Suggestions/advice for what to build with these OC45s?

[irishstu]

Hey all,
I recently bought these OC45s from ebay:



I was thinking of building an old-style fuzz pedal with them. Something along the lines of a Sola Sound ToneBender 3-Knob or similar.

I have 10 trannies to play with, so if some of them are no good, I can deal with that. I've never done anything like this with old germanium transistors, so what should I need to know to choose the best ones? I have already done some forum searching and know that I should start figuring out the gain of each.  Anything else I need to know, or any other suggestions for something to build with these? Are they better suited to a different circuit?

Thanks for any and all advice.
Cheers,
Stu

[newfish]

OC45s aren't the highest gain devices.

I bought some by mistake (should have been 44s for Rangemaster builds!).

These little beauties make an excellent Fuzz Face though - lovely and grainy.

[irishstu]

OC45s aren't the highest gain devices.

I bought some by mistake (should have been 44s for Rangemaster builds!).

These little beauties make an excellent Fuzz Face though - lovely and grainy.

Hi newfish. Thanks for the reply. So I'm looking at the Fuzz Face with the Mayer mods (I see from your siggy that that's what you did).
Does this page seem like a good enough source for the info I need?
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/fuzzface/fffram.htm

Thanks.

[nordine]

don't know if these are pnp or npn, BUT

an Harmonic Percolator is always sweet

[newfish]

Hiya,

That's exactly the article I used - well worth reading for more than the schematics.

Thanks once again to R.G. for sharing the knowledge.

These little beasties are PNP by the way.

Good luck!

[irishstu]

Hey guys,

I realise it's been a while, but I finally got round to testing out these transistors to start my Fuzz Face. Unfortunately their gain mostly ranges from 30 to just over 50 (after allowing for leakage). So given this additional information, should I still go ahead with a Fuzz Face, or should I consider something else?

Thanks again.

[irishstu]

Anyone? 

How about if I use darlington pairs or something?

[newfish]

Hi,

Try it.  Maybe build one on a Breadboard, or use sockets for the trannies.  Then if there's not enough 'Fuzz' going on, you could substitute them as and when something better comes along.

Darlington Pairs sound exciting though - try a search for the 'Heavy Darling' - it was posted some time ago by one of the Forumites here.

I remember the sound clips were ace.

You may need to swap the battery connections, and any filtering caps as your OC45s are PNP though... Can't remember the details of the 'Darling' exactly.

[8bitapocalypse]

45s can sound good as the 1st and 3rd transistor in a tonebender mk1 build, you need a slightly higher gain transistor (80-90hfe+) for transistor 2.

[Solidhex]

Yo

  I've found low gain germaniums can sound really good in the Q2 position of a hybrid silicon/germ fuzz face.

--Brad