Knight Fuzz build report

[snk]

Hello,
I built it today. Stock, it is rather meh. But thanks to LuciferTrip and his mods tips, it sounds better.

A couple of considerations if anyone wants to build it later :
- BASS : As expected, lowering the capacitors to 22nF lowers the bass range quite a lot. I prefer bigger input & output capacitors.
- TRANSISTOR : Using a germanium transistor makes a big difference (I used a 2n404). With the right tweaks (2.2m resistor to Q2, etc),  it sounds much warmer.
- BIAS : I used a 50k pot along with a 8.2k resistor for Q2 : I couldn't hear any difference when moving the pot. I think I am going to skip the pot.
- TREBLE : I find this pedal to be quite treble heavy. Maybe because the original pedal use a 1.5nF cap, and that i used a 220pF cap, as LuciferTrip suggested? I might tweak that component a bit. In the meantime, could anyone confirm that this cap is the component to tweak to tame the high end?

[pinkjimiphoton]

dave/lucifer was looking at getting that 1960's davie allen kinda mosquito monster fuzztone sound out of this. he has a great ear for voicing fuzzes for the kind of sick demented literally @#$%ing awesome tones he digs;
that said, they MAY not be voiced for everyone... different ears, fingers, needs etc..

the bigger the cap there, the more ear bleeding earwigs will be consecrated to the hallowed ground of earth, so yes, the 220pf cap would do it. you can have all kinds of fun there, depending on what ya wanna do with some roach clips on wire and a fistful of caps. and resistors. you could go significantly bigger on that cap and voice the whole fuzz from it, to a point. it will be a good place to mute the fuzztone some. 1.5n, 2.2n, 2.7n right up to about 4.7n will all afford increasingly noticeable treble attenuation, too much can sound good or bad depending on your ears. i tend to go for more treble content, but in this case, ya can think of it as a bypass for the treble almost... a bigger cap will cost you treble, but not really... it will seem that way by bypassing bass and mids more.

try like, 680p or 1n there and see if it sounds better. experiment. you'll sus it out. everything's a compromise, really. but yeah, you're on the right path to finding what works for you.

peas n chikkin' grease

[snk]

dave/lucifer was looking at getting that 1960's davie allen kinda mosquito monster fuzztone sound out of this. he has a great ear for voicing fuzzes for the kind of sick demented literally @#$%ing awesome tones he digs;
that said, they MAY not be voiced for everyone... different ears, fingers, needs etc..

Thank you, PinkJimiPhoton.
Yes, this is what i understood : with his suggested mods, the fuzz reminded me the Fuzzrite I built a couple years ago, with its acid and trebly tone. As you said, I think it really nails that kind of sound, but i am leaning more towards "bass / heavy / warm", so i am tweaking to taste

try like, 680p or 1n there and see if it sounds better. experiment.

Before going to bed, i had grabbed my 680pF bag yesterday, just for that, eh eh
While building that Knight fuzz, I also built the Sam Ash Fuzzstainer (with Jon Patton mods), which sounds great. So this give me another focus : the Fuzzstainer sounds good, features a very efficient bias pot and the tone pot allows for a good amount of bass. As it ticks all the boxes, I can use now the Knight as a playground to reach other kind of tones.

[Passaloutre]

Was reading this old thread and wanted to try it out. The schematic from the first post was gone, but I found it on archive.org.

Posting it here for posterity:

[Passaloutre]

Browsing from my phone, I see there was no issue with the original schematic. I guess my work computer just blocked the image 

[PRR]

My home computer showed/shows both images in the first post just fine.

I figured the LucifersTrip server took a nap on your time, but you wanna blame work that's cool too.