Mica Wailer FT-12 schematic or layout?

[mds]

Okay, so I hooked it up. Orange to Battery +, output side Red to Battery -, and the other red to the input. Plugged it all in and it works(I soldered to the battery, how is that for non-kosher!?!)! The pedal kinda sucks, though. It has a decent crunchy, vibey, nasty fuzz, but it reponds very oddly to how hard I hit the strings. If the "wail" pot is cranked up past 50% the volume jumps up a lot when you hit the strings hard. Kinda weird. I doubt anyone has used this, so it is hard to get feedback from others if this is normal operation or not. Let me just ask this: I know for a fact someone tried to use a 9v on this pedal. Would that have damaged the transistors? I also wonder if the age of the transistors could be a problem. Should I replace the transistors just to see what happenes or just leave it as it is?

Thanks guys!

Mike

[lovric]

it's great that it works 

9V batt would bring less ditortion. the explanation could be found at:
www.muzique.com/lab/lowvolt.htm

the transistors should endure up to 30V:



i have edited Dan's drawing a bit to conform it to the schematic:

the resistor soldered to the back of the board is interesting. maybe someone tought the change of bias on the last transistor was needed? and, that same value resistor is missing between the second cap (1uF) and the wail (gain) pot. lots of maybees but never mind. maybe the previous owner was already experimenting with the circuit or the schem is only similar to the actual box you have.

the wailer could be a perfect guinea pig and whatever you change in it you get experience. who could know what the makers of that particular stombox wanted to achieve or what were the trends at the time it was produced. main thing is that it works. tweak now worry later. you can always bring it back to original state (broken)

[mds]

Haha, thanks so much...

I cleaned up some of the connections and it is working better now. There was some REALLY bad soldering in there. It actually sounds pretty cool. Very raspy, crappy fuzz, but it certainly has a vibe to it.

Thanks again for your help!

Mike

[lemonjimm]

Guess I am a little late coming into this...but I have one of these more or less intact if we need some shots...

[Dan N]

Hi lemonjimm,

Can you please confirm where the leads from the Wailer pot go and generally check over the schematics and see if any have it correct?

Thanks!

[g3rmanium]

Aka Melso Fuzzder. Also sold under the Monacor name.

[devnulljp]

Woah! Can I zombie this old old post? I just got one of these (cheap) and it's really hosed and gunked up inside.
Anyone still have those gutshot pics of a working one to see where things go? I see a lot of the people who posted here haven't been on in a couple of years...

 

[Solidhex]

Yo

  With the schems posted it shouldn't be hard to figure out what needs to connect to what. You need to find the input, the output , the negative 1.5v battery input, ground, and the two connections that go to the wailer control...
  Also is looks like someone either couldn't find a single AA battery holder and used a double or they were trying to convert the circuit to 3V, my guess is the first one. You need to pull the circuit board out a bit and take a good pic of the top side of the board too.

--Brad

[Dan N]

Don't forget, we were fooling around with a pedal seemingly as messed over as yours. Here's a pcb side photo:

http://users.rio.com/senorris/junk/P1010006.JPG

I saw your post on the DAM forum. Looks like everything we guessed here was wrong. Oh well...

[devnulljp]

Well, I cleaned it up a bit inside...it was all corroded and grungy...reflowed the worst of the solder points without changing anything and ... it kinda works. I get a real low-fi fuzz tone out of it.
So this thing should really be run at 1.5 V
Don't suppose there are sound clips anywhere to hear what it's supposed to sound like?   

[rousejeremy]

Here's one on Ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-Mica-Wailer-FT-12-Fuzz-Pedal-Fuzzder-Super-RARE_W0QQitemZ110486647578QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar_Accessories?hash=item19b984731a#ht_3013wt_1167
ANyone have soundclips?

[Puguglybonehead]

Wow! The Fuzzder!

I've got to say, I'm really happy to finally find some information on this fuzzbox. I had one of these in the mid 70s. I remember purchasing one of these (brand-new-in-box) for $15 CDN, from a pawnshop/music store in Toronto, that was to eventually become, sadly, one of the early victims of Ebay and internet sales. Now all those great old pawnshops are gone.  

I think the unit I had was the Melos "Fuzzder" version. I just loved the Fender-style "F" that they used in the logo. It's sad to think that, what was once the cheapest fuzz on the market, now has wise-ass speculators on Ebay trying to sell it for $400 and up.

This unit (I really wish I had kept mine) has to be the most LO-FI fuzz unit ever devised. It will feedback at the drop-of-a-hat. It is very screechy and crackly sounding and absolutely kills your sustain, but if it's horrible LO-FI sounds you're looking for, this is it.  A friend of mine used to use his in conjunction with an MXR Blue Box and got some very bizarre Hendrix-ish effects, doing so.

I am dying to build one of these! Are those 2SB175 transistors very hard to find?