"new" old fuzz...the Suzy-Q Kustom Harmonic Clipper

[bluesdevil]

Wow, if it's the best circuit you put together I'll have to build this! Gonna have to order up some vn2222's on the next Tayda order.
I still have not built your Dick Wagner OD.... gotta slap it on the breadboard soon too.  Keep on rockin'!!

[pinkjimiphoton]

hi bill, let me revisit the wagner pedal. i think i may make a few changes to it.
this thing in this thread isn't gonna be for everybody.. gimme a day or two to get a stupid pedal trick posted so you can decide.

this is a very "clean" fuzz, for lack of a better word. half way up, it sounds like suzy q or green river. if you like that sound, then by all means go for it!

[bluesdevil]

Thanks Jim.... no hurry. I'll keep my eyes peeled for the new Stupid Pedal Trick.
I'm a big CCR fan, so I'll probably dig it!!

[Gus]

AS PER YOUR REQUEST, LARRY!!!!
lol

vero to come. this is the circuit i built... nevermind it's on three circuit boards at the moment.

i'll cobble together a vero for it as soon as possible. maybe. i suck at stuff that's even slightly complicated!!

but...that said.. it works. it does what it should. the 11k resistor is actually a 10k trimmer and a 1k resistor, but
i don't know how to really draw that, with what i was working with.

all knobs half way up, it sounds like suzy q or green river. crank the attack knob, and it gets more focus and bite.
crank the harmonics up, and it starts to saturate.
there's enough volume on tap to overdrive pretty much any amp without having to crank the attack and harmonics.. unity gain is about 9:00 now.

the more ya crank it, the better it sounds. responds to your guitar like a good fuzz face.

wah friendly before/after. plays nice with fuzzes too, tho they can get REAL freakin' saturated.

wanna thank dino and gus for the advice, and thank felipe osorio, from whom i stole the input buffer (which is pretty close to the foxrocks wah buffer), and whomever the hell made that boost dino turned me on to.

i likes it. this one is probably the best sounding pedal i've monkeyed together yet.

stupid pedal tricks iminent... stay tuned!!

Too many parts IMO.  I don't see anything I posted about in the schematic above.

The buffer does not need the 47K (22k 1uf node the 10k harmonics control is the pull down and you are not switching this buffer)
The 10pf Drain to +9VD does nothing at drawn at the 2nd vn2222 stage
You don't need the 1meg at the .22uf, 10k wiper node

You could make the first stage an emitter follower(EF) or source follower(SF) ADD the series resistor after the EF (look at the 3 transistor fuzz in schematics) OR design a X2 transistor circuit with a 22K output resistance.
you don't need the 2nd vn2222 buffer stage you can combine the Vn2222 SF and output boost  as one transistor

Look at the input and output sections for some ideas, adjust cap values for high pass and low pass frequencies.

[pinkjimiphoton]

ummm, gus, i never said i was building the fuzz you posted above. i gave thanks for your advice tho.

being able to dump a couple parts is hip, but this thing sounds the way i want it to. what you're suggesting would be a completely different circuit.. sorta.

other than the cap values being different, it's pretty close to what i cobbled together.

the 10p cap on the second mosfet does indeed do something... it knocks out some of the high end noise that was happening. it was noticeable at 3.3p, 4.7p,6.8p, at 10p it made a perceptible difference without taking off too much highs. above 10p, it began to muddy it up and it started losing the harmonics.

i'm talking just real-world application, yes, it's a dodge, but if the end justifies the means, i'm good with it. yes, it's got too many parts, i'm sure, and there may be a better way to implement it from an engineering standpoint, but i'm no engineer.
just a kid who had a big hallucination. (many times, in fact   )

i go by what my ears tell me, after being completely addicted to electric guitars sound since the 60's. i tried a bunch of things for the front end on this...without the buffer, with the tone knob on the guitar rolled back, i got noise, pulsing oscillation kinda crap at the edge of my hearing. i primarily build these things for me, and i DO use the knobs on my guitar...i prefer to never be "on 10"...so it was an issue.

