stupid pedal trick: fuzzy balls overdrive

[pinkjimiphoton]

if anyone is really interested, let me know, and i will upload the project stuff... this was from a few years ago and forgotten about til i found it the other day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpcNOHffndg&feature=youtu.be

[bluebunny]

if anyone is really interested, let me know, and i will upload the project stuff...

Pretty please (if it survived the crash). 

[pinkjimiphoton]

not sure which is right, sooooooo....
i will layout a project proper, but here ya go... good luck!! gotta give props to russ/cozybuilder for  doing the heavy lifting... some other folks were involved too, but i can't remember who.

[pinkjimiphoton]

AND this one, which i guess it wouldn't post cuz i named it @#$%ed sound lol

[bluebunny]

Thanks Jimi.  What middle-aged bloke doesn't want fuzzy balls? 

(Sorry, TMI...)

[pinkjimiphoton]

jesus, i just want 'em to stop falling in the water when i sit on the damn throne!!! lololol

[Rob Strand]

That schematic looks pretty close.   Looks like germanium transistors.

https://postimg.cc/bDnS2p5Z

However the resistor across Q2's base-emitter is 4.9k (4k9),  not 47k.  Don't know about the cap values.

What's very interesting is it looks a lot like the Kimberly "Buzz Box and Volume Expander".  The pic of the parts in this one shows 180k and 4.7k  instead of the 150k and 4.9k for the Audio Designs fuzzound.  BTW, that further confirms the 4k9 instead of 47k.

http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/kimberly/buzzbox#pictures
https://reverb.com/item/7465317-kimberly-buzz-box-1961-cream

Despite the Kimberly being called a "Buzz Box and Volume Expander"  it is not the same as the UMI/Conrad/Apollo "Buzz Box and Volume Expander".
-----------------------------
From the reverb pic the small ceramic cap connects to the diodes, not the 33k in series with diodes.
I don't know what the pic of the three caps are, maybe the originals?

Now if you look at the effects database pic you can see three electrolytic caps which look like the Reverb cap pic.  You can also see the ceramic.

More detailed pics:
http://forum.effectsdatabase.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=315

[Rob Strand]

Here's what I could work out in a short space of time.
If anyone can cast their beady little eyes over the pics in the links I posted and fill in any details please post your findings.

[V1.0 is obsolete, see below for V1.2]

EDIT:
- After eating food I'm pretty sure the 1M on Q1 goes between Q1.C and Q1.B not to the -9V rail.
- The 2k2 vs 33k thing is a PITA.

[V1.2 - now obsolete]

[pinkjimiphoton]

wow, rob, nice!!
yeah, russ worked out most of the values from the pics i obtainiumed off the bay.
we built a whole bunch of different possibilities, some were really amusing, some not so much. most fuzzed. some were basically just overdrives. the one that i built up and kept had a decent tone but wasn't even to unity gain, so i added a third stage.

i just "sold" a couple of designs to a company out of georgia, and have to finish their 2 projects before i can get into something new, but i'm gonna try n breadboard this and have a play with the cap values.

i bet ya mistaking that 4.9k resistor for 47 explains the volume drop. and i bet the gain pot should be more like 250k or even 500k. when we were working this out, i forget what was going on in my life, but it was something fairly catastrophic where i never got to posting all the variants worked up by me russ and jrod.... forgot all about it til now, was going thru old harddrives resurrecting my archive when i found the folder for it.  also had just found the old fuzzular, so i decided, hey, phatass, time to release the hounds!

very cool. can never ever have enough fuzzes around.

[Rob Strand]

yeah, russ worked out most of the values from the pics i obtainiumed off the bay.
we built a whole bunch of different possibilities, some were really amusing, some not so much. most fuzzed. some were basically just overdrives. the one that i built up and kept had a decent tone but wasn't even to unity gain, so i added a third stage.

Those old transistor fuzzes are some of the hardest circuit to guess the connections.   Don't worry, before I found the extra pics I had quite a few variations going on - a lot like the ones you posted.  There's no way to guess because there's too many alternatives.   Who knows, some of the variants might sound better than the original.  Anyway, I checked the schematic against the pics again this morning and I'm fairly confident the way it is connected are correct and the caps are shown in the correct positions.

i bet ya mistaking that 4.9k resistor for 47 explains the volume drop. and i bet the gain pot should be more like 250k or even 500k. when we were working this out, i forget what was going on in my life, but it was something fairly catastrophic where i never got to posting all the variants worked up by me russ and jrod.... forgot all about it til now, was going thru old harddrives resurrecting my archive when i found the folder for it.  also had just found the old fuzzular, so i decided, hey, phatass, time to release the hounds!

