new fuzz, "fuzzy balls boost"..w/schematic/vero etc

[pinkjimiphoton]

first up, schematic:



then the vero:



what is it? well, recently an "audio designs fuzzound" was on evilbay with some pics... so me and CRR decided to see what we could make of it.
he's still working out the original, i've already boxed my version, which i call the fuzzy balls boost based on the labeling of the knobs.

very gated, buzzy in your face fuzz, kinda reminiscent of both buzz boxes and univox superfuzzes. cleans up decently at some settings via guitar knob.
inSANEly loud.

i found a hack that gives a nice gain boost, that i don't recall seeing done yet... tho i'm sure someone has.
i took the first stage, which i believe was an emitter follower? with a grounded e...
and at gus smalley's suggestion, played with an r/c network there... i found 470r with a 22u electro cap sounded really good, so i went with that.
i was experimenting with bypassing this network completely with a shunt to ground switch, but it didn't sound all that impressive.
while dicking around, i discovered if i connected the node of q1 e-470r/22u to pin 3 of the fuzz pot, i got a nice boost that was very noticeable. so i hardwired it up.
imho it's a fairly useable hack. again, i haven't seen this done before, but it doesn't mean it hasn't.
IF it hasn't, what the heck did i do? why does it work?
this is very much a thick broken 60's kinda fuzz/buzz, but it cleans up real nice from the guitar. i could probably gig with this if i needed to. like a fuzzface on steroids kinda. to me, it sounds a LOT like a superfuzz.. but only 2 transistors, a pair of npn ge's from a bag a kind forumite sent me, and the diodes are ge, 1n34 or 1n60s.. i don't think it's all that much different tonally.
you could make this into an original pnp style fairly easily... reverse the one electro, the 400X, and the polarity of the power supply. indeed, if you leave off the electro , the small value cap, the 100r and the 400x,  and add a switch actoss the fuzz pot for bypass, you'll have the original circuit.
all caps on the original were electros of indeterminate value. still trying to work all that out,
but this is my version, based on the original which has some questions about it.
imho, it works and sounds great. here's a stupid pedal trick:

schematic and vero above are what you hear in the video.
my hfe's are 80q1 and 90q2.

will try and remember to grab some voltages next time i'm near it.

[stonerbox]

will try and remember to grab some voltages next time i'm near it.

Awesome work as usual, just be sure not to literally "grab" those voltages, ok?  

Not too often I see a SG in your videos. Is it new?

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey bro, i'll try and avoid the electric produced visionary seizures... lol

doc found nothing, as expected. hasn't happened again, chalk it up to one of them things. 

the sg is a beater i put together out of parts, it's a cheap epiphone. i love the neck on it, and it sustains like a son of a gun.

this is probably the first time i've really used it since i built it. i have an 89 sg 90 in metalic green too, signed by dick wagner. i almost never break it out, i really should.
this cheap epi sounds/plays better than the (at the time) $1200.00 gibson!

[pinkjimiphoton]

played with this some more tonite, the "boost" function can be a bit noisy... i think cuz i didn't shield the wires to the switch.... and looking at it, do you think
it should have a cap there between the switch and the fuzz pot?

how brain dead can i get? pretty brain dead, apparently.

let's call the "boost" experimental at this point. i'm betting it's gonna need a cap to block the dc there, and it may change the tone some.
sorry... my bad... let me play with this a wee bit more before you try to build it, at least with the switch.

very buzzy fuzzy nasty and rude.

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, so the fix is simple. splice in a .1u cap between the switch and lug 3 of the fuzz pot.
still boosts, a little less noise. sorry for droppin' the ball. brIAn dEaD...

[LucifersTrip]

"sorry"...nothing to be sorry about.   you're one of the few still experimenting with lesser known ge circuits and posting results.  it's stuff like this that makes me coming back.   thanx!

btw, since there's usually a significant difference in fuzzes depending on whether you use a strat or a gibson (epiphone), it's always cool to try both when tweaking.

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks dave.... from one fuzzaholic to another!

i think you'll probably like this one when (if) ya try it.

good tip on the gibson/fender thing.

i usually develop with single coils to try and get 'em to sound good, and usually if they sound ok with singles humbuckers are a shoe-in.

today i think i'll build a pnp tonebender variant.. built a mk1.5 last nite with npn ge and a couple tweaks that i'm really digging.

[stonerbox]

hey bro, i'll try and avoid the electric produced visionary seizures... lol

doc found nothing, as expected. hasn't happened again, chalk it up to one of them things.  

the sg is a beater i put together out of parts, it's a cheap epiphone. i love the neck on it, and it sustains like a son of a gun.

this is probably the first time i've really used it since i built it. i have an 89 sg 90 in metalic green too, signed by dick wagner. i almost never break it out, i really should.
this cheap epi sounds/plays better than the (at the time) $1200.00 gibson!

Cool!

I hear that! Got a Epiphone Firebird and I love playing it even though it's kinda sh1tty guitar. Great feel, awesome sustain and crazy low-end on that sucker, especially when adding a nasty fuzz in the chain! Uses alnico mini humbuckers as you probably may already know? Plus it's a real beauty, at least in my eyes.  

