Germanium Fuzz... Not a fuzz face

[msurdin]

Hey Guys.

I'm after building a good germanium sounding fuzz. I dont really like the fuzz faces because they dont work well with effects before them.
I am going to have this unit buffered so working with other things is a high importance. I would also want to have a decent tone control for this.
I dont really know what direction to start in...
I have heard a lot of germanium pedals are not stable? Making this thing stable is important also,...
I've been told to combined 2 different pedals. This is something I want to make as a single pedal.
Running off an adaptor and a batt is important and having it sound pretty much the same is a big deal, Ik now with the fuzz face the 9v adaptor snaps there is tone change also.


I hope you guys can help me out

Thanks

Matt

[hellwood]

germanium PNP negative ground? nobody will tell you thats a good idea. there goes your dreams of a power supply. if you are stressing about stability, ive heard they can be made stable w/ a diode at Q2's base (if i can remember correctly) or you can add a bias control.
from what ive experienced, sacrifices have to be made when germanium is involved, but its worth it!
im not saying what you are after cant be done, but thats a tall order. good luck!

[Meanderthal]

 How 'bout this- NPN Ge, Throw a buffer in front, and a simple tone(lpf) on the tail...

Or, better yet, check out Joe Gagan's stuff... Nitro, Bronto, Skyripper, etc.

[foxfire]

i think if i remember correctly Mac just had a thread about his Ge bazz fuss. so something like a buffer into a NPN Ge bazz fuss in to a BM tone stack followed by a NPN Ge RangeMaster dialed in for taste might be cool. and i'd bet it has already been done so someone might already have a layout?

[msurdin]

And I can still have my 3 controls, fuzz, tone, vol? Thats the only things I want on the outside.

I was also told tonight that you can still have a very germanium sounding fuzz by using a sillicone/ germanium combo. Is this true, or will you be able to tell the sillicone in there?

[hellwood]

And I can still have my 3 controls, fuzz, tone, vol? Thats the only things I want on the outside.

I was also told tonight that you can still have a very germanium sounding fuzz by using a sillicone/ germanium combo. Is this true, or will you be able to tell the sillicone in there?

no reason why you cant have 3 controls. the thing about silicon is that you will have to hunt for one w/ a low enough Hfe.

[msurdin]

Is their a certain layout we should follow for this?
As I am crap with terminology and schematics (but getting better thank god!!!) i might be a little slower and ask a few more questions.

So you think Small bear will have the germanium and silicon matchup for this if we go for the combo? (what should I ask for?) And It will still sound like a  germanium fuzz..
What does Hfe stand for?

What tone stack is best to settle on before we move on?

[hellwood]

these are the rules:http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/fuzzface/fffram.htm

but i think a tonebender 3 knob might do the trick!

anyway, Hfe is gain and a batch of reliable germaniums with good gain are hard to track down(at least for me). i dont know of any advantage of having a hybrid si/ge fuzz and i suppose if you found a si transistor for Q1 w/ a low enough gain, you might be able to fool most people, but put it this way, the more you get into this whole thing, the more you realize how many variables there are and that no two transistor pairs sound the same. you better socket the transistors and use an adjustable pot for biasing and try as many Q1/Q2 gain combos as you can and bias and rebias and decide for yourself what sounds best. the problem is that if smallbear sends you a pair of transistors, you will never know the other world of possibilities you could be missing out on. i usually pick through 100 or so transistors before i settle for a set.

tone stack? here is another link:http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/3knob.php

[mac]

i think if i remember correctly Mac just had a thread about his Ge bazz fuss. so something like a buffer into a NPN Ge bazz fuss in to a BM tone stack followed by a NPN Ge RangeMaster dialed in for taste might be cool. and i'd bet it has already been done so someone might already have a layout?

The tone stack and the full range RM was Dragonfly idea. Full range means an adapted RM with varaible cap at the input, like mine.

************

The problem with the FF is the low input impedance. There are a couple of tricks to make it work well with effects before it, like adding a pot at the input to raise Z-in (geofex, joe gagan's nitro), or if I remember correctly a passive circuit that uses an inductor before the FF to make the FF believes that it is connected to a guitar (AMZ??). The inductor acts like a guitar mic. Never tried it.

Stability is a problem in many Ge based fxs, but the Faim Fuzz is insensitive to the weather. But again, I guess it has low Z-in so a pot at the input may help. I over simplified the original circuit and added some improvements, which I should post.

Adding a tone stack and a recovery stage is easy. Many users just copy-paste the final section of the BMP. Not a bad project to put the tone stack and the final transistor in a stompbox.

mac

[msurdin]

I am going to wire the board into this. There would be a buffer after the effect board also.
Now will knowing this change anything in the production?

