Bass heavy Big Muff and Analogman SunFace- cheap parts?

[aefpv]

I have built a Triangle Big Muff and Analogman SunFace on perfboard. With both of them, I have used cheap parts for the resisters and caps. Both were cheap Amazon kits of various values for the caps and resisters. Both pedals produce a strong bass component of the fuzz. I don't mind the sound for the Big Muff, but I do not like as much bass for the SunFace.

Below is the link for the layouts, but my main question is about the cheap resistors and caps. Can the cheap parts make this difference?  The other parts are all from
Smallbear.

SunFace: https://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/2015/04/analogman-sunface.html?m=1

Triangle Big Muff: https://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/2015/02/ehx-big-muff-triangle.html?m=1

[radio]

In my experience ,caps are the parts with the biggest tolerances

Nowadays I measure them before I solder them on the PCB.

However with a germanium fuzz face ,the transistors may have

a bigger impact,especcially as Analogman makes a better selection

than a kit of amazon did profit.

[antonis]

Reduce Sunface input cap vallue..

[pacealot]

It's hard to see how a collection of possibly slightly out-of-spec passive parts would make two very different types of fuzz circuit both too bassy. The odds are highly unlikely that that's the common cause. That said, custom voicing your own pedals is what you get to do when you build them yourself, and so thus:

Reduce Sunface input cap vallue..

My personal preference in a FF input cap is significantly lower than most people's, as I really don't care for the low-end blow-out that some love about the 'Face (my first "real" fuzz was an Italian Vox Tone Bender, and I prefer that thinner approach to the same topography). So I support Antonis' suggestion — but it might take you farther from the classic sound than you might wish, especially as the Sun Face as depicted in your link already lowers the stock 2.2µF down to 1µF. Maybe socket it and see. Output cap is also another place you can try tweaking. "Cheap" is probably still fine, but I'd take radio's advice as well and test them first.

Also, if your FF trannies (germanium presumably?) came from the hopefully-soon-to-emerge-from-hibernation Small Bear (thank you SynthCube!), bear (sorry!) in mind that sometimes their Ge sets would bias up "better" (differently) with other resistor values than they tested at and/or shipped with. Sometimes the stock schematic values would work as well as or better than their suggested ones. Those would always get you close, but, as always with germanium, anything could happen and usually does...

[radio]

Well if the cheap transistors of an amazon kit dont make a difference,

why should I buy at Smallbears shop new owner?

Look I bought Germanium transistors new when they were massively available,

today you can throw many away ,that have too much leakage.

The consistant production batches are sold out,cant imagine you get reliable

"boxes of 200" anymore

[ElectricDruid]

Well if the cheap transistors of an amazon kit dont make a difference,

why should I buy at Smallbears shop new owner?

They *used to* provide sets that had been selected for useful gain values for specific circuits, so it made life easy. They did the work so you didn't have to, in short. Whether they carry on doing similar things in the future, we'll have to see. Hopefully they'll at least continue to stock reliable germanium parts so that we can buy without worrying about fakes, although I realise that that is getting more and more difficult for them or anyone.

Look I bought Germanium transistors new when they were massively available,

today you can throw many away ,that have too much leakage.

The consistant production batches are sold out,cant imagine you get reliable

"boxes of 200" anymore

No, I totally agree. I bought a few germaniums years ago, but nowadays I would assume that any batches had already been checked through and the good/best devices would have been cleared out to be sold at a higher price. The idea of getting a genuine unsorted "single batch" boxful seems highly unlikely.

[pacealot]

Small Bear's Ge kits have been a massive service to our community, and I too hope that the new crew can supply them again, or similarly audited individual trannies. Part of the "fun" with germanium is messing and tweaking to get the results you prefer, but the parts have to at least be in the general ballpark to do so. Steve & co.'s kits always meant you could get in that ballpark quickly, and know that you still might be able to beat it with a bit more tweaking.

Unless you can source Ge trannies which are reliably read for hFE and leakage, you're flying blind. It certainly seems genuinely worth it to pay more for audited and/or auditioned parts, at least for as long as that's possible, until all the most desirable specs have been picked over...

[radio]

Quote:It's hard to see how a collection of possibly slightly out-of-spec passive parts would make two very different types of fuzz circuit both too bassy /Quote

So how about the different big muffs?

