Silicon fuzz factory mod

[coffee]

Alright, I got the french FF schem right here, and it calls for this:

2 PNP Germanium 0,2V   AC128
1 NPN 0,7V   2N3904 

Are there any silicon equivalents to these transistors? I want a tone shift (think germanium to silicon fuzz face) but nothing too extreme.


EDIT: If this sort of topic is not allowed, feel free to delete it.

[nokaster]

i have tried this with sillicon PNP transistors and it ain't what it's supposed to be.
but you can try sillicon PNP's maybe you get lucky.
keep the 2N3904 whatever happens.

[bumblebee]

try 2N3906, they are the PNP equivalent of the NPN 2N3904, use sockets and just taste test a bunch of 'em!
btw, 2N3904 is silicon.

[zachary vex]

Let me know.  I'm at this point buying 5000 germanium transistors at a time, and I'd LOVE to have an alternative.

[andrew_k]

Let me know.  I'm at this point buying 5000 germanium transistors at a time, and I'd LOVE to have an alternative.

Brilliant response. