Your Circuit Nemeses?

[jafo]

Back into this after... wow, 8 years. Tweaked a few old things, tried a few new (simple) things, discovered that JFETs like me and simple common emitters sound good in my shitty solid state amp. Then I tried the effect that pissed me off enough to make me put away my soldering iron... the easiest build on the entire planet (other than lighting up an LED) -- the dreaded, accursèd destroyer of sanity and well-being: the Bazz Fuss!

Seriously, this thing has beaten me every time I've tried to build it, except for the first time, when I just twisted wires together. This is the fourth time I've tackled this stupid thing, and it never fails to disappoint. This time, I socketed the tranny and diode, and might socket the single resistor it uses. Sometimes it works, for about three seconds. Hells, for a bit I had sound going through after the tranny and LED were removed. Never did get my homemade Darlington to make a sound (no doubt because it was my first try.) My multimeter says it's not wonky wiring (I tested both the sockets and the components, nothing going wrong there). Frustrating, because I also put together a common-source JFET into a JFET Mu-amp with no troubles whatsoever. Maybe I just have bad luck with sockets.

Anyway, does anybody else have any builds that just aren't meant to happen?

[Axldeziak]

I've got a opamp big muff that has been opened up, and put back together, so many times the screw holes are wore out. It's forever breaking down, always something different each time. Since it's one of my first builds, and I love it, I'll keep patching it back together no matter what. But it infuriates me to no end.

[Marcos - Munky]

I tried to build the dr boogie a few times, never got it to work. Built two tube screamers, didn't got the output buffer to work, so I just bypassed it lol.

[PRR]

> Bazz Fuss ......... My multimeter says it's not wonky wiring

Did you ever find any voltages in there? Audio tracer?

[moid]

The Shin Ei Companion Fuzz (FY2)... ye Gods this thing has hurt me. I built one, it works, sounds good, but only achieves unity at best. Nice people here suggested some changes to fix that... and since then I've built it 3 times (one of these I even built on turret board just to see if I could) and none have worked. I can make the damn circuit work on a breadboard, but it refuses to function when I bring out a soldering iron. I will return to it, I refuse to be defeated by something that simple... I've built more complicated things that have worked, so why this one hates me I do not know. Something for the Summer I hope.