How To Make My Fuzz Face More "Zippery"?

[railhead]

I just built a version of the Fuzz Face, and while I really, really like the sound, I'd like to be able to make it even more "zippery" if I want it be. How would I go about doing that? Is having a more fat gain something that's best modified by using different transistors?

[ehofherr]

  Define "zippery".  I don't know how to make suggestions at this point.

[petemoore]

  put buffer or booster in front of it, to keep the sound it has now.
  Raise the gain pot value [with say...~800ohm resistance spliced to ground.
  Higher gain transistors.
  Revoice.
  Mess with bias.

[blanik]

for me zippery sounds like putting a 5k pot on the battery to starve the circuit... 

[Paul Marossy]

for me zippery sounds like putting a 5k pot on the battery to starve the circuit... 

+1

[petemoore]

  For max zipper-ing tone, without getting stuck, there are only a few components on a FF board which don't effect zipper function.
  All caps and gain bypass cap.
  trimpot Q2C resistor.
  Transistor types
  transistor gains.
  Gainpot R @ full CW rotation.
  Starving / regulator or above dead battery as V supply dropper.
  They all do this or that, depending on what the other this's and that's are doing, relative to where this that is set... 
  I built a second zipper, [then more] and compared functions with various mods compared to the first zipper, then reverse zipper modding...get one zipped up that wins the zipper races, then try to beat it.
  I built 'em with a couple whole 8pin IC sockets [one sides 4 pin column per transistor, using the 4th pin as a collector test point for DMM probe], the other socket for...socketting input/output caps.
  Built 'em with 1 8pin IC, then series caps with the otherwise large in/out caps, reducing thier value by splicing/placing series caps in offboard positions like in a wire or on a switch, same thing for altering gain pot's max R [splice a .5 or .8k resistor from it to ground], gain pot turned down some introduces resistance bewteen the bypass cap and circuit, I like the sound w/gain most the way up in that respect.
  Q2C trimpot = 20k. [...actually 10ktrimpot + 4k7 stop resistor]

[railhead]

When I said "zippery," what I meant was something like you can dial-in with the Fuzz Factory, to where a simple touch of the strings yields a buzz/fizz/fuzz.

[blanik]

yes, that's one of the secrets of the fuzz factory, a 5k pot to one of the battery wires, to cut down the power to the PNP Ge's and make them "unstable" and prone to self-oscillation and other weird noises...

R.

[railhead]

I'll totally have to try that tonight (I'm building another one).

[railhead]

Just to be clear, I can simply drop a trimmer or pot to the board's power input,, right? Or do I need to just cut juice for the tranny?

[blanik]

no, the whole board, just sent the red wire (+) to lug 1 and 2 of the 5k pot and log 3 goes to the circuit 9V in... (you might want to try the opposite if your FuzzFace is Positive ground)

R.

[railhead]

I using DC and/or battery (just for clarity), but the same applies. Will doing this decrease overall output of the pedal?

[blanik]

it lowers the overall volume a little bit as you starve the circuit but you can compensate this by adding a booster like the LPB-1 to the circuit... 

while you're at it you might as well put two more pots to bias the transistors 

[Ivana]

railhead, dont listen by blanik and his minds about Fuzz Factory. They are very foolish and do not any near the real things of matter.

[soulsonic]

You could look at the schematic for my Shizzle. It gets alot of different sounds - most of them are pretty good too. Way better than a Fuzz Factory.... unless you just want tweaky noises, in which case the Fuzz Factory is one of several choices (my favorite being the Noise Swash). The Skyripper fuzz is probably another good choice as well; it can get very similar sounds to the Shizzle, plus it does all these weird noises the Shizzle isn't intended to do.

If you wanted to add a buzzy crackly fizzy thing to a Fuzz Face, just replace the Collector resistor on the first transistor with a 100K pot in series with a 1K resistor. Adjust the pot to taste - that sound is in there somewhere - that sound you described is what happens when that transistor is way off bias and starts cutting off. At least that's what I adjust in my Shizzle (the S.O.T. resistor) to get it NOT to do that. I'm sure some of the other tricks described already might make it happen too, but I can say for sure that this one works, cuz I spent awhile fooling with the circuit to get that junk to go away, and I found out that was the sweet spot to adjust.

[Jaicen_solo]

Why not just buy/build a Fuzz Factory....?



........ducks

[blanik]

railhead, dont listen by blanik and his minds about Fuzz Factory. They are very foolish and do not any near the real things of matter.

LOL, i haven't named the Fuzz Factory... how would have came up with that comparaison?