GGG 1969 'Boutique' Fuzz - Build Report

[Bucksears]

After rewiring it for a negative ground config, I got my GGG 1969 Boutique Fuzz (Fuzz Face) working a couple of days ago.

Since the only other fuzzes I've built have been the GGG Boutique Bender (Soulbender/Tonebender clone) and a Big Muff, I was really surprised how 'overdrivey' the 69 Fuzz gets. It has a pretty wide range of gain, (again, it does a nice overdrive when set low) but the 'fuzz' seems to be and the max part of the fuzz pot. It's going to take a little more tweaking to get used to the Bias and Contour knobs, but it seems like there is a lot of room to adjust. With the Contour, I do like the ability to up the mids if I want; with the Bias, Contour and Fuzz all the way up, it almost scoops the mids for a somewhat 80's metal/fuzz sound. Still trying to figure out the 'Bias' control as it seems to simply up the gain when maxed. The trimpot I'm not so sure on. The Fulltone site claims that it adjusts the harmonics/sustain of the fuzz; I thought it was to bias the voltage to Q2, but it seems that it has other usable settings.
I would like to up the output cap (to .47uF) like Chris Brown did to get more bass going since it does sound a little on the thin side.
I'm not THAT much of a fuzz guy, but overall, I think the 69 Fuzz is a decent, tweakable fuzz sound. It has a somewhat-usable range of fuzz and tonal tweaks and is a simple circuit to build (if you do the pos-ground version).

All of this being said, I played it back-to-back with my GGG Big Muff with the AMZ Presence #2 control added on, and that thing just kills; that is easily my favorite fuzz. If I had to pick one or the other, I'd take the Muff. The jury's still out on whether or not I'll have the '69 on my board or not.

- Buck

[Mark Abbott]

Dear Buck

I have built a Fuzz face for friend and I own 69 fuzz.

From my own experience with my 69 Fuzz I've found the bias limits the amount of signal going to the first transistor (thus it acts as a volume control.) It does this by acting as a voltage divider with the b-e junction of the first transistor. It is also used to stop the guitar input signal being adversely distorted by the b-e junction first transistor. Basically I use this control a little bit to stop the tone sounding "flubby" if that is a meaningful term?

The contour control provides extra (much needed) output for the FF, the 470 ohm resistor and the 8.2K resistor form a voltage divider limiting the output of the fuzz face. BTW if the coupling cap to the volume control were to be mounted on the collector of the second transistor the fuzz face would produce maximum output. Regarding the boost in mids, that also happens to my 69 fuzz, I guess the 0.1uF cap and the 470 ohm resistor have a filter thing going on.

Regarding the pot attached to the collector of the second transistor, I did find this effects the tone of the pedal, I found lower resistance values make the pedal sound more like an Overdrive while values around the 8.2K area sound more traditional. What you could do is set the pedal up to your favourite settings and then get your multimeter out and adjust the pot so there is half the battery voltage on the collector of second transistor. The pedal I built for a friend seems to sound better when this was achieved.

Where I'm at in regards to the Fuzz Face circuit at the moment is, does uneven duty cycle have an effect on tone?

Anyway, I hope this helps.

Yours Sincerely

Mark Abbott

P.S. I will have to check out this AMZ presence control #2.