i tried my rangemaster, my tonebender, a si and a ge fuzzface, my recent fuzz/od, my superfuzz, even some boss pedals. as soon as i added the boss pedals, it worked better, so i figured i'd hit the box of buffers i'd built and never use. this was the one that, to my ear, made it come to life. so i added it on.

before the buffer, it needed low pass filtering to get rid of the noise. once the buffer is there, the guitar knobs work great, and it doesn't need the LP filter, so i didn't bother even trying to implement it.

but then, having built a couple of your fuzzes, i think we're looking for very different sounds... you like real aggressive fuzzes that are unbelievably responsive to pick attack and playing, fuzzes that become the centerpiece of the guitar's tone.

i'm looking more at how it augments the tone of the guitar and amp...i don't want sonic domination, i want color, and a fair bit more subtle. i think we all voice things to our ears, what resonates in our souls. like dino's version without the attack control... it sounds great (i bypassed it on mine to see what it would sound like) but for me, it's not right... too much distortion, too many highs for my style (i like listeners to not know if i'm using effects or not, and tend to emulate very amp like sounds with them) but for the Asian Icemen, i can see where it would be perfect. just different styles is all bro. not saying i'm right, hell, pretty sure i'm NEVER right, lol..

but it DOES get a sound. i played thru kustoms for years, and with all three knobs half way up, it sounds like a cranked up kustom. you were the guy who taught me you want to get the sounds you're looking for in the middle of the pot's range, which i try to do.. this may be far from perfect, but hey, it sounds good. at least to me.


that said.. i'll look at removing unnecessary bits to see if i can lower the parts count a little, for sure. not needing pulldowns for pops can be great, so i'll lift the ground ends and see if there's any tonal change. if not, hell yah, i can get 'em out of there. but if there is, i'll just end up soldering them down again.

to me, it's gotta sound good thru a couple amps... the ruby (everything sounds good), the cyber (which is almost impossible to get something to sound good thru), or my hot-rodded princeton (which is my real benchmark)

if i like it thru all three, i figure it will be good.

i'm looking at this, and yep, you're right about the 10p cap... i've gotta remove the trace to the 9v rail just above the 1m bc resistor...good catch!!

would it be better to move the 1m at the 10k pot to the input of the 500k pot as a pulldown resistor? (remember, this is 3 circuit boards that were added together, so the schem as shown is the amalgamation of all three veros, or exactly what i'm listening to)

and, in the end, remember, this is based on the original to a point..i've already changed the q's and the values of the caps, and modified the "sound" of the original circuit...which had a preamp in front of it, and another behind it.

the one thing no circuit sim can do is let you listen... you can "listen" with your eyes, by looking at the waveforms, but DAW 101 is to NEVER listen with your eyes..
do it with your ears.

before ya judge it too harshly, let me up a sample so you can see what it sounds like...in the end, if it sounds good, it's good. i mean..too many parts? this is nothing compared to a klon! (on oh, soooooo many levels.)



thank you gus. yes, it may not have parts in it or stages you suggested (yet) but your advice and guidance aren't falling on deaf ears. that's why i gave ya props on the schem i cobbled together. i will update the schematic right now, thanks for the good eyes!!!

and, as it is for most folks, the buffer is probably not needed, so the original vero should be good...

here's the fixed (so far) schematic with the 10p cap fixed...



and here's the little daughterboard for the original vero, to bring it up to "more than loud enough"...



i will try and fix up the schematic implementing removal of extra parts gus..

what ya see here in this thread is just what's in there now. if i can get the same tone with a few less parts, all the better!!

i wanna try your version too, and see what it sounds like.. i bet yours, mine, mark's and dino's all will sound different from each other!!

if they sound the same...my mind will be blown!

also, any chance you could run your sim with mosfets like i used instead of the high gain transistors?
i believe dino will agree, there's a humongous difference in the sound between tranistors and mosfets in this kind of circuit (like, this was never supposed to have 'em in it!!! lol)

EDIT...DUH!! NEVER FIXED THAT 10P CAP!!! LOL

[pinkjimiphoton]

gus,
i dropped the extra parts you suggested (i think) i DID go with a 1m pulldown after the 500k pot still, cuz i'm anal about that or something.
hopefully this is a little clearer, also added the voltages i got, the supply voltage, and the pot taper.



i think i can start on a vero now for it.

if you sim it, can you do it with mosfets and the values i'm using to see what the waveforms look like please?
thanks.

