Sourcing transistors for Tonebender Mark I

[freshmex18]

Looked on Smallbear for transistor sets as I want to attempt the notorious Mark I Tonebender and they sell a pre-tested Tone Bender set and a Pro Mark II set.  The Tone Bender set is "audited on the Sola Sound 3-Knob ToneBender circuit" according to the website and the Pro Mark II set just says the transistors are "matched." So...which one should I use for a Mark I build?   I assume the Tone Bender set but I wanted to ask to be sure.  There are also All American, Continental, and generic sets - do either of those matter?

Thanks

[glops]

Doesn't look like they sell sets for a MKI. They have MKII and the 3 knober is the MKIII. I tried to build a MKI / Zonk machine a couple of years but could never get it to sound good on the breadboard. Then finally I popped in different transistors like probably went through over 50 transistors in different combos until it sounded the best. But I have also been building for years so I have a huge stash of GEs that I have taken out of old crust radios and lucked upon large sacks and coffee tins full of them from estate sales. This one was really hard to get to sound right, I built to Zonk machine specs, and put in a box sometime this last year. Having built lots of various dirt over the years, this circuit is definitely a favorite. Good luck, there's some great MKI/Zonk thread here that really helped me a lot. The main take away for me was just plugging in different trannies until you feel it come alive as opposed to having the transistors in the "correct" specs.

[freshmex18]

I saw in older forums that Small Bear used to sell a matched set for the Mark I but that isn't available on the site anymore.

I emailed them directly and one of the Synthcube employees replied and said he could do some research and try and find out what I need but asked if I knew what the "target gains and leakages are for the transistors used in these pedals" were to help him along.  I have read a quite a few forum posts on various sites and there seems to be no consensus on what those targets are.

[Steben]

First and third transistors might need some leakage.

[bmsiddall]

Yes, and no.  You can get away with low leakage transistors by mimicking leakage. I've even made a really decent, gritty MK1 using all low hfe silicons, cherry picking old threads here. One of my fav pedals ever.