The next fuzz...

[Branimir]

Alright, russian green BMP done, opamp BMP done, what's next?

I really like the green's sound, and would like to build a similiar fuzz pedal, with lots of sustain, that works well with downtuned guitar and stuff like that.

What do you recomend?

Thanks.

[MartyMart]

A few suggestions :

Coloursound Overdriver ( HUGE )

Jordon Bosstone ( also HUGE )

Univox Superfuzz ( can be a monster + octave )

Joe's Tripple fuzz , great tone and versatile too

Joe's Blackfire , not fuzz but a detuned metal monster for sure

Marty.

[tcobretti]

I'm gonna go with my typical recommendation - Ampeg Scrambler.  You can get a PCB from GGG, and it is one of the more versatile pedals I've got. 

Tricks:

You can put the texture at zero and the blend dimed and have a nice FF like Fuzz.  Then as you turn the texture up you get an octave up that is more pronounced than many other octave fuzzes.  Probly my next build is gonna be one with a expression pedal so I can control the octave as I play (which will also make the next trick cooler).

A favorite trick with the blend knob is - set your BMP the way you like it, run the Scrambler into it with the pedal on, the texture up all the way, but the blend all the way down.  You shouldn't hear any effect besides the BMP.  Then slowly turn the blend up until -voila!- octave BMP. 

It's a crazy pedal; easily my favorite octave fuzz so far, even better than my Mayer Octavia.

[Branimir]

Bosstone you say? I see that bancika has a pcb on his site, I could put bigger input and output caps for more low end in the start...

2N2222? Isn't that a lowgain transistor? What about BC549c? Nevermind I'll put a socket and try both...

Thanks for your inputs, bosstone should be finished on thursday...

[Branimir]

I'm back!

A bit late, but I finished Jordan Bosstone yesterday, i used 100nF input and output caps and BC556 for the pnp transistor (the npn is 2N2222).

I only tested it on my small bedroom amp (I need to finish the enclosure yet), and all I can say is - WOW! This thing really is a MONSTER!  Not so much hi-gain as big muff, but it's close, a/b compared to my diy russian muff, bosstone has more mids for sure, there's no tone control here and with gain maxed it sings righteous! Massive volume too, can drive a preamp with no problem (higher output than russian clone), I need to test this on my main amp in my garage (50W orange clone into oversized 2x12" v30s), and I'll  post more results after.

I'm still stunned, two transistors, yet so much rumble, I tune to C in some occasions and I've been searching for something less mid scooped for my fuzzed-out sound and now I'm convinced that this could be the it! I think it doesn't even need a tone control! I tend to setup my practice amp the same way as my main amp sounds, a bit darker - using the big muff's tone control set up the way I use it in band practice, I tweak the amp's tone controls to get similiar bass/treble response and sound as my main amp, so I plugged in my newly built bosstone and it wasn't harsh on the highs (I was afraid of that, but my fears are gone).

The fuzz itself it's not smooth, it's really raw and I like it, it's not overcompressed and the pedal has dynamics (unlike bmp).

I'm not comparing the bmp and the bosstone, they are two different animals - I just used bmp as a "raw" tone reference.

Anyways, I'm still having trouble with the bosstone, when I roll the vol pot on my guitar towards 0 (silent), when the shut off the volume on my guitar, the pedal starts to oscilate at some low-mid freq (200hz or 300hz wild guess), that or it picks up AM radio a bit.

Is there a way to fix that? Do i need a small capacitor in the input connected towards ground (50pf or similiar?), I guess that will rid of the AM but the oscilating?

Thanks for your recomendations for my "next fuzz" build, cheers!

ps: I don't really think I need bigger caps for in/out coupling, but my bmp sounds a bit bassier than bosstone, is there a way to tweak the circuit for that? 100nF seem already large caps for not blocking low freq. (i think my russian bmp has 100nF coupling caps too, and it's a bit bassier). Nah, nevermind, this may be due to my practice amp, and bmp has a mid notch that seems to create illusion of more bass and treble I think...

[any]

I strongly suggest building an EH LPB2 and incorporate it into the big muff just before the output volume pot.
use a footswitch or toggle switch to turn it on or off.
This will really open up the tonestack and make it more defined and clearer, it will also expand the gain options
in a usefull way.
You can check out my "bug muff" in the layout gallery, I'm very pleased with the result.

http://aronnelson.com/gallery/album48

[Branimir]

Thanks! I already use my diy booster after the muff, usually to drive the preamp more, and like this i get more out of the muff

[MartyMart]

ps: I don't really think I need bigger caps for in/out coupling, but my bmp sounds a bit bassier than bosstone, is there a way to tweak the circuit for that? 100nF seem already large caps for not blocking low freq. (i think my russian bmp has 100nF coupling caps too, and it's a bit bassier). Nah, nevermind, this may be due to my practice amp, and bmp has a mid notch that seems to create illusion of more bass and treble I think...

Well 100n isn't "weedy" by any means, but try larger caps, I seem to remember using 1uf poly's
on mine  !!
Your small amp isn't helping either 
Glad that you're liking it, bit of a monster for such a tiny circuit

MM

[Branimir]

That's the best part - two transistor circuit!

I'm loving it, I would like to explore more circuits, simple ones like this one, that sound excellent. I always like simple but effective things! Just like tremulus lune hehe.

Sometimes I can't believe that this kind of effects were designed and in production in 1960's!

Imagine 1969 - Gibson Les Paul - this thing crancked all the way, Orange OR120 with two 4x12" - that's some heavy stuff

Can't really remember that bands sounded this thick in the late 60s and 70s, maybe they did, but the recording gear and production capatibilites were not like today, so juding by records, I may be mistaken

[Branimir]

I tried it (jordan bosstone) in my practice space on my "big" amp.