The emitter resistors are not that different between the different revisions for instance

But I always doubted many listeners could hear the version played at a concert

[pinkjimiphoton]

 

the main dif between big muff tones comes down to cap values and transistor gains.

smaller coupling caps with lower gain q's will make it a bit brighter.

as for the sunface, its really nothing but a fuzzface. you can go with a smaller input cap OR output cap, as well as a different output pot.

a smaller input cap will lessen the amount of fuzz and make it sweeter sounding. a smaller output cap won't lessen the fuzz, but it will limit the mud somewhat.

a smaller output pot seems to have more highs and less mud as well, but at the expense of a tiny bit of output. that can make a big diff with some transistor sets.... often, vintage circuits can have a hard time hitting unity gain if the q's aren't right.

[pacealot]

...what Jimi said!    (btw, big fan, proud to finally be on a thread with ya)

The various resistors in the Muff that changed over time can affect the gain structure, and thus the overall tone shape, but yes, the cap values (particularly the eight stage coupling caps including in & out), along with specific tranny choice, seem to have the biggest impact on the tonal slant of the thing. My personal preference in the Muff is to start on the small side on the early stages to avoid an oversaturated low-end, and then open them to larger on the last few stages to try to retain as much bottom as is still there by then. But there are a lot of places in the circuit to influence the tone balance in the Muff, which actually can make tweaking complicated, which is why I would recommend breadboarding it first to get all that "fun part" sorted out before making final commitments.

But again I'd say that the variation in components from a specific iteration (and there were a whole lot of different "triangle"-era schematics) wouldn't necessarily slant it one way or another. Looking at that specific layout, all those 100nF caps would normally be a good choice for preventing runaway low-end flabbiness, so maybe that's why the Muff is more acceptable to OP than the FF was. One could also tweak the tone control caps and resistors, and there are lots of threads here and elsewhere about the effects thereof, but that's a whole 'nuther kettle of chips, as it were...

[aefpv]

Wow!  This was a great discussion and helpful. Thanks again!

[anotherjim]

I'd ask if the OP's guitar has high impedance pickups. Both pedals have low impedance inputs - even the BMP with a dedicated input stage comes in at around 100k which could be even lower depending on part tolerances. That can make the bass seem too strong by cutting the treble from the pickups.

[pinkjimiphoton]

hi pacealot,

nice to meet ya, welcome to the forum, dude...

you touch on an important point with gain staging. often the best way to go is to indeed limit bass in the primary stages, as it will reduce the intermodulation <harsh> distortion and make it much sweeter.... and more controllable, and more tweakable... i mean, you can make a big muff that actually reacts to the volume control... yes, it can be done. <shoot for hfe's around 200 for that in the first stage or two>

but another thing to think about is the biasing of the distortion stages. we're gonna take a page from the guv'nor's playbook, and talk for a second about cold and warm biasing, and how it affects the distortion tone and symmetry.

if you have a slightly cold biased distortion stage, it will distort a bit more, and have more assymetrical distortion... but can be kinda hard and clinical sounding.... so the way around that, to make it more organic and warm, is to follow it with a warm biased stage, which will again add more harmonics and phase align the assymetry to make a much more cohesive and controllable form of dirt.

so like, if ya use a lower hfe q in q1, then make the second stage a high gain but cold biased q, then follow up the next stage with a high gain q biased warm, the final dirt you get to at the final stage of the muff is way more controllable, and much more amp like tonally.  that said, i kinda prefer the violet rams head circuit, with the bass limited by smaller caps... i forget the value, its been a while.. in the first stage, and bigger as it goes thru. i do recall my fav output cap is 470n.

this ain't a RULE, per se, but i've found it works just as well in solid state distortions as it does in marshall jcm 800's. you can really voice stuff pretty well once you begin playing with it some.




so like, in this pic, we would change out r21 to 220 or maybe 330r instead of 150, and then make r10 100r or so. make the q resistances 10 or 20k trimmers, and @#$% with the biasing some... the idea is to have the preceeding stage biased harder, and the proceeding stage biased warmer. i'm confusing my self now. lol.

