Its official. I hate Fuzzfaces.

[Outlaws]

They are they single dumbest design in the history of electronics.  Anything that is less that 12 parts and is completely hit or miss as to it sounding good or even working is just dumb.

My fuzzface is in the garbage.    :evil:

[Transmogrifox]

Either you had a terrible embittering round of tinkering with the FF trying to make it sound ok, or you just don't like fuzz.  If your FF is in the garbage, you could always pull it out and send it to me  

[Peter Snowberg]

Transmogrifox beat me to it!

In this case at least.... I would love to be your garbage man. Well... at least once.

When built with the right parts and adjusted on the production line to perform, they sound great. In that case they're not hot-or-miss.

I'll agree that throwing them together out of random transistors and 'rough' bias so that only 5% sound 'good' is surely stupid product engineering.

[Outlaws]

The sound wasn't all that bad on the breadboard.  It was noisey.  Like real noisey. But I decided to sodler it up and shove it in a box and see what happens.

Now all I get is a clean sound with no highs.  The volume works.

Junk.  Pure junk.  One problem after another.

[Outlaws]

So maybe I got the 22uF and 2.2uF caps in wach others place.  That doesn't change the fact that I have been trouble shooting this dumbass thing on and off for the last 3 weeks when on the bread board in their proper spots.   :oops:  Maybe tommorow I will put them in their rightful places and give it one more go.

[R.G.]

Mother Nature appears to be trying to teach you some things about patience and the need for understanding what is happening.

Sometimes she's ladylike. Sometimes not.

[Alpha579]

Fuzz Faces wont be for everyone, but most agree, a properly set up fuzz face sounds beautiful...

[MartyMart]

They are they single dumbest design in the history of electronics.  Anything that is less that 12 parts and is completely hit or miss as to it sounding good or even working is just dumb.

My fuzzface is in the garbage.    :evil:

No No, man dont do that !! :cry:
I just had a "Roger Mayer" Classic FF here, as a friend just hated the sound too.
I re-biased Q2 a little and upped the output cap to a 0.1uf for a more "beefy" sound.
Then stuck a 0.005uf cap from input jack to ground, just rolling off some "fizz"
That thing sounded great !!
In stock form, i think they are just too "thin" and "fizzy" I realy like the
"EZ-Face" and the "Axis-Face" versions that I've just built, LOTS of fun to be had with those!!

Cheers,
Marty.

[AL]

Hold on a minute. It sounds like you may have something wired wrong - I know it makes you mad, I just spent about 5 hours debugging a FF myself. I can build one in an hour but this thing was asking for it and there was no way this thing was not going to work. What schem are you using? Did you wire it by hand or is it on a circuit board? Did you add any extra mods or components? Need some more info. Have you built RG's audio probe?

AL

[aaronkessman]

i dunno, with the "contour" and "bias" of the "boutique" version (http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/fuzzface_b_sc_pp.gif) this thing is pretty damn versatile. I can dial in the exact amount of touch sensitivity I need and make it anything from a simple booster to all out fuzz. Cant say I use it all the time, but I dont have any other pedals this simple that do this much.

[stm]

This weekend I got some "ideal" gain silicon trannies and built the Axis Fuzz Face, with all its mods to take out the bassiness and boominess.

My previous experience was with a stock FF and piggybacked 2N3904 trannies; it sounded much too muddy, so it didn't go beyond the protoboard stage. Now I read the recent Axis Face article, where it says muddyness is tamed, as well as the possibility to use "regular" silicon transistors, so I took the chance to give it a second try.

I got an MPSA42 tranny for the low gain (should have been around hfe 70 according to the datasheet--no way to get the holy PN2369 here!). I got some BD139's for the second tranny (hfe 135 according to specs).

First dissappointment: all the MPSA42 and BD139's I got measured hfe between 185 and 195 according to my DVM. I tested some 2N3904 and measured in the same range. At this point I was questioning my DVM, except that one of the 2N3904 measured hfe 95 !?  I built a simple circuit in my protoboard and measured base current and collector current and got an hfe around 190. Moral: datasheet specs are not to be trusted.

