Pictures!

[rousejeremy]

My Germanium Fuzz Face with 2N404A Transistors. Also my first etching.

[deaconque]

I like it.  where'd the artwork come from?

[rousejeremy]

Thanks. I googled pen and ink art to find something for my first etch. I didn't let it etch long enough, it was much shallower than I thought it would be. I'm looking forward to trying again though!

[pazuzu]

added the range control mod to it (npn boost). i have a mini dpdt toggle on the way which will get mounted in the lower right area. pretty much 5 lbs of sh*t in a 3 lb bag right now, although i could conceivably mount something in the lower left too, probably an ac adapter. it still closes all the way, and i clear coated the top to preserve the .50$ altoids paint job.

i know i'm polishing a turd but my real boxes aren't here from smallbear. btw, they have some scratched powder coated taiwan bb boxes for cheap in the clear out section right now.

[Slade]

Nice enclosure pazuzu

Here are some guts:







Greetings!

[jacobyjd]

Big Muff Pi--not really any version in particular. I built it to give me some note bloom at full sustain, which it does very well. At more conventional gain settings, it's sounds more normal for a BM, but overall, it's great. I used the AMZ presence control as well--I subbed a 20k pot for the 25k with good results. It's quiet as a mouse, too

Lovely gold enclosure courtesy of the most esteemed John Lyons--if you haven't purchased one of his powdercoated enclosures yet, do. it. now.

[aziltz]

are those Ge Diodes for clippers?  How does that sound? is it a common thing?

[DaveM]

Well, after a lot of time spent searching the internet on how to make this thing work, here it is. I Call it the FuzzyWuzzy. My FuzzFace clone with a lot of mods, including:
-Gain Control
-Pedal for mixing in between clean and fuzz tones
-"Thickness" Control
-Bias/Drive Control
-Transistor switching (Ge AC128 and RadioShack Si PNP's)
-Output cap switching, for using the FuzzyWuzzy with Guitar or Bass
-A switch that cuts out the low bass from the fuzz, allowing you to mix clean low-end and fuzzed mids.

Anyways, nuff' yammering, here's my first project (or the second incarnation of it, I had already boxed it up once, with way less mods), the FuzzyWuzzy:


(Try to excuse the dustiness of it)

[rumblefuzz]

My first ever completed build: a 'circuit bent' fuzz face. The ten millionth that is. I'd have to admit that I was honestly shocked by how good it sounds. I bought the enclosure in a dump store, they had a whole buch of them (still do). It originally was some sort of Variac. I think the enormous bakelite chickenhead fuzz control is really cool... The 'TAL W79' (?) letters on top were already there so I hand-painted the control labeling to match those. And no, I have no idea what 'TAL W79' means...

The controls are:

- Contour: Like the '69 fuzz, but a 20k pot instead of 50k.
- Voltage: Actually a bias pot for the q2 collector
- VFB: I replaced the 100k voltage feedback resistor with a 100k pot for easy adjustment
- VFB switch: Disconnects the VFB circuit to get a really mushy germanium booster
- Filter switch: added simple passive high pass filtering for transparent vs muddy fuzz
- Fuzz control on top
- On the other (right) side are level and tone controls.

[Taylor]

That's really cool. Nice score on that enclosure. Is it awkward to stomp on though?

[jacobyjd]

are those Ge Diodes for clippers?  How does that sound? is it a common thing?

Yes those are--in two flavors

I don't know how common they are. However, my goal was to 'soften' the sound a bit...make it squishier. Those aren't official terms.

They contribute a little to the 'bloom' effect this particular BM gives me--if I turn the gain all the way up and really dig into single notes, I'll get a bassy, compressed attack. If I hold the note out, you can hear the fuzz gain ground over the clean(ish) sound. It's pretty unique.

The Ge diodes gave me what my commercial BMP didn't, that's really all there is to it. I would HIGHLY recommend putting one together with sockets for the diodes. You'd be surprised what kind of results you'll get with different combinations, given the two clipping stages. It was a lot of fun to experiment with

[rumblefuzz]

That's really cool. Nice score on that enclosure. Is it awkward to stomp on though?

Yup.

My goal was to make a ff clone that actually had that 60's vibe to it and somehow the fact that it's really unpractical only adds to that for me...

[tiges_ tendres]

Boost and reverb in one.  The Reverb is a Belton Brick kit that I got from BYOC.  I would much rather have just purchased the PCB, but they dont just sell PCB's any more.

I tricked it out with a switch to select two different reverb settings and also added a knob to starve the voltage.

The boost is a tweaked LPB with an output cap switch




It's the largest water slide I've ever done on a pedal, and it was no fun to do at all!  Too big, too wrinkly! (That's what she said).  This was also my first successful attempt at powder coating an enclosure.  It's teal with some silver sparkle although that's hard to see in the picture.

[Taylor]

What sort of sounds does the reverb make when starved? I would've figured that it would just shut down, since I assume there's some digital delay happening inside there somewhere.

[tiges_ tendres]

What sort of sounds does the reverb make when starved? I would've figured that it would just shut down, since I assume there's some digital delay happening inside there somewhere.

Sounds like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC1R_Mtsyi8

It's got a hint of modulation to the sound when you starve the circuit, but I have no idea what to attribute it to.  I thought maybe it was because as the circuit tries to pull more juice, the delay time in the brick fluctuates.  It kind of sounds like if you were to ever so gently make the delay time in a delay pedal waiver by moving a knob as gingerly as possible.

[Magnus]

Hello together,
here is my next one - not a pedal - but i think its ok to post it here  

My "Ruby Bassman-Amp", a Ruby from RunOffGroove with "Bassman-Mods"
in a small plastic-enclousure which is covered in (not real) leather,
i made it from an own perfboard-layout (as always):







Greetings from Germany
Magnus

[John Lyons]

That looks and sounds nice!
Do you have a clip of the staved setting by chance?
Curious to hear that.

John

[~arph]

That looks and sounds nice!
Do you have a clip of the staved setting by chance?
Curious to hear that.

John

See post #11114

[John Lyons]

Oh ok...I was thinking that that was feedback via delay...
Sounds like there is a good amount of slapback echo.
Is the dwell control controlling that? In a fender reverb
The dwell controls the amount of signal hitting the reverb
tank.

John

[tiges_ tendres]

Oh ok...I was thinking that that was feedback via delay...
Sounds like there is a good amount of slapback echo.
Is the dwell control controlling that? In a fender reverb
The dwell controls the amount of signal hitting the reverb
tank.

John

Dwell is really the wrong word in this application.  From what I can tell, the dwell control is really a feedback control which mixes more of the wet signal back in to give the illusion of longer reverb time.  I think one of the Belton folks even said that the dwell control is internal to the brick itself. 

Any time in those videos you see me turning the purple knob, that's the starve function and you can hear the pitch fluctuate kind of like a memory man does.