See I like how boss has their fuzz pedal.. now only if it didnt sound digital and crappy


If i am going to use one of GGG's boards what one do you recommend?

After reading that little thing on the tone bender i see GGG makes tone bender boards.. http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=6&id=73&Itemid=26
I also was reading how it has a softer fuzz. I want to be able to really get a very strong fuzz.

So changing the input so it thinks its always attached to a guitar?

I'm still thinking about the germanium and sillicone parts...

[petemoore]

  Here's an approach.
  Start with a FF, tune that thing 20 ways from 'normal'.
  Ge/Ge sounds great, harder to bias>hold bias, more temp sensative...with the right transistors though..
  Ge/Si [with the right gains] is a great sound also, much more consistant as far as bias goes.
  Then build a booster for the front end of the FF, RM or LPB are good choices as are Fet boosters etc.
  At this point, if the booster is part of the FF bypass switching [IOW it's a 3 transistor fuzz], use the boosters volume control to decide where to preset the FF's gain control, so that the booster volume is can now work well as the gain control.
  A simple LPF on the output of the pre-voiced {3Q>w/FF] fuzz could be enough tone control for your needs, otherwise if you require bass and or mids control, some type of drive or recovery may be needed to overcome the passive losses.
  Something like this 3 transistor fuzz is similar to a Tonebender, I find it's easier to concentrate on working  the FF portion, then add a third transistor as buffer or pregain stage, then re-voice it.
 

[Dragonfly]

I drew this out for you really quick...it should sound very good.

Features :

Jfet buffered input
Silicon Fuzz Face thats been tuned to give similar tone to a germanium Fuzz Face
Tone control on output, so it only affects the "tone", not the amount of "fuzz"
High output to make up for any loss caused by the tone control
Trim pots to bias the jfet and Q2 (2n3904)... approx 4.5v each
easily attainable, inexpensive parts


If you build it, let me know what you think.

[mac]

Looking at the schem, maybe The Rocket, but with 3 Ge? I've breadboarded it once using med gain Ge (hfe=200) and it was awesome. (shh, don't tell The Boss ). Add Si diodes to all emiters to emulate Si base-emiter drop, and the bias should be near the schem values. But bias will depend on temperature. Just a guess.

Ref:  http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=56703.0

mac

[ambulancevoice]

i think a fuzz face would be a good place to start, because its such a versatile circuit
breadboard it, and combine bias controls and other mods to it a mess around with it till you find something that hasnt been posted here yet also, i think you should try the diode before the transistor mod by Joe D, look here http://www.diystompboxes.com/analogalchemy/sch/antiquity.html

[msurdin]

Something i do want to bring up is trying to make the unit a quiet unit and smooth sounding. I know a lot of fuzz pedals typically have noice and are not smooth.
I'm "trying" to get "close" to the Cornish G2. I know that he is a wizard in effects building but I was sure some of you on the forum could help me get close to the idea of that pedal..

I'm not sure if taking a different route is what we would have to do for that or whatnot...

I was thinking about Petemoore's idea about putting a RM before the fuzz face. (would this work since a lot of effects dont work well before the ff?)

But talking about making it quiet and smooth I'm not sure how we should take it now...

Edit:
I also found this written about it...
"It has a four stage overdriven discrete transistor circuit with additional Germanium components that generate much warmer sounding harmonics than anything else on the market"

"G-2 represents the finest combination of silicon and germanium transistors to create a unique voice that is very rich in warm harmonics"

[soulsonic]

My Shizzle fuzz is based on the Rangemaster + Fuzz Face concept. I think it sounds great and the two circuits work together very well. I'm planning on coming up with a Silicon version that gets the same basic tone without the Germanium hassles (biasing, temp instability, etc...).

[msurdin]

Will it still sound germanium? How long do you think it would be?

[soulsonic]

I have no idea what it will sound like. All I can say is that I'm going to try to make sure it has the same basic sound as the Germanium version of the circuit. I didn't have any plans on building it anytime soon, but I could start messing with it now. If it ends up working easily, then I guess it wouldn't take long to finish it off, but if it ends up needing alot of tweaking, I'd probably drop it and not mess with it for awhile. The germanium version is finished and ready to build - I've built a couple so far and they've turned out well following what's in the schematic.

[msurdin]

And they sound find with other stuff before it?
I like running compressors and eq's before... other stuff also..

will throwing it into your buffered+bypass layout work fine?

And do you think this will get close to the description of what i am looking for?

[Dragonfly]

Edit:
I also found this written about it...
"It has a four stage overdriven discrete transistor circuit with additional Germanium components that generate much warmer sounding harmonics than anything else on the market"

Sounds like a Big Muff with either a single germanium transistor, or possible subs germanium diodes in a stage or two for the silicon ones.