Just finished "The Hornet". I didn't like it unt

[Burstbucker]

I just finished building the Hornet, it's going to be a Christmas present for my 9 year old son.

I didn't like it until I put in a smaller input cap.  Makes a big difference!  The original schematic calls for a .05uF input cap but I like it much better with a .0047uF.  With the original .05uF, I found the fuzz to be too undefined and messy and of course too bassy!

So for any newbies out there that built the Hornet and maybe didn't like it, try using a smaller input cap, that may just do it for you too, very simple fix.  Or better yet, put a capacitor in parallel with the .0047uF cap and connect them through a 100k linear pot for a Tone control, makes this or any other fuzz much more versatile IMHO.

Take care.     8^)

[Peter Snowberg]

This is excellent advice that can be applied to lots of fuzz and distortion circuits.

Every pickup/guitar is different and rotary switches for selecting different input caps are highly under-rated.

[Burstbucker]

I can't quite get enough fuzz without getting tons of noise!

I can only go about 3/4 of the way on the FUZZ knob or else I get this really horrible squealing and loud buzzing noise.  At 3/4 on the FUZZ knob, I'm only getting a marginal amount of fuzz, nothing to brag about.  I'm sure the real goodies in this pedal are in the last 25% of the FUZZ knobs travel!

BTW, all of the resistors in my pedal are actually trimpots and I've tried tweaking the hell out of them and nothing has helped with this noise issue.

This is all housed in a metal box BTW.
Maybe it's the way I've got my leads laid out?

I'm also noticing that when the FUZZ knob is set at 3/4(the highest that it can handle), I'm getting sort of an ugly break up when notes fade, kind of like having the bias set wrong.

The pedal's ok but I'm sure it's not 100% as good as it could be.

Does anybody have any suggestions?  I'd really appreciate some help here.

[KORGULL]

Hi, -sounds like something is definitely hay-wire with your Hornet. I finished one two weeks ago and am not having any of these problems. I added a tone control also .

I'm sure the real goodies in this pedal are in the last 25% of the FUZZ knobs travel!

Yeah, I like mine best with the distortion control cranked all the way up.

I'm pretty green myself, but maybe I can be of some help.

Which version did you build - NPN or PNP?
What transistors did you use?
-Some of what you are describing kinda sounds like how my circuit sounded when I had a couple randomly picked generic silicon transistors in it for the initial fire-up and test run.

Did you put a meter on the trimpots to make sure they are hooked up right and giving the range of resistance needed?
Are you sure they are the right value trimpots?

Another thing - which I was wondering about myself is, when you adjust the trimpots and turn any of them all the way counter-clockwise so they are not really providing any resistance - perhaps the transistors can be damaged if the power is on?

[Burstbucker]

Korgull-

Thanks for your input BTW.

I built the PNP version and got the transistors from Small Bear Electronics.
There's a germanium 2n1305 in Q1 and a silicon 2n5087 in Q2.  I doubt that the transistors are at fault.  

The trimpots all work fine, I checked them all.  I should mention that when I have the FUZZ knob at 3/4 I get about the same amout of fuzz as a regular FuzzFace but just not as much as I should be getting.  The amount of volume boost out of this pedal is scary too.  I'm inclined to think that I've got a wire running too close to something and is picking up noise but I don't know where to start.  

This is a super high gain pedal and I don't think it's too hard to end up with a squealing problem, I know I've accomplished that feat!     8^)

[David]

Korgull-

Thanks for your input BTW.

I built the PNP version and got the transistors from Small Bear Electronics.
There's a germanium 2n1305 in Q1 and a silicon 2n5087 in Q2.  I doubt that the transistors are at fault.  

The trimpots all work fine, I checked them all.  I should mention that when I have the FUZZ knob at 3/4 I get about the same amout of fuzz as a regular FuzzFace but just not as much as I should be getting.  The amount of volume boost out of this pedal is scary too.  I'm inclined to think that I've got a wire running too close to something and is picking up noise but I don't know where to start.  

This is a super high gain pedal and I don't think it's too hard to end up with a squealing problem, I know I've accomplished that feat!     8^)

Hey, BB!

Did you shield the wire on the input jack?  How about the output jack?  Do you have these wires separated?

[Burstbucker]

Hi David-

No, the input and output wires aren't shielded but that thought crossed my mind today.  The input and output wires all end up on the 3pdt footswitch so they're pretty close, that may be my problem.  I'll probably try moving some wires around to see if that helps.  I would imagine that using shielded wire would be a good thing in any Fuzz pedal, does anybody agree?

But before I do that I might try putting some different transistors in there.  I'm willing to bet that all of this squealing wouldn't be happening if I used typical FuzzFace transistors.  I've built numerous FuzzFaces and never had this squealing problem.  I'll keep you posted.

Thanks!

[aron]

I've had the squealing at times. Using shielded wire does help. Lower hFE transistors helped as well.

[Burstbucker]

I re-routed a few wires inside the box and that took care of a lot of the noise/squealing.  I got rid of some wires by eliminating one of the controls that I really didn't need.  I also relocated the wire coming from the input jack, it was too close to the output cap on the volume pot, Duh!

I can now turn the FUZZ knob almost all the way up before causing World War III.  And it sounds great!  I should have been more careful with the wire layout since this is such a high gain pedal, oh well.  

There's about the same amount of noise as my RAT pedal now, so I guess I'll settle for that.  At least I can get enough distortion now!  8^)

Cheers!