The next fuzz...

[Barcode80]

hmm, i'll have to try the rocket fuzz. i haven't worked up v2 of the rocket boost yet, ran out of switches finances don't permit me to get anymore for a bit.

[Branimir]

Sorry for bringing this topic from page 99 to 1st, heh..

So I started to settle down with fuzz boxes...

Stopped using my diy Rat, nice sounding pedal, but I wanted something harsher...

A friend of mine lend me his dunlop hendrix fuzz, two ge trannies inside , with an opamp, too... probably for buffering? who knows...

Anyways, I really liked the dunlop's fuzz, so I decided it's finally time to build a fuzz face... positive ground...

I used AC122-30 transistors, that are probably 20+ years old (taken out from some apparatus long time ago), had 8 of them, measured the hfe's (didn't bother with leakage), hfe's ranged from 65 to 95, so I randomly picked out, two of them, Q1 is around 70 and Q2 around 80...

Of course, something went wrong along the way, I put the transistors backwards, actually just one of them, then I reversed them both and had a same thing, until I said it's enough and double checked the pinouts and finally put them properly... Now what, can't get the darn thing to bias right... Oh right, why I used a 25k pot for fuzz? Didn't have 1k, eventually after hours of fiddling with all the parts, I came to the conclusion I should ditch the 25k pot and hook it up to get 1k only, bingo - works now. Next morning (today) I bought a 1k lin pot and wired it properly, and placed a 1k resistors instead of 470ohm. Hooked it up, fired up my bedroom 10watter heheh and it works alright!

Haven't got much time, but later today I'll A/B test it with dunlop fuzz and try it on my tube amp in my garage, so far, as I can hear differences on the bedroom amp, the character of fuzz is quite similiar to the dunlop fuzz, but mine sounds a bit harsher (i like that!), dunlop is way smoother, both pedals are about the same loudness when volume maxed (I use it that way to push my non master amp into drive)...

Here's a pic of these two things:


ps: if anyone's interested in how does the red thing sounds, check out myspace of my band (link in the sig), rough uncomplete mixes, short song clips, but you can hear how the guitar sounds anyways...

cheers!

[Yun]

Sorry for bringing this topic from page 99 to 1st, heh..

So I started to settle down with fuzz boxes...

Stopped using my diy Rat, nice sounding pedal, but I wanted something harsher...

A friend of mine lend me his dunlop hendrix fuzz, two ge trannies inside , with an opamp, too... probably for buffering? who knows...

Anyways, I really liked the dunlop's fuzz, so I decided it's finally time to build a fuzz face... positive ground...

I used AC122-30 transistors, that are probably 20+ years old (taken out from some apparatus long time ago), had 8 of them, measured the hfe's (didn't bother with leakage), hfe's ranged from 65 to 95, so I randomly picked out, two of them, Q1 is around 70 and Q2 around 80...

Of course, something went wrong along the way, I put the transistors backwards, actually just one of them, then I reversed them both and had a same thing, until I said it's enough and double checked the pinouts and finally put them properly... Now what, can't get the darn thing to bias right... Oh right, why I used a 25k pot for fuzz? Didn't have 1k, eventually after hours of fiddling with all the parts, I came to the conclusion I should ditch the 25k pot and hook it up to get 1k only, bingo - works now. Next morning (today) I bought a 1k lin pot and wired it properly, and placed a 1k resistors instead of 470ohm. Hooked it up, fired up my bedroom 10watter heheh and it works alright!

Haven't got much time, but later today I'll A/B test it with dunlop fuzz and try it on my tube amp in my garage, so far, as I can hear differences on the bedroom amp, the character of fuzz is quite similiar to the dunlop fuzz, but mine sounds a bit harsher (i like that!), dunlop is way smoother, both pedals are about the same loudness when volume maxed (I use it that way to push my non master amp into drive)...

Here's a pic of these two things:


ps: if anyone's interested in how does the red thing sounds, check out myspace of my band (link in the sig), rough uncomplete mixes, short song clips, but you can hear how the guitar sounds anyways...

cheers!

