3 fuzzes in one box.

[Slabdragger]

hey!!

my mate wants me to build him a fuzz, but he's a greedy beggar and wants three of them. so i suggested why not stick them all in one box.

if i was to build a tripple fuzz, a bc108 fuzz and maybe some kind of octave up fuzz all in the same box, would all three run off one 9v battery?

also, i would really like to do this but i'm not sure it's possible. it probably is.

i want to seperate the 3 fuzzes so they're in parallel when they're all on, i would like to be able to dial in different amounts of the three fuzzes, layered instead of one into another.

idea: split the signal 3 ways into each circuit then maybe a small 3 knob mixer to the output?? any way i could switch between parallel and series?

this idea is pretty ridiculous, but that exactly what he wants. haha.

anyone have any advice??

cheers!!

slabdragger

[Slabdragger]

i just drew this up after about an hour of total confusion. would this work?? obviously i'd have to look into the mixer aspect of it and add footswitches and power.




in my diagram, when series is engaged and boards 1 and 2 have the extra (right hand) switch engaged, this could either be a good or a bad thing. i'm not sure if its even necessary.

in parallel mode, boards 1 and 2 can be turned off either with the extra switch or the footswitch. this could be confusing.

any ideas to combat this problem?? this is confusing me.

any advice would be most welcome!! thanks!!

[Mark Hammer]

I can't see the diagram you've supplied, but ask yourself "What is the difference between a trio of circuits that employ maybe 10 transistors, and a larger circuit that uses a quartet of transistors  and 4 op-amps, plus switching circuitry to turn JFETs on and off? (your average Boss or DOD pedal)  Not very much.

So, it may well be possible to power the trio from a single battery.  The bigger, and more critical, question is whether the presence of three high-gain circuit crowded together poses any challenges with respect to noise, or switching.  And the answer is, they do.

These are not insurmountable challenges, but they will require your careful planning and attention to detail.  You will NOT want to have your wiring criss-crossing or else you risk oscillations.  So, figure out the chassis to work with.  Figure out how you are going to select the individual effect of the three.  Figure out where the controls will need to be to make sure there are no stray capacitances or sources of bleedthrough.  Figure out how to keep the leads to the controls and switches short and as isolated as possible.  And THEN build it.

[MikeH]

There's a 'four-way mixer' schem around here somewhere, and I think thats what you want to blend the outputs; just use 3 of the channels.  And you will likely have to put a buffered splitter before the effects too.  That way you can true-bypass the whole thing with 1 switch.  You could also a toggle for each fuzz to take it out of the mix.

Honestly- I don't think 3 fuzzes in parallel will sound that much different than 1 fuzz alone (unless they're VASTLY different sounding).  My suggestion would to be a fuzz, OD, and a distortion and blend those.  Or at least 3 very different fuzzes.