Tonebender MKIII schematics and differences (tone bender mk3 3 knobs)

[Renegadrian]

hello everyone, I have to build a vox tonebender 3 knobs, negative ground obv, got some schematics in my archive and found some differences in the resistors at the base of the first transistor.
fuzzcentral and others have 220k from -v and 47k to +grd, others have 680k and 100k/150k.
fuzzdog pdf says 220k/47k is for colorsound and 680k/100k is for vox.
The small cap in the tone section is 1n or 2.2n.

to your experience, which are the best components values and why?!

[bmsiddall]

Greetings from Australia.

Have recently gutted my first MK3 (220k/47k string) with 680k/150k version.  Prefer the latter as it seems to be a little less smooth, grittier, more personality.  The transistors are different so there's probably more to it than that.

I'd also add the I prefer my dizzy tone to the buzzaround I built - dizzy tone has the 680k/150k string.

Cheers,
Brett

[bmsiddall]

I forgot to add that I bumped up the small tone capacitor to 3.3 nF, which seems to give a better sweep of the tone control .

[antonis]

IMHO, 680k/100k and 220k/47k bias configurations are a convenient trade-off between Ge and Si BJTS..
(other than input impedance difference..)

[bmsiddall]

Out of curiosity, what values would you consider ideal for ge and si? Asking for a friend 

[mac]

I changed the 2n2 to 4n7 in the tone control, lower the series output resistor, and wired the fuzz control as an inverse volume pot --> legs 1 and 3 across the reverse diode and leg 2 to the 220n. It could be wired as a standard vol pot but Q3 bias will change to the point of cut off.
Transistors are Matsushita 2SD352 NPN, very low freq cut off --> keep highs at bay at full fuzz.

mac

[andy-h-h]

Here's a table with a number of common Tone Bender MKIII / MKIV values - https://vero-p2p.blogspot.com/2022/12/tone-bender-mkiii-component-values-table.html

I much prefer increasing the 2n2 to 4n7 or at least a 3n3.  More mids as the HPF cut-off is reduced from about 7.2khz down to 3.3khz and 4.8khz.   I also completely remove the resistor limiting the output and increase the volume pot.  This is stock for D*A*M MKIIIs