Time for plan B: I was committed to make this bloody FF work one way or the other, so I decided to piggyback two pairs of BD139. I finally used a 47k base resistor on the first piggyback (compound hfe of 70), and a 68k resistor on the second pair (compound hfe of 125). Wow! I liked the sound of the Axis Face, especially for leads. Very violin-like tones. Reasonably good for two or three note chords, and the right balance between lows and highs.

My only complain here is that reducing the guitar volume or increasing the "smooth" pot don't make a really nice transition into clean sounds. At the edge of breakup there is always some fizziness, and when the note level goes down below a certain threshold, you get crystal clean sound all of a sudden. Don't know if this is supposed to be like this. I varied Q2 collector voltage from 3V to 6V loking for a sweet spot, but it didn't solve this breakup problem. I finally settled for a bias voltage around 4.7V.

If it weren't for the not-so-nice-fuzz-to-clean transition, I would certainly box this circuit. Anyway, as it is I really like it for lead playing at high gain.

Comments welcome!

Regards,

STM

[petemoore]

Interesting way of putting it.
 Have you read and understood Tech o' the FF ??
 Perhaps FF simply isn't for you, or you don't really know.
 I'm wondering whether you want to figure it out or not.
 Took me a while, I have 3 as of last night...[I must have had 50-100 encarnations of the little cct boxed at one time or 'nother]
 Ge FF...
 Si / Ge
 Si FF
 oh yes another, the AXIS FUZZ
 All of these have some HF shunting except the Ge FF [AXIS...I forget].
 by the way, what kinda amp are you trying to cause distortion to happen in with your FF's?

[stm]

I've read all the articles, but since I haven't dealt with the real thing in person (i.e. a well tuned Ge FF) I don't know if the behaviour at low gain settings is what to expect or not.

I am using a practice solid-state Fender amp played at apartment levels with a low input signal (i.e. sounds louder when the FF is bypassed) to make sure my amp is not introducing clipping or distortion in any way.

I just wonder how the transition to clean sound should be. I've always been intrigued by the phrase "cleans up pretty well with my guitar volume". I haven't found a distortion/gain/fuzz/overdrive circuit that makes a really nice and smooth transition from the overdriven to the clean state, not even the venerable tube screamer / super overdrive clones (I understand the latter are not to be cleaned-up from the guitar's volume knob but from the effect's Gain knob).

I'm wondering whether you want to figure it out or not.
Took me a while, I have 3 as of last night...[I must have had 50-100 encarnations of the little cct boxed at one time or 'nother]

Yes, I want to find out :!:
By the way, the above statement means you finally like it or not?  :roll:

Regards,

STM

[j0shua]

hmmmm i never have a problem whit FF , im not fuzz fan in the fact i hate the sound of fuzz or fuzzy sound... but is perfect for my guitar students, and cheap to build like the MXR Distortion+ and some others ......

not all guitar or bass players  have the same sound taste


example : i really hate Ibanez tube screamer and 90% of ppl here love

it's just taste my friend taste.... btw send me your garbage to! lol

[petemoore]