[pinkjimiphoton]

one more quick revision, added a 22k resistor from the bottom of the attack pot to ground, now it acts more like an attack control, and less like a volume control. you can turn the attack and harmonics off and crank just the volume if you want to now, or sweep in whatever amount of "harmonic clipping" is available (depending on transistors used).

this thing is all in one box now, and connected, and it's working great.

here's the updated (hopefully for the last time) schematic:



i have some pics of the guts..it's pretty amusing with all the crud squished in!!

[deafbutpicky]

Hi Jim,
my mail man just decided to let my parts go on another round trip, so I couldn't test your photonfuzzOD yet.
But this looks interesting too (if just for suzyQ ). A quick question about the trimmer you added: Why?
I mean, it looks like some selective starve controle as it messes with the bias of the last three stages at once?!

[digi2t]

Hi Jim,
my mail man just decided to let my parts go on another round trip, so I couldn't test your photonfuzzOD yet.
But this looks interesting too (if just for suzyQ ). A quick question about the trimmer you added: Why?
I mean, it looks like some selective starve controle as it messes with the bias of the last three stages at once?!

but...that said.. it works. it does what it should. the 11k resistor is actually a 10k trimmer and a 1k resistor, but
i don't know how to really draw that, with what i was working with.

I think it was just a lack of 11K resistors...

What I call «Makin`honey outta dogshit». 

[pinkjimiphoton]

lol...10 k, 11k, trimmer, fixed resistor, doesn't really make a lot of difference.
if ya use a transistor there, it may help. or may not.

i have my pot set half way up, there's minimal tonal change available there, lets ya balance the hiss a little bit, but completely optional.
when my girl goes to work today, i will make a SPT.

this thing @#$%in' screams... it's a very clean clear overdrive into a clean amp, a nice boost into a crunchy one, and icing on the cake into filth.

half way up, it sounds like green river or suzy q.

i'm imagining the transistors used will affect the tone a bit. socket, experiment, repeat. 

to be fair, i DIDN'T. i plugged in the vn's and liked it so much i never looked back. i really like the sound of mosfets in fuzzes.

this fits my criteria as a fuzz, if only that it is interactive with the guitar, something distortion and most overdrives lack.

stay tuned. ya know, it's ticking me off, i txted pics from my phone to my facebook and my email, and they never arrived.

time to go off on att again

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, here we gooo, with no furter adieu, the suzy q....

fender cyber deluxe, with reverb and trem (and a little echo here and there)
suzy-q pedal
epiphone pos les paul junior (the neck is off an old epi lp standard tho, very VERY sweet)

all the tonal variations are started off with the attack and harmonic knobs on half, and the volume a little above unity gain.
almost all is turning the guitar volume and tone knobs to various positions.

when i mess with the pedal knobs i try to say what i'm doing. it's long and wanky,
but i tend to get lost in this pedal a bit.

hope you enjoy this episode of stupid pedal tricks. no, you can't have your money back.

[pinkjimiphoton]

got....damn....hippy!!!

made another mistake on the schematic, sorry deafbutpicky, you were right, the powe supply line to the circuit after the trimmer has to be attached at the top of the trimmer, not the bottom, my bad!! SO i'm givin' ya props on the schematic, too. i couldn't have done this with out you three guys, thank you!



i believe this is finally 100% right, thanks to Dino, Deaf, and Gus.

what you hear in the video is the original vero, with add on boost at end on daughterboard, and add on buffer at input on a second daughterboard. it looks pretty cool.



gut shot pron:

[bluesdevil]

Looks like some of my builds, ha! At least you shielded the input/output, something I get lazy with.

