Yet another Fuzz Face problem/question

[Johnny Guitar]

OK, I have reoriented the compnents on my FF clone board for positive ground use (no more oscillation or wierd behavior when the guitar vloume is turned down).

There is a "strange" behavior in the last say 20% of the "Fuzz Level" control (1K pot) where the output goes into a "splatter mode" where any signal just spurts out with very short decay time. Is this a "feature" of the Fuzz Face or is this yet another problem with mine?

BTW, I built it with Small Bear trannies and used Steve's resistor recommedations.

Thanks again!
J

[petemoore]

Hard to say over the net.
 Is Q2 biasing 'correctly' with the given resistor values?
 You should be able to get a heavy Fuzz without a great deal of splattery with gain knob adjustted [maybe down from full a little bit].
 Check Runoff Groove's or Homewrecker for transistor pin voltages of a Ge FF...yours should probably be 'sorta close'...GEO has the Technology of the FF article...really 'dissects' the FF's operations.
 Mine always sound different [I perf] and because the circuit itself is so cheep and tweeky I build more than one model and run comparisons.

[Johnny Guitar]

Thanks Pete,

Yeah mine sounds very FF like. It sounds most FF like when the C of Q2 is at about 4.8 (which someone here mentioned). But as I turn the fuzz level higher, the DC voltage is dropping on the C and goes to (or pretty close to) zero -- splatter!

I haven't seen the voltage chart you mention, and I don't know Homewrecker -- I'll look it up.

Thanks!
J