I've got a feeling the volume dip comes from transistors being mis-biased.  Maybe Q1.  It looks like that stage works better with a 2k2 collector resistor.   If your collectors are sitting at high or low voltages it's a sign of misbiasing.   The 33k vs 2k2, 4k7 vs 4k9, and 150k vs 180k can all affect the biasing of Q2.  4k7 to 4k9 is only a small tweak.  Those ge fuzzes are a PIA for biasing.  You can see why manufacturers stuck to the same transistors in production.

After pondering over the pots, I tend to agree the original ckt probably used high values.  I've updated the schematic again added a few notes.    I guess it is a good as it needs to be as these things always need a push to get the biasing right to suit your taste.

[V1.3]

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, so i took the one in the video apart and began tracing what i did, cuz @#$% me if i can remember, and the project files were definitely lost in the crash.

i DID end up adding a weird ass diode clipper to it, a hybrid ge/si one.. its gotta bridge rectifier config with 4 diodes in a usual hard clipping kinda deal, but also added two other diode clippers from the mid points to ground, one ge, one si. i swear to god it DOES make a difference tonally. tried shotkes and leds etc too, but this was the most "tubey" had the best compression <for this cct>  and good dynamics with pick attack and guitar knobs.

i will draw up a schematic shortly, but here's the vero. i can say its verified, cuz, well, its in the video


edit: screwed up the vero so pulling it til i fix it


yes, its a bloody @#$%in mess, but that is what is actually inside the @#$%in pedal. i tied in the hep to get more volume out of it, cuz it wasn't even close to unity gain.

anyways..

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, here's the repaired vero... this is whats actually in the pedal in the video.



i gotta do a proper vero, i'll get to it when i can. this was a result of me being too dumb to use my breadboard years ago and taking chances making veros... and the fun of hacking shit to make it work

here's a semi proper schematic. the boost pot can be 10k or larger. 10k seems to give a fair bit of a boost. the trimmer sets the percentage of how loud the boost is set for when ya hit the boost footswitch. no idea why i did the tone knob with the two caps, but that was in the pedal in the video, so i'll leave it in. i suspect i may have had one of the caps on each side of the tone pot originally... 6 years later, your guess is as good as mine.

[pinkjimiphoton]

i made two mods and buttoned it up.

first, i jumped a 22n cap from the wiper of the tone pot to ground, so the tone pot has a little more treble cut, but still some nice sizzle.

second, i toyed with a simple treble bleed between the input and wiper of the volume control. it keeps a nice searing bite when the volume is low that will really cut thru.

tried 470p , nice bite, like if the byrds used a fuzztone kinda, but 100p sounded better. may wanna just pop it on a switch for a "brite" switch for dark guitars.

[pinkjimiphoton]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand

here's a proper vero for the whole mess. brite switch is optional. changed the 3.3n tone cap to 22n.  i'm guessing the total capacitance part of the tone pot is about 500n, with the 22n and 470n in parallel. or perhaps that 470 isn't working, gonna have to check the original, i'd expect it to get way darker... so the 22n is probably all ya need.

anyways... not built yet on a single board, so check it carefully before committing to vero. if i ever get a chance to verify, i will do so...

anyways...




should just fit in a 1590b i think

[pinkjimiphoton]

and a couple gut shots from the original, with the vero and all the p2p stuff








even in the old-school panky aluminium rat shack box!!

[bloxstompboxes]

Whatever happened to cozybuilder anyway?

[pinkjimiphoton]

good question!

[Rob Strand]

Whatever happened to cozybuilder anyway?

I think he did a chorus or flanger in one of those narrow hammond boxes - amazing work!

[duck_arse]

I think the vegemite did for him.


he told me when he was here he was going to try his hand at making guitars. I should ask him how he's going with.

[bluebunny]

he told me when he was here he was going to try his hand at making guitars

...that fit into a 1590A, no doubt...