What else uses germainium transistors except boosters

[Kipper4]

What other effects are worth building that use Ge Transistors.
What would you build?

[pappasmurfsharem]

What other effects are worth building that use Ge Transistors.
What would you build?

fuzzes?

[Kipper4]

Good call Smurf.
I was thinking more spongy compressed sound with dirt yet clarity. A bit less mud.
Fuzzes are ace but for me they have to be dimed to get the best from them.
I was thinking of something a little more adaptable with a wider range of sounds.
Not dissing fuzzs or the suggestion but what else is there?

[JustinFun]

I had some fun on the breadboard playing around with series rangemaster style boosts (but with 100n input and output caps) with clipping diodes between collector and base on the second stage. Kind of vaguely a germanium big muff.

Didn't box it up though as I wasn't sure it offered anything a silicon equivalent couldn't.

[JustinFun]

That said 'spongey, compressed, dirt, yet clarity' - if you've never built a fuzz face with a 100k pot in series with the input, really do give it a try - it can give you everything from a full on fuzz to a much more dynamic overdriven sound, and gives beautiful volume control cleanup if you bias it right..

[Kipper4]

Before or after the input cap?

[rousejeremy]

You can use ones too leaky for circuits as clipping diodes as well. Take a look at the Keeley Freak Fuzz Blues Driver mod.

[psychedelicfish]

I recently found a ge trannie and tried making a bazz fuss type thing. I got a mild OD, Ill post a schem late

[midwayfair]

Before or after the input cap?

Electronically it's irrelevant. Whatever's most convenient for your layout.

[Kipper4]

I recently found a ge trannie and tried making a bazz fuss type thing. I got a mild OD, Ill post a schem late

Sounds intresting. Please do.

Thanks Jon. I'll breadboard it I think.

[LucifersTrip]

I recently found a ge trannie and tried making a bazz fuss type thing. I got a mild OD, Ill post a schem late

Sounds intresting. Please do.

Thanks Jon. I'll breadboard it I think.

if you want to make a ge bazz fuss, definitely make it darlington

[JustinFun]

Before or after the input cap?

I've always done it before, but as Midwayfair says you could do either.

It's much more versatile than the 'fuzz' knob on the standard fuzz face, in fact I've made a few for friends with the fuzz knob hard wired on (just run a 1k resistor and 20uf in parallel to ground straight from q2 emitter) as a 2 knob with the input resistance and volume. I find the normal fuzz control to be fairly useless tbh, it just gets muddy when backed off.

[psychedelicfish]

Sounds intresting. Please do.

I think I might post it in its own thread

[Liquitone]

This builder uses germanium transistors in all his pedals, including a compressor and tremolo. I never tried them out but I'm quite curious.
http://www.tortenmann.de/index.php

[rousejeremy]

This builder uses germanium transistors in all his pedals, including a compressor and tremolo. I never tried them out but I'm quite curious.
http://www.tortenmann.de/index.php

Interesting. I have a Ross Compressor I'm working on right now. I might throw some Germaniums in there to see what it sounds like. I can't imagine it being good.

[midwayfair]

Some other germanium dirt-but-not-fuzz circuits:

Dirty Boots overdrive (http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=71337.0)
Clipper Ship OD (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dPlB8Lqn_a1A6Xpb3Lg-2cfTxGCLOkMfNUWALyGE3ZQ/edit)
Ten Cent Trem -- it was a July 2012 contest entry on the other forum. It's a tremolo that uses a treble booster as the dry path
Harmonic Percolator ... you can turn down the input gain & use silicon for the clipping diodes, and it makes a really good medium-gain distortion. Plenty of clarity.
And probably 10,000 things by Jimi Photon

EDIT: Also, there are a ton of circuits that you can just use germanium transistors in. Just be prepared to rebias them.

[Kipper4]

Cheers guys intresting stuff indeed.

[duck_arse]

lucifer, I was breadboarding a Ge darlington (w/ smallbear in-between resistors) bazz fuss just the other, with disasterous (soundwise) results. it had no high frq response, and just wanted to sputter and quit. do you have a circuit?

[LucifersTrip]

lucifer, I was breadboarding a Ge darlington (w/ smallbear in-between resistors) bazz fuss just the other, with disasterous (soundwise) results. it had no high frq response, and just wanted to sputter and quit. do you have a circuit?

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=94895.0

I just used two super low leak (Russian hfe ~75, leak < 50uA) Q's. Remember, the direction of the diode flips for pnp and the collector resistor changes when you use darlington.

[Kipper4]

Please do report back on your findings Duck Arse I'm very interested in the Darlington pairs idea because of the gain factor and adaptability. Thanks
Rich