Two words:

HOLY SMOKES!!!

It is HUGE, what a thick fuzz, copes well with C tuning, tone control on the effect is really not needed, the sound is very "in your face", there's no mid scoop, and the amp is loud! I guess it takes all the headroom avalaible, I'm impressed.

I have some soundsamples, but it's 1am now and it's on a cassete tape, I need to borrow my sisters tape recorder to transfer the recording to my computer, so sound samples will wait till morning.

What to say about the Bosstone?

It'll sure knock out my BMP off my rig (at least for one of my bands), fuzz is strong, it's not hi-gain, but it's very very close, and the max.volume is more than enough to drive any amp into crunch, with gain and volume maxed, this thing rips!

Now to the circuit...

I have used 100nF in and out coupling caps, and I think there's no need to go to higher values, since it passes enough lows already.
The PNP transistor is BC556, and I read somewhere that it could be subsituted for a hi-gain NPN transistor? Only to change the rotation (emiter to colector, and colector to emiter). I will try this too, I have 3 or 4 more PCB's to etch and I'll sure try it (i'll post the results).


I have a few questions...

What does that 50pF cap actually do?
The C2 (22nF) is somekind of treble cut? Or am I mistaken?

And why does the circuit osciallates at some low freq. like 200 or 300Hz when the gain is maxed out and the guitar's volume is turned down?

Conclusion:
I play stonerrock music with this thing, High On Fire's kinda tone (first album), the fuzz sound is very heatlhy, there's no mid notch, and it works well with both neck and birdge pickups. I like it maxed, out, altough I did get some really cool sounds with lower attack and volume, and my neck pickup (strat), cleans up well with the volume pot on the guitar.

This is a must build, for a begginer, or an expert diy-er, this fuzz simple rocks!

Cheers!

[Branimir]

Here's the sound sample, click here (2.2mb - mp3 128kbps 44kHz, 2:24min)

Recorded with two mikes in my garage (crap mikes) into a tape deck, unfortunatly I didn't have a stereo cable at home so I had to transfer left and right chanells seperatly and then sync them   A bit of limiting, just for the sake of volume, the pedal sounds like this, really, there's no eq here...

[jmusser]

That was a great choice. I've built a lot of circuits, but the Boss Tone has never left my top 10 best DIYs of all time. Aron had a lot to do with cleaning up the original schematic errors, and debugging the thing to make it what it is today. I have a review on it somewhere, that says something like "The Jordan Boss Tone is a Monster"! I would imagine you'd also like the ultra crunch of the Red Fuzz too. There'a another circuit on Casey's Effects Page called the "Peachy Fuzz" that I don't think too any have built, that is also a real beast. I believe it's from the late 60s also.

[z1]

this sounds like a great fuzz indeed! might be my next build
is this layout correct?  http://aronnelson.com/gallery/album17/JORDAN_BOSSTONE

[mrrain]

we want more bosstone samples!!!!!!!! 

[Branimir]

Heh, I will update this topic with more sound samples soon

Meanwhile, here is my DIY enclosure that will the home of the bosstone. (And few more of these for Rats )

[Branimir]

Hey, it's me again.

After a lot of ups and downs with my pedals, I'm still experimenting with the fuzzes...

Here are the results:
Opamp BMP - nice sound, more overdrive than fuzz, could have been a bit louder
Green Muff - now that's a muff, only thing I can't seem to swallow... is the mid scoop, I just don't like it on the muffs, tried tweaking it, no use, it sound crappy without the mid notch, but I don't like mids scooped so no soup for me here
Rat - as for now this has been my main pedal of choice, I do like to turn the fuzz down and volume up, so I boost the amp too, nice rock tone
Jordan Bosstone - my favorite for now, but two built and I haven't been able to make them work properly, they oscillate like mad, I've given up on them, but their texture is quite amazing
Dunlop classic Fuzz (hendrix fuzz Jh-2s) - only thing not diy-ed here, my friend borrowed it to me, and it sounds okay, it's not over the top like the bosstone, and frankly, that's the only thing I lack on this thing, it cleans up well, has enough of volume boost, but gets kinda fizzy when the drive is maxed, I have no clue how close is this thing to a real fuzz face, but I expected a bit more from this pedal...

What's next?

I have a board that's ready for etching, with the tonebender 3 knob layout on it, but still haven't got those germanium trannies...

Any other ideas, what to build?

Oh yeah, I like dynamics, so nothing overcompressed like the bmp's

[bluesdevil]

Branimir, try putting a 10k resistor going into the input (before input cap) to kill the oscillation.... it worked for me.

[Meanderthal]

 Distortion+! Ya want simple but huge? There's one. Also, maybe any of the lm386 distortions floating around.

[oldrocker]

Another simple fuzz that I like is the EH Muff Fuzz.  Easy to build and you have a choice of transistors or an op amp version.  I built both and put them in the same enclosure with a toggle to swtich between them.  I like the Bosstone too though and a nice biased Fuzz Face sounds cool too.  If you like the Rat you should maybe try the Voodoo Lab OD.  Oh yeah and I agree that the Scrambler can be an all around pedal for distortion and Octave.  Write Doug Hammond and ask him for the Highway 89 schematic.  This is a nice sounding distortion I use when I want to give my Rat a rest and sounds great.

[Yun]

i recommend the Whisker biscuit from Run-off-groove, man.  It's quite an interesting build.  i love mine.  and you will too, if you build it  . 

Linkage:

http://www.runoffgroove.com/whisker.html