seems to follow over the neck better.

[thehallofshields]

Mark, do you actually use the Oct-Up effect in your playing a lot, or do you just have an intellectual fascination with these Rectifier circuits?

[Mark Hammer]

These days, most of my "playing" is really to test out circuits, and get a feel for their limits and strengths.  So, a little more than an intellectual fascination; an aesthetic fascination, I suppose.  I have a bunch of projects I want and still need to work on, but now that I'm retired I would like to hook up with some players for a change.  It's been a long time, and I miss saying "One, and two, and three and ....".  My knuckles aren't as nimble as they used to be, but I'm still a pretty decent rhythm player, and my finger-vibrato well-preserved.  How much a rhythm player gets to use an octave-up fuzz is a question to be answered.  The bigger challenge would seem to be settling on a pedal-board I can carry and stop fiddling with.   

[pinkjimiphoton]

you'll get it back, mark, once ya get a bit of play time under your belt again.

as a fellow member of the geezer club, my humble suggestion is follow me down the road less traveled to try and find
my brother petey two finger and have his oracle-like powers lead us to old guy back salvation.

i have been playing with chipamps lately. my plan is to build my own chipamp based guitar amp, at around 100 watts of class d power, with onboard delay (2399 based) reverb (brick) and two channels, one based on roger mayers mongoose for the dirty side, and a tweaked fuzzface for the clean side. will add an insert jack for my wah and two more for an fx loop "just in case" but for all intents my plan is to show up at a gig, plug my guitar in one side and a small speaker cab in the other and be done with it!!

i've been playing with PAM chips, they sound surprisingly good right up until you overload. class d manifests that by cutting out when it clips. so you can seriously build pretty much everything you need into just ONE box these days, and sound just like ya sound with the heavy weight arsenal. worth looking into imho.

i mean... my 80 some lb fender pro reverb, my 90 lb pedalboard, gig bag and two guitars, or my double gig bag with the amp, fx and necessary cabling in the bag and a lightweight cab? i can carry it all in one hand. to me, its a no brainer approach. ain't technology grand?

sorry for the hijacking, returning full control to the pilot now...

[dv8r601]

This was my first fuzz purchase,11 years ago they went for $25 shipped and still can be found for that much. I also attempted my first "mod" on it with a 80w Weller and discovered you can scorch traces off really easily. I've bought 3 more since then from guitar centers used gear section(some absolute steals to be found) and for the price its the best octave fuzz I've ever used. Mine had 4148s in the Oct section on the first one but the others have bat85 or similar schottky. Also keep an eye out for the cool cat vibe and the pepperoni phaser. They're gems.

[John G]

Hi,
This tread reminded me of my fascination with the French Toast all those years ago.
I rehoused it and modded it as per the attached schemos.
I thought at the time I had improve it...........but I no longer have it so I can't go back and revisit.
I may have just made it sound different.
John
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[effexfreek]

I, for one, can't resist sticking a FULL ON! Dyna Comp in front of it (10-band eq for good measure), a little delay, and wail me some Big Electric Cat !


P. S. : Would love to tack-on the (prescription electronics) "swell device" but... has anybody succeded, with a French Toast ? I understand there *might* be a mistake in Justin Philpott's schematics? Maybe better off with Anthony Leo's Fuzz after it ?

Justin's wired a little different than Anthony's (swell pot, mainly). And there's a "corrected" version (an addtnl cap. in Anthony's). Which one did rousejeremy use ? scratch that : found the thread https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=76457.20 reply #25

[pinkjimiphoton]

if ya put the a leo fuzz after it, you'll get the swell ya get with the pe experience pedal with the dano french toast.
you gotta goose it pretty hard so it goes into cutoff then swells back in. its a trippy effect when ya get it happening.

[Ben N]

I, for one, can't resist sticking a FULL ON! Dyna Comp in front of it (10-band eq for good measure), a little delay, and wail me some Big Electric Cat !

Cool track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_kk8mGqBj8

[dv8r601]

I, for one, can't resist sticking a FULL ON! Dyna Comp in front of it (10-band eq for good measure), a little delay, and wail me some Big Electric Cat !

Cool track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_kk8mGqBj8

Just watched that "Music Video" All i Can say is their Cocaine musta been superb. WTF is going on in that video? great fuzz guitar, but Honestly?