Forty-Niner

[Mark Hammer]

Nothing terribly special, but it sounds nice to my ears anyways.  A slightly modded version of what I posted a number of years ago as my own perversion of Anderton's first "Tube Sound Fuzz" in Guitar Player.  Main changes are:
a) a bit more gain in the front end
b) insertion of Anderton's Frequency Booster between the gain stage and invertors (3 selectable boost frequencies if you use a 3-way on/off/on toggle)
c) the Stupidly Wonderful Tone Control on the output

The 200hz boost on this, via the frequency booster, does a nice job in recreating David Lindley's tone on "Mercury Blues".  (He's in town this weekend for a pair of performances, and I'm gonna try to present it as a gift if I can catch him.)  Not a fuzz, but a nice meaty overdrive.  I'll try and record/post some samples between now and the weekend.

The finish is some tractor paint I bought at Princess Auto.  Dries real nice.  Lettering is rub-on stuff I bought a stack of a couple of years ago from an art-supply store that was trying to get rid of it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/mhammer/Forty-Niner.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/mhammer/49-er-C.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/mhammer/49-er-B.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/mhammer/49-er-A.jpg

[MartyB]

Cool Mark!   Have you a perf layout?   Did you use a 4049UBE?

MartyB

[nelson]

V nice Mark. Will be very cool if you can get the pedal to him. Good Luck!

[petemoore]

Looks like a hot build there Mark, I see the 'stupidly simple' TC in there !!!
 I bet so...but sound samples !!!...lol !!!
 Nice Box BTW,.

[puretube]

a brownish box...

[MartyMart]

That looks very nice mark, good luck with "the gift"

Marty.

[jmusser]

Do you think it surpasses the 3 Legged Dog and Red Lama for tone?

[Mark Hammer]

Couldn't tell you Jay.  Never built the others.  If I can get the stupid little Roland USB box working tonight and record some samples, I'll let you be the judge.  Certainly one thing it *will* do is permit sounds that have just a tad more bite and stridency to them than the bypassed sound.  Indeed, little enough distortion that one could desribe it as being a booster with "coloration".  Of course, at the other extreme, you can get full-blown oversaturation.  Again, that's one of the many reasons why I prefer to situate the gain in an op-amp at the front end, and not place it in the invertor sections.

[Marcos - Munky]

Looks an interesting effect. Good luck with the gift.

[Mark Hammer]

I posted a zipfile with the schem, the pix, a multi-item soundfile, and a complete ruindown of the soundfile over at http://hammer.ampage.org

From all outward appearances, right-clicking and saving WILL get you the file.  About 1.2meg overall.

[Mark Hammer]

Mission accomplished.  Hand delivered.  Unfortunately I wasted the camera batteries earlier in the day so the only picture that really counted was unobtainable.  Ah well.  Lindley seemed genuinely pleased that a schematic was included and that it was not a copy of something else.  I told him if he wanted it repaired he had to come back to town again.  That's one way to make a tired musician smile.

[MartyB]

Cool Mark!  

Very unique-sounding.  Congrats on your delivery.

[puretube]

   

...

[gez]

Mission control...we have touch down!  

[WGTP]

Good deal.  Hope he benefits from your efforts as much as the rest of us have.  

Did you check out the New York Dolls?  

[Marcos - Munky]

Hey Mark, could you e-mail me the zip file and the tone control file? I'm having some trouble to enter in your site, which I beliebe it's because of my crappy internet server.

diygescorp@yahoo.com.br

[jmusser]

Hey Mark, really nice samples. From what I'm hearing, I can't compare it to the 3 Legged Dog. It may be the same chip, but it sure sounds different. Your circuit sounds like it's driven a little harder, and can fuzz more for one thing. With most things, the only way to know, is to build it and compare them side by side with your own equipment. They are both great sounding circuits. I really liked the "Cinnamon Girl" piece. Man, I wish I had as much stuff painted and boxed as you do, that's for sure, but I doubt I'm too far away from your amount of DIY stuff. :shock:

[BigTexas]

very nice looking... how reliable are those stommp switches you have for the boost? ive been looking for some cheaper alternative for spst/spdt stomps

and i hate to waste a 3pdt on something like that

[Mark Hammer]

The switch used for the boost function was actually swiped from a channel switcher remote switchbox from an old Sunn amp that I picked up in a pawnshop in Butte, Montana 15 years ago while driving across the country.  This particular one may be a little less reliable by virtue of its age, but this *style* is certainly relied on by amp makers.  The cheap X-wing DPDT is what I generally use (I don't like to waste a 3rd set of contacts unless the effect is so subtle that an indicator is required), and I have only had one or two fail me out of probably more than 50 at this point.  I find that the way you mount the switches can make a difference in their longevity.  Try and position them so that your foot is *more* likely to press the switch shaft directly downward, perpendicular to the floor, rather than at an angle.

[Mark Hammer]

I whipped up a few of these, using the layout that gaussmarkov had generously provided, and neither of them worked properly, producing an annoying pronounced flutter+tick when the frequency booster section was activated.  After much trial and error, I realized that in gaussmarkov's layout and drawing, the 10uf electro on the ground leg of the input stage (labelled as C3) is shown as going to ground.  It should go to Vref to work properly.

I'm having a difficult time finding that layout at the moment, but if you have it or the accompanying drawing, and tried building it, unsuccessfully, this is your solution.  My apologies for neglecting the error so long.  The fault is all mine, not having corrected the original drawing that gaussmarkov used as his reference.