But no tone control eh?  i used to own the hendrix fuzz and the hendrix octavia.  I finally settled for a DIY FF with a BMP "style" tone control.  For hendrix tones, is what i used it for......

[Branimir]

Nah, I don't think I need a tone control, I run my amp quite simple - bass all the way, treble all the way and presence all the way, non master volume diy  ornage/marshall 2xEL34 design, volume set to clean, and then I use the fuzz with vol maxed to fuzz out and drive the preamp and output tubes into drive too. The guitar I use is an Edwards LP goldtop with seymour duncan P90s, the amp is quite dark, regarding the tone, for other type of guitars, I need to turn down the presence or highs a bit, but for my own, (11-54 strings tuned down to dropped C) I don't need to touch anything heh.

Hendrix? I like the fuzz, but I have never played a similiar setup to Jimi's so I have no clue how it does - Hendrix.

[Yun]

Nah, I don't think I need a tone control, I run my amp quite simple - bass all the way, treble all the way and presence all the way, non master volume diy  ornage/marshall 2xEL34 design, volume set to clean, and then I use the fuzz with vol maxed to fuzz out and drive the preamp and output tubes into drive too. The guitar I use is an Edwards LP goldtop with seymour duncan P90s, the amp is quite dark, regarding the tone, for other type of guitars, I need to turn down the presence or highs a bit, but for my own, (11-54 strings tuned down to dropped C) I don't need to touch anything heh.

Hendrix? I like the fuzz, but I have never played a similiar setup to Jimi's so I have no clue how it does - Hendrix.

Ah, i see.  Back then i was using marshall stacks, then i Rediscovered the joys that a good peavey or fender tweed can produce, you know? 

Back then, i guess "hendrix" was the wrong name, my tone was more like eric clapton's tone in his Cream days.  The farewel 1968 concert to be exact.  Not the best tone at all, but it was loud, raunchy, and served that "physical assualt of rock" purpose. 

Dropped to C eh?  No wonder you use such heavy strings, man!  i used to use 52 guage strings, which i think that it worked out for the better.  I went from a whopping 52 guage down to an 8 guage, so my solos are pretty "out there".  on my 79 strat and my holow-body i still have 8's.  I usually drop my hollow body down to E flat.  so yeah, it's pretty much like playing a guitar with spagetti for strings    .  But that's how i like it, man. 

i wish my hollow body came with P-90's.  i miss my hi-flyer, those were some awesome sounding p-90's, man.  My univox Badazz sounded really good too. 

[Branimir]

Yeah, strings are quite thick, but when you tune lower, they get flabby anyway so it's not super tight , I guess it's just about normal as a standard tuned set of 10-46, I just like to feel the strings, and I'm not a solo freak

I've been to the garage and tested it.

Forgot to mention I put the 22nF as an output coupling cap (instead of 10n).

Compared to the dunlop fuzz -> has more trebly bite, and a lot less compressed , sounds louder (that's just because the highs are a bit harsher and there's no lows compressed like in the dunlop unit). When the volume on my guitar is maxed out (10 on the pot's scale), the chords get  little hard to break in, like it's getting muffled by too much bass, maybe, but when I turn the vol pot just to 9 (on the pot's scale), it delivers chords and stuff freely, no suffocation whatsoever. Think I'll try that mod with a trimmer in series with the first input coupling cap, guess that'll do the trick of eliminating "suffocation"...

Overall, has more bite and it's more agressive, dunlop sounds very smooth in comparison, but the diy fuzz has less gain, but more character! Also sustains and breaks up great, dunlop sounds compressed and tones ring out differently.

By all means, I'm not qualified to give critics since I'm not an usual type of guitarist, and don't think either pedal's sound better or worse, just different flavor... On saturday I'll try the fulltone '70 pedal, to hear how that sounds...

So many fuzz faces, which one is the right one?

ps: cleans up great! my p90s really shine with the vol rolled back and doing clean!