I must cause I use 'em all the time !!!
 Depends alot in the amp. FF's can cause pretty dang neat distortion to occur in an input tube, dang nasty [IYAMe] 'glatchiness' running into a SS amp, regardless of any/all settings.
 I've run a tube input [shaka and AC30 preamp, also 7199's of the DYNA ST70] into SS output...very nice, can't say where it'd fall as far as 'dumm'...but I liked it much better and it sounded very good pushing the little lm386 output amp. The internal distortion of a FF, AXIS Fuzz etc. may not compare favorably to TS or DIST+...YMMV.
 FF's sound superb IMO, basically my favorite tone [except TB, which doesn't clean up like my FF's do...Ge FF does the cleanup best IME] running into any of: Marshall MkII Master Lead Vintage-Reissue 50w, DYNA ST70, RCA Victor, Heath..uh Heath], these amps have tube input/output.
 When I read "This' sounds great", I'm sorely tempted to point out that the 'THis" is merely a small portion of "what' sounds great, when reference is to a FF or a Dist+ or TS or...even though I do that..quite a bit.
 I'm most of the time Running a FF or TB into a MkII 50w Marshall [captweeked ch1 input] into a 4x12 Marshall Cab/Greenbacks
 All you really need to try out FF's of many types is a Q2C R as 20k trimpot.
 Socket Q1,Q2, the In/Out caps and transistors.
. Duplicate that for Positive Gnd. PNP's version.
 Or breadboard [I like 'em socketted 'n boxxed, I 'race' tune them by comparing two builds A/B style easily on the big amp].
 For NPN FF.
 Get 2n2369's for Q's 1 to choose from [npn]...others fuzz nice too 4401, 3904, 2n2222...follow gain recommends for best cleanup, or tweek to taste
 I'm runnin Q1 2369 and Q2 as NTE103, rebias after each Q swap...I choose from 2n2369's for Q1, then from many types and units for Q2.
 Do some HF shunting to taste on the Si FF.
 Get Ge's of Hfe's you think you'll like. Mine needed a cap to ground on the base / input cap.
 By the second build, fewer sockets may be necessary, you have probably chosen an appropriate output cap size for the 'peripheral' equipment [if your amp has tone control] many people socket or switch the incap...many, many FF configurations...I always socket FF Q's, and trimpot Q2cR.

[Outlaws]

I never said I didn't like the actual sound, I said it was noisey and I couldn't get rid of the noise on the breadboard.

I was able to get a fairly decent sound out of it when bread boarding.

Althought I just measured my Q2 collector and for some reason I am only getting 3v.  I have the 100k trim turned up all the way but it doesn't matter because I am only getting 3v before the trim also.  Before the 330ohm I am getting 9.2v.

Something else seems wrong here.  :/

[RDV]

Me 2.

RDV

[Johan]

I never said I didn't like the actual sound, I said it was noisey and I couldn't get rid of the noise on the breadboard.

I was able to get a fairly decent sound out of it when bread boarding.

Althought I just measured my Q2 collector and for some reason I am only getting 3v.  I have the 100k trim turned up all the way but it doesn't matter because I am only getting 3v before the trim also.  Before the 330ohm I am getting 9.2v.

Something else seems wrong here.  :/

...now wait a minute..100k trim?..what 100k trim?...the trimer on Q2 collector shouldnt be more that 10k....or am I missing something?..

Johan

[Outlaws]

I never said I didn't like the actual sound, I said it was noisey and I couldn't get rid of the noise on the breadboard.

I was able to get a fairly decent sound out of it when bread boarding.

Althought I just measured my Q2 collector and for some reason I am only getting 3v.  I have the 100k trim turned up all the way but it doesn't matter because I am only getting 3v before the trim also.  Before the 330ohm I am getting 9.2v.

Something else seems wrong here.  :/

...now wait a minute..100k trim?..what 100k trim?...the trimer on Q2 collector shouldnt be more that 10k....or am I missing something?..

Johan

Its actually a 20k...my bad....the 100k is on my Sparkleboost that is long overdue to get put into a box.  But it doesn't matter anyways because its all the way off.  I am getting only getting 3v before it.  I put the trim there becasue before when I was having problems I couldn't get rid of enough voltage.

ANyways.  I am not getting any fuzz anymore.  Its just washed out clean.

This is offically for parts now.  I have had enough.  As soon as my order from Small Bear comes I willb uild the SiliFace 2, and that will be the final foray into anything with the words face on it.  If it don't work then that just sucks.

[Rick]

Try the improved fuzz face "the Tonebender MKII" you will never go back !!!