Foxx Tone Machine build report :

[MartyMart]

One of the "Classics" that I've missed out 'til now.
Vero built, using "mojo" vintage 1N90's ( black glass 1970's Ge diodes ) and 2N3114's
which are fairly low gain silicon "Large metal can" trannies.
Fired right up ( alway's blows me away when that happens ) but damm, thats a lot of 10uf
caps ( I'm now out of them )  !
Great "Gnarly" sound, through to "thin classic fuzz" tones, quite a versatile little circuit with a
decent octave, even better with a HB neck pup and tone rolled off.
There are better Fuzzes for sure, but the combination here is FAB.
Just a few "subs" due to the "It's what I have" syndrome :
All pots are 47k log
3n tone cap is 3n9
50n tone cap is 47n
1k5 @ Q4 is 1k2   ..... that's it, rest stock values.

Thanks to Justin @ Fuzz central for the schematic.

MM.

[Mark Hammer]

You really need to try yours out with a delay box that does the reverse-tape thing, and use a post-fuzz volumepedal as well.  Adrian Belew, watch out!!

[hairyandy]

You really need to try yours out with a delay box that does the reverse-tape thing, and use a post-fuzz volumepedal as well.  Adrian Belew, watch out!!

No kidding!  The Tone Machine is one of my favorite fuzzes because it's so versatile.  With a Line6 Echo Park or DL-4 you can pretty much nail "Elephant Talk" and "Matte Kudasai"...

[Mark Hammer]

You want supernuts?  Take your Tone Machine and feed it into a Tone Core Liqui-Flange set for a nice wide medium sweep-speed TZF.  Now take one of the outputs and run it to one amp. Take the second output and feed that to any pedal that does reverse-tape delay, with a medium delay-time and feed that to a second amp. One amp will immediately play the reverse of what you just played but with a different flange pattern.  Take your anti-psychotic medication, do up your seatbelt, make sure to book the day off work, leave the pets and plants lots of water and food because you're going to ignore them for a while.  Arrange for a babysitter for the kids and someone to amuse your spouse for the day, so that you don't get arrested for child neglect or divorced for spousal neglect, and let 'er rip.

I promise you won't be disappointed.  I don't promise that you will ever return to normalcy, however.

[MartyMart]

Sounds very "cool" .... but don't you mean "Normality" .... "normalcy" sounds like a George Bush word ...



MM.  ( sorry, couldn't resist )

[Peter Snowberg]

A most dignified mad mad you are, Mark.


From Answers.com:

normalcy
Origin: 1920

It won the presidential election for Warren G. Harding in 1920: normalcy, a word that he rescued from obscurity. After the disruption of the World War, Harding said on the campaign trail, it was time to get back to normal: "America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration." He repeated the word in his inaugural address the next year: "Our supreme task is the resumption of our onward, normal way.... We must strive to normalcy to reach stability."

Normalcy was popular with the voters. But since it was a newly prominent word uttered by a politician, reactions to normalcy were mixed. Language purists sneered that Harding's word was a mistake for normality. They explained that -ity is the usual suffix for words like normal, while -cy is only attached to words that end in t, as in democracy from democrat. However, there were language purists among Harding's supporters too, and they found normalcy lurking in dictionaries and articles as far back as 1857, attracting no criticism (or attention of any sort) before Harding used it.

The normalcy debate of the 1920s is now long gone, and normalcy is now more normal than normality to describe the way things usually are or the way we think they ought to be. After Harding, however, politicians have been less eager to use the word in their slogans, perhaps because Harding's normalcy led to the Teapot Dome scandal, perhaps because normalcy is hard to determine in our Multicultural (1941) world.

[MartyMart]

From Oxford English Dictionary :

Normal : - adj 1 conforming to a standard; regular, usual, typical
2 free from mental or emotional disorder
3 Geom (of a line) at right angles, perpendicular.
- n 1a normal value of a temperature etc b, usual state,level etc
2- line at right angles
normalcy n. esp US- normality (Latin normalis related to norm)

I stand corrected, just doesn't come up over here at all ( UK )   

MM.

[Bernardduur]

The fOXX is my best build ever; I LOVE THIS THING SO MUCH!!!

Some mods:

- I used BC141 transistors (Hfe = 100) for a really fat sound (wow)
- I made a switch to switch between germanium, silicium and no clipping diodes; with the silicium or the no diodes setting, the pedals sounds really OD / fuzz on the lowest gain setting and I use this setting most of the time to fatten up my lead lines.

[Mark Hammer]

Sounds very "cool" .... but don't you mean "Normality" .... "normalcy" sounds like a George Bush word ...



MM.  ( sorry, couldn't resist )

I *was* planning on saying that you wouldn't return to "regularity", but realized that had more profound (and socially disruptive) connotations than I wanted to convey. 

[MartyMart]

Ha ... Mark, if I "ever" return to normality ( normalcy whatever ) .... somebody shoot me .. please !!

I left that behind when I was about 12 and realized that I wanted my career to be in music 

( dont try that at home kids )

MM/