[Hanglow]

Like you I think I have been bitten by the fuzz bug, thanks to this place  Have only made four so far, I don't think I have finished yet.

[sfx1999]

If you want something more harsh, try a Univox Superfuzz. There is a clip at http://www.tonefrenzy.com/effects/univox_unifuzz.html and http://www.mrdwab.com/john/soundclipspage.html.

Other things you might want to look into:
Ampeg Scrambler
Tychobrahe Octavia

[Branimir]

Update to the topic!

Switched the transistors in the black boxed fuzz face to "medium gain set" AC128 from banzai webshop, and it sounds terrific! I put the trimer after the input jack to tweak it to my liking.

This is it - now i'm building axis face silicon from fuzz central - hope it sounds like this germanium unit, fuzz faces are the pedals of my liking and only thing i don't like about them is the temperature instability.

[8mileshigh]

Bran,

I enjoyed listening to your rough demos, they rock Dude & Remind me of that early soundgarden stoner style rock.  Super cool & the fuzz face certainly gets the job done.

Chris

[Branimir]

It's me again.

Some pics of my rehoused fuzz face with some sound samples - this is by far the best pedal I have played with my amplifier and I just hope the Axis Face Si will sound like this since I think ge ff will most likely suffer from temperature instability.







The led is orange hehe

Here is the soundclip, one cheap mp3 player that we use to record our rehersals, http://rapidshare.com/files/55757457/sveti_sava.mp3.html

[trevize]

Yeah, strings are quite thick, but when you tune lower, they get flabby anyway so it's not super tight , I guess it's just about normal as a standard tuned set of 10-46, I just like to feel the strings, and I'm not a solo freak

I play 12-54 medium light nickel strings on my stratocaster, standard tuning.
I consider this one of the most important things to make the axis face sound good.

[petemoore]

Ah, i see.  Back then i was using marshall stacks, then i Rediscovered the joys that a good peavey or fender tweed can produce, you know?  
  Yes, I too got stuck for a long time in the SLP phase, 4 output tube type amps, great sounding amps but cant' really sound right unless they're doing that sound, maybe I missed the cool ferry to the big boat, my plexi's were always like...'bumping into stuff', like a mad soundguy, or somebody's eardrum, it could become fiercely nasty, getting 'the' sound was mostly 'work-around the beast' affairs.
  Back then, i guess "hendrix" was the wrong name, my tone was more like eric clapton's tone in his Cream days.
    The farewel 1968 concert to be exact.  Not the best tone at all, but it was loud, raunchy, and served that "physical assualt of rock" purpose. 
   I think a lot of players [me], chose 'Cream-Tone' as the relatable sound-goal. Somewhere between that and live Stones, I went also for the Richards-Taylor Stone-Wall tone.
Dropped to C eh?  No wonder you use such heavy strings, man!  i used to use 52 guage strings, which i think that it worked out for the better.  I went from a whopping 52 guage down to an 8 guage, so my solos are pretty "out there".  on my 79 strat and my holow-body i still have 8's.  I usually drop my hollow body down to E flat.  so yeah, it's pretty much like playing a guitar with spagetti for strings    .  But that's how i like it, man. 
  Pretty cool discovering there's a whole 'extra' ton of bass in a 6 string, accoustics and electrics both have a 'sweet zone' as far as string tension. I like to string an accoustic, then work my way up from below A-flat to find when the body starts resonating and ringing, plenty of accoustics open up when the tension is relieved somewhat, and very often stay sounding real tight... A regular diameter accoustic string set, a tune drop and capo can change the resonant frequencies. ...trying different thicknesses and tensions can find resonance that couldn't be in 'standard' conditions.
  I've been getting great mileage out of EB pinky-slinky's and the freshly discovered [re-issued] EB 'Rock 'n Roll' set, they have a floppyness at/just after initial attack which makes cool chord rings, fine line between that and tuning problems...it is a less stiff string.