Diode feedback on 4049/inverter fuzz

[brett]

BACKGROUND: Years ago I made Mark Hammer's Forty-niner fuzz (improved Tube Sound Fuzz/Red Llama).  Loved it. Soft and fuzzy.  But gave it away to someone.
I made a similar one recently, using the Tonepad layout (nice).  But it's sharper than the old one.
As with most of these, I used a supply line resistor to drop some supply voltage.  I went high (1.5k) to drop from 9.4V to 5.5V.  From memory, old one might have been even lower.
NOW: I'm interested to get that fuzzy, soft tone of the old one back, so I tried larger filter caps, and that partially worked.  From the 'scope, it smoothed the rise time of an input square wave, but the trailing edge was still sharp.
THE QUESTIONs: Q1. Will diode clipping work on an inverter like this?  (ie. like a tubescreamer op-amp feedback)
Q2. Any experience of, or bets on, whether further lowering of the supply voltage improves the circuit? 
Q3. Folling on from Q2 from memory, my old one ran at 3.3V.  Could that be right?  How close to OV and Vsupply can an inverter swing?

Thanks for any help and discussion and have a great day 😀

[amz-fx]

THE QUESTIONs: Q1. Will diode clipping work on an inverter like this?  (ie. like a tubescreamer op-amp feedback)
Q2. Any experience of, or bets on, whether further lowering of the supply voltage improves the circuit? 
Q3. Folling on from Q2 from memory, my old one ran at 3.3V.  Could that be right?  How close to OV and Vsupply can an inverter swing?

Q1: yes, diodes will work but you probably should put a 0.1 to 1.0u capacitor is series with them for isolation. Also you would have a large value resistor in parallel with the diodes.
Q2: Lowering the voltage changes the output audio clipping point but it a matter of taste whether it is improved.
Q3: All inverter chips are not the same. I am sure that some can run on 3.3v. I took a look at one datasheet for a 4049 inverter and it will swing to 0.4v off each power rail; 0.4v to 4.6v when powered by 5v for example.

Best regards, Jack

[brett]

Thanks Jack.  Very useful. 
I'm experimenting, "scoping, listening and getting interesting results.
I'll make a separate post about the surprising findings.

[soggybag]

Check this out: http://www.runoffgroove.com/ubescreamer.html

[brett]

Check this out: http://www.runoffgroove.com/ubescreamer.html

Wow!!  Thanks so much.