ORPHEUM FUZZ

[Sparky]

Let me ask you, are you using a logarithmic volume pot or a linear pot?  I ask because way back before we knew any better, back when we thought that 10 watts would be 10 times as loud as 1 watt, it was a common trick for manufacturers of stereo and music amps to use linear volume pots.  The prospective customer would turn the volume up to maybe the 8:00 position, and it would be ungodly loud, leading them to think "Man, if it's THIS loud at that setting, think how loud it will be if I dime it!".  Of course, they'd get home and find it actually wouldn't get all that much louder no matter HOW high they turned it up.

If your volume control makes it hard to dial in something that is just a little louder than bypass level, perhaps the issue might be the volume pot taper.

  Nope, it's not a pot issue.  [although that's a good call]

[Halkbi]

Is a stock Fuzzrite way louder then unity??    I don't have any here for comparison and can't remember correctly.  I know that putting the input cap back to stock .1 uf would make some difference but how about the other two .1 caps ?     Replacing those caps may return the circuit back to being a bit more manageable.   I like pedals with a good dose of volume in reserve but this is too overwhelming !   It's also pretty noisy .

The Fuzzrite should be plenty loud on the far end settings of the depth pot, however it loses a lot of juice when going towards the middle setting where it's far form unity. This is due to the added series resistance; with the depth pot at at 12 o clock youre basically adding 250k of resistance at both output stages. It's popular to add a gain recovery stage to combat this.

[Sparky]

Is a stock Fuzzrite way louder then unity??    I don't have any here for comparison and can't remember correctly.  I know that putting the input cap back to stock .1 uf would make some difference but how about the other two .1 caps ?     Replacing those caps may return the circuit back to being a bit more manageable.   I like pedals with a good dose of volume in reserve but this is too overwhelming !   It's also pretty noisy .

The Fuzzrite should be plenty loud on the far end settings of the depth pot, however it loses a lot of juice when going towards the middle setting where it's far form unity. This is due to the added series resistance; with the depth pot at at 12 o clock youre basically adding 250k of resistance at both output stages. It's popular to add a gain recovery stage to combat this.
[/quote 

  This thing is very loud all the way around and the only changes I made to the circuit are those .1 caps and the 10meg resistor on the 1st transistor.   I put 1uf caps and a 2Meg res. in it.    I'll know more after I switch the circuit back to stock.

[Sparky]

Put the stock .1 input cap back in and I like it a lot better.  I'm wondering how putting the 10 Meg resistor in Q1  would change things....

[Rob Strand]

Nice chart! But didn't the silicon Fuzzrite also have the 22k R8? I have yet to come across a gutshots of an original that doesn't have it, and it's present in the Catalinbread Fuzzrite (which is supposed to be a proper recreation of the original, based upon NOS units provided by the Moseley family).

I believe that is correct

The non-22k version started with a mistraced or erroneous schematic on the web.
I have a silicon schematic where I have added "with 22k fix" (I also have the
schematic with the 22k missing).

[Sparky]

Put the stock .1 input cap back in and I like it a lot better.  I'm wondering how putting the 10 Meg resistor in Q1  would change things....

Any theory  on how the 10 meg res.  would change the character of the circuit?