[Strat68okc]

Whoa! I like it. Lots.

[pinkjimiphoton]

DON'T BUILD THIS.  sounds great at a low volume, but it's real hissy at stage volumes.

gonna play with it tomorrow.. may need BPT instead of mosfets. they sound great, but wayyyy too noisy

[pinkjimiphoton]

OK so far, this is what i got... q1, ac176 ge npn, q2  vn2222, q3 ac176 .

sounds the same, but 90% of the hiss is gone, before at stage volume the hiss was almost as loud as the signal when you stopped playing.
totally unacceptable.

i just played it with headphones on, CRANKED so i couldn't escape the noise, and swapped tranistors, jfets, mosfets and anything else i could get my hands on in there.

it sounds great with three ac176, but it's QUIETEST with the vn2222 mosfet in q2.

i'd reccomend socketing transistors, and experimenting until you find the right transistors for YOUR ear.

lower gain lower noise transistors in q1 and q3 i think are a must.
this thing is freaking LOUD now, way, way louder than with the mosfets alone.

it has enough balls, a tone control could be easily implemented, unity gain is about 8:30 now, and by half way up, it is SLAMMIN the amp.
right now, it's slammin it and the noise i think is acceptable.

i'll gig with it tomorrow and report back... if it does ok live, i'll say go for it.

sorry for the over-exuberance, this thing really sounds boss to me. now that the noise is mostly gone, i'll be much happier with it i think.

work in progress... stay tune.

[deafbutpicky]

yay, at least I could be useful here.
There's some sweet tone in it again, breadboardtime... (sometime...)
I'll try some low hfe si transistors for q1 and q2, as it is a big step
for me to go  ge on the diodes already. One at a time

[pinkjimiphoton]

yah,
low si will work fine.

use whatever npn's you have, and you'll be ok.

as i discovered, the high gain (i mean, the mosfets were off the chart for my meter) sound great...very amp-y.

but that @#$%in' hiss had to go. i thought it may be the 741, but it was the mosfets.

the good news? with bipolar transistors in it, it sounds just as good as the video, same kinda tone, but probably twice as much output.

i tried it with 2n2222's....not bad. noise went down by half or more. same with 3904's, mps6515,  2sc828 and a couple others.

but the magic combo was the two ge's and the mosfet.

i have completely unrealistic expectations, so don't let me put ya off too much!! i play LOUD live quite a bit.. in a studio or home environment at more normal levels, it would probably be fine as it was.

last nite at rehearsal, i played thru a tiny vintage pignose 30/60. it was pretty much pegged, and noisy, which exacerbated the noise issue.

last nite, i tried it thru clean crunch and dirt modes, with and without compression (to make it hissier) and noise gating(to forcibly create artifacts) and it seemed to be fine.

tell ya what, you can probably drive a speaker with this thing alone.

no, i haven't tried it yet.

[deafbutpicky]

Yea, tell me about mosfet issues...
I came up with a circuit using 12 cmos gain stages (3 Band high gain), but what the heck, if it sounds good
only the tone remains and I'm not too picky in this concern.

btw:
I was quite stunned to hear Mood For a Day from you and in this context. So much for got carried away...

[pinkjimiphoton]

AND mood for a day was with the box on, and the guitar rolled way down.

i love the sound of the mosfets quiet, but screw it, they are NOT NECESSARY to keep the tone the same.

i've gotta bunch of low hfe transistors i've ordered, npn silicons. if i find a readily available product that works well, i'll post it.

pretty much once we find the "right" silicons, it'll be easy to standardize without having to fine tune each circuit i'd think.

but...that said, it works... so go for it if ya like the clip.

now there's no more noise in the background than there is in bypass. THAT'S what i needed to say it's good.