but by messing with the GAIN of the q's via the e to ground resistors, and messing with the BIAS via the c resistors,  you can dial in much more amp like response, and make the pedal circuit more sensitive to interaction with your guitar.

now, the sunface?

sorry, i know peeps worship at the throne of analog man, but to me its one of the shittier versions of the fuzz face to be made, and nowhere near as toneful as the cult of people wasting money on that dreck seem to lie themselves into thinking. its a poorly biased overpriced fuzz. nothing special. the original idea of the sundial wasn't for tonal adjustment, it was so the damn thing could be biased to a range where it would still function cuz ge circuits are so unreliable as temp changes occur.

me? i DID build one. i wasn't impressed. may sound arogant, but i make way better fuzzfaces myself out of all kindsa shit with absolutely not a speck of that mojo cereal bullshit.

you can make a fuzzface out of almost anything. but to make it sound good? that's the trick. and there's tricks to it... including gain staging and biasing.

the best fuzzface variant of all? there's only one, ebk's wolf computer. THAT @#$%ing thing does it ALL. but, its gotta lotta knobs... i think the lupine combinator i built years ago had 8 knobs... literally more damn knobs than parts almost.




some serious tone possible in that circuit.

[pacealot]

Thanks Jimi! I didn't know about the Wolf Computer. I just watched your Lupine Combinator video — holy smokes! That thing is sheer unadulterated madness. Calling that a Fuzz Face is like calling a nuclear missle a can opener — I mean, I'm sure it technically is, but how would you tell?    I really love how it turns into a swell machine so readily.

What's funny is that I went the other direction with my Muff gain staging, in that I was shooting for maximum sustain/compression/saturation (I play a Rickenbacker primarily, and so making a banjo have sustain is always the challenge for me), and I found that pushing the first stage harder (mainly by dropping the emitter resistor super low and increasing the 470K neg feedback to 560K—680K) helped me get over the top to where even the dead notes (okay, the notes that are even more dead than all the other ones) could get into the viola-like infinite sustain/feedback mode at the most propitious guitar-to-speaker angles. But yes, you sacrifice "clean-up" (or, more accurately, dynamic responsiveness) by approaching it that way. But next time I 'board up a Muff, I'll try consciously biasing it the way you describe and see where that takes things...

[pinkjimiphoton]

ahh, you too are a zappaphile.... so we are family, bro... lol

yeah, with a lower gain transistor, you can ditch the e resistor and ground it directly... that will give the q the max possible gain it can produce. i can see where it could be tough on a rick, but i bet it sounds great.

if ya use REALLY low hfe's, and play with the coupling caps and gain structure, you can actually achieve the creamy violin like sustain of the originals.... almost like a heavy dirty compression that blooms and sings. its a different sound from the modern big muff sound peeps think of as "right". the originals were more violin sounding, at least to my ear.... less fuzz, more sustain, they'd just freeking sing.

keep us posted with your experiments, i'd love to hear what ya come up with!

[pinkjimiphoton]

some reading far more eloquent than my post

https://robrobinette.com/How_the_Marshall_JCM800_Works.htm#Cold_Clipper

[pacealot]

I've got some PNP 2N5138s set aside for a second Muff which are right in that lower hFE range (anywhere from around ~155 to just under 300), so I think that one's going to be perfect to try your hot/cold bias techniques on. I've come around to working the multi-stage fuzzes up one stage at a time, ever since I took that approach on a Mk I that turned out particularly well. It really helps in understanding how much saturation — and at which frequencies — each stage is contributing to the final result.

I think I ended up with something like a 5.6Ω emitter resistor on the first tranny of the high-gain one, mainly because it was easier than just jumpering it. Lotsa very clean LPB-type boost coming off that first stage. But those were some super high-hFE trannies — some into the 700s. Some triangle Muffs went that high, but I'm guessing those were the exceptions. Definitely a bit over-the-top for a hot humbucker guitar, but with the Rick it gets me into Robert Fripp endless sustain territory surprisingly easily.

(OT): Yeah, I am fond of the ol' Mother(s)! Thunes swiped my old bass gig!  (I'm actually eternally grateful because it was a terrible fit for me, and he had a much more suitable personality and skill set, so it was a win-win.) The guy is an absolute monster, smarter than any other musician I know, and suffers fools not in any way whatsoever. Mad respect!