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey bro, i'll try and avoid the electric produced visionary seizures... lol

doc found nothing, as expected. hasn't happened again, chalk it up to one of them things.  

the sg is a beater i put together out of parts, it's a cheap epiphone. i love the neck on it, and it sustains like a son of a gun.

this is probably the first time i've really used it since i built it. i have an 89 sg 90 in metalic green too, signed by dick wagner. i almost never break it out, i really should.
this cheap epi sounds/plays better than the (at the time) $1200.00 gibson!

this fuzz is total stoner death. i really like it, too much gain!! i mean... too much. but in a cool almost multioctave way. i brought it to the show on thursday nite and let the other resident fuzz monger agitprop try this and the swinger box. thru mikey's (and i mean PERFECT) po boy combo, all tube hand built tube guru amp it was crazy. like a big muff on acid into cranked tubes. still needs a little refining tho...

and this is based on the *uber rare*....ha! .... fuzzound by audio designs.

this cat posted it on evilbay and was kind enough to post some somewhat blurry, but fairly comprehensive gut shots.
so CRR sent me a schematic he worked up, and we played with it and built a couple amusing circuits..
this is one of them.
jrod got in on it with us too, and came up with a slightly different schematic.
looking at it i think i found a solution for switching to make it a cleaner overdrive/nastierfuzz from that schematic,
which of course was partially based on the previous work
which led to yet ANOTHER VARIANT by CRR,
and we're still not done with jrods!! 

we've got the circuit working in several very cool and very heavy variations.
i think you'll diggit. remember, that stupid pedal videe was thru a dano hodad with two inch speakers, not a nice cranked 50 watter thru a 12.
so ya don't get the same kinda weird rumbly octavey kinda stuff as clearly.

my neck is fuxxed. right now, all my stage shit is living in the back of the truck cuz i don't wanna move anything.
so i gotta get creative and see about doing a proper demo..
but it may be a while. even my tiny little cyber deluxe is a bitch, and my damned pedalboard weighs twice as much as that.
now normally i'd say yas lifts some weights, and eats some steaks, but i can't do that right now cuz it's gone from fuxxed to fuzzed.
next step i don't care to contemplate, but as you saw it's caused some weird problems.
listen to me whine. gotta cheese sammich? 

now firebirds... i LOVE them epiphone firebirds. there's a couple tweaks and tricks...
what color is the pickups and hardware?
cuz you can get gibson ones with like 15k outputs blown out for about 50 bux on ebay.
i have no idea if they're real ones or not, but hot damn they sound GREAT.
i built a firebird-ish kit over the last summer, and the p'ups in it were actually very decent, sounded much like the classic mini
byrd buckers, i've owned about 6 firebirds over the years (still have 3 of 'em) but it needed a little more balls.
since this was a kit guitar just to keep me busy i didn't even bother upgrading anything. it wasn't really necessary. the guitar set up and played great.
built an eds1275-ish double neck kit as well, before that came out killer.

anyways, search for firebird p'ups on ebay, and you should find what i'm talking about. if you can live with chrome covers (which don't get as nasty
)


weird, how the line break looks right there..^^

they sound great real phat, a lot of overtones and some screaming phatness even in the high end.  i really dig 'em.

if your byrd has a vibrola that is useless, look under the spring part of the vibe and see if there's a strip of foam there, meant to preserve the finish.
also makes the bar impossible to use cuz you cannot get a zero point return.
if the foam is there, remove it. suddenly you'll have an actual whammy bar. very sweet, no more hanging up.
i use mine and play gilmour and hendrix and zappa and all kindsa crazy stuff with it.

if it's one of the cheaper ones, you can also upgrade the tuners, which will make a huge difference. depends how crazy ya wanna get...

i think we're gonna just put all the info
Cool!

I hear that! Got a Epiphone Firebird and I love playing it even though it's kinda sh1tty guitar. Great feel, awesome sustain and crazy low-end on that sucker, especially when adding a nasty fuzz in the chain! Uses alnico mini humbuckers as you probably may already know? Plus it's a real beauty, at least in my eyes.  

[pinkjimiphoton]

something went very wrong with the above post, i tried to edit it and it went a little wacka wacka on me...

[stonerbox]

It do looks a bit ODD! Hahaha. I'll reach for my magnifier to see if I can find you reply, somewhere in there. 

[stonerbox]

The Fuzzy Balls boost sure got FUZZ! I really liked your jerculator too, great feedback.  

We're going off topic now!

All aways great with some love for the Firebirds! I usually use my old Gibson Les Paul (73') that I have inherited from my good ol' dad, but every now and then I pick up the Firebird in the studio or just for fun at home. All the hardware are in chrome and it got no vibroal, it's a Firebird studio (sunburst) with the standard tuners, I really should get them upgraded in the future but they work ok for now considering it's tuned in C-standard. I'll check out the pickups you mentioned!

[pinkjimiphoton]

i just looked on ebay couldn't find 'em, but i put a gibson 496 in the bridge, smokin'!!
the other is a gibson as well, i paid about 50 bux a piece for 'em used.

the kent armstrong ones have 4 conductor wiring, but may as well be what ya got.

a bit thing with byrds is turn down your tone control, hell, almost off... and then they get a lot phatter and more aggressive.

[V1nce69]

first up, schematic:




what is it? well, recently an "audio designs fuzzound" was on evilbay with some pics... so me and CRR decided to see what we could make of it.
he's still working out the original, i've already boxed my version, which i call the fuzzy balls boost based on the labeling of the knobs.

very gated, buzzy in your face fuzz, kinda reminiscent of both buzz boxes and univox superfuzzes. cleans up decently at some settings via guitar knob.
inSANEly loud.

my hfe's are 80q1 and 90q2.

will try and remember to grab some voltages next time i'm near it.

Hi Jim,
I've just studied your schematic and one thing makes me wonder:
Why is there no 47k resistor from base of q1 to ground ?

The biaising of the two trannies seem to be equal, same 1M res + 5p cap from base to colllector, same vr set at 33k. The only difference being this one and the mod you made on q1 emitter.

I want to build it for bass with pnp trannies, so I think I'll have to mess around with the bias and the clipping. Input cap and the other filter caps are 220n, so it should be quite good.

Thank for posting this idea of yours on a rare fuzz, your video sounds great !

[pinkjimiphoton]

no "mod" done to q1 that i recall, this was a couple years ago. if memory serves, me and clyde and someone else took the pics on ebay and worked with what was in the original circuit until we had it working. the 1 meg resistor on the input is the only thing not stock i remember.
despite common logic, you do NOT always NEED  a resistor from b to ground. ge transistors leak and will self bias ridiculously easy, and sometimes easier and more stable without a fixed bias. one of my fav tricks is this.... put an input cap to the base, take an output cap off the collector, ground the emitter, apply 9v thru say a 50k cap on the collector.. peeps will tell ya it can't work or sound good, and that it's bad engineering and simply not the way it's done. i say @#$% that. if it sounds good, it is.
there have been several circuits i've built that sound great with multiple simple gain stages like this. it's akin to a "cathode biased" tube in simplicity like that in some respects (not really in any way other than making the transistor self bias and be set for it's max gain).
the 470r/22u cap from e to ground was in the original fuzzound circuit as shown, but isn't necessary. you can just ground the emitter for more gain if ya want it. the network actually mellows the sound out a little bit.
pnp should be fine, i just tend to make my own stuff npn cuz it's easier. no diff really in tone whatsoever, just if i have to daisy chain a power supply here or there (or the  occaisional customer) it's easier.
you probably won't need to bias to play bass with it. but if ya do, the 50k trimmers should have ya covered. ghd .22's for in and out should be good still with bass, as it's the bass that tends to make this fuzz break up the way it does.
hope ya likes it, have fun!
jimi

[Cozybuilder]

Ummm, Russ or Cozy please.


This was a fun project with PJ. I built 2 of them, this was my final schematic (theres definitely room for improvement):



Theres a mistake on the label for the center lug of S!- that should be Q2B

[pinkjimiphoton]

sorry russ, what was i thinking?
no coffee yet i'll lay out with

[V1nce69]

no "mod" done to q1 that i recall, this was a couple years ago. if memory serves, me and clyde and someone else took the pics on ebay and worked with what was in the original circuit until we had it working. the 1 meg resistor on the input is the only thing not stock i remember.
despite common logic, you do NOT always NEED  a resistor from b to ground. ge transistors leak and will self bias ridiculously easy, and sometimes easier and more stable without a fixed bias. one of my fav tricks is this.... put an input cap to the base, take an output cap off the collector, ground the emitter, apply 9v thru say a 50k cap on the collector.. peeps will tell ya it can't work or sound good, and that it's bad engineering and simply not the way it's done. i say @#$% that. if it sounds good, it is.
there have been several circuits i've built that sound great with multiple simple gain stages like this. it's akin to a "cathode biased" tube in simplicity like that in some respects (not really in any way other than making the transistor self bias and be set for it's max gain).
the 470r/22u cap from e to ground was in the original fuzzound circuit as shown, but isn't necessary. you can just ground the emitter for more gain if ya want it. the network actually mellows the sound out a little bit.
pnp should be fine, i just tend to make my own stuff npn cuz it's easier. no diff really in tone whatsoever, just if i have to daisy chain a power supply here or there (or the  occaisional customer) it's easier.
you probably won't need to bias to play bass with it. but if ya do, the 50k trimmers should have ya covered. ghd .22's for in and out should be good still with bass, as it's the bass that tends to make this fuzz break up the way it does.
hope ya likes it, have fun!
jimi

Thank you so  much for your detailed answer.  I just made my pcb layout on Eagle. First I designed it for pnp transistors, thus electro caps and diode 1n4001 are reversed. Then there are two mods, first I upped C2 to 100µF and put pads for testing an R8 from base of Q1 to ground, just to be able to test the difference without (as per original) or with.

Here are my files
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28533786/Audio%20Designs%20Fuzzound/Fuszound%20pcb%20etch.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28533786/Audio%20Designs%20Fuzzound/Fuszound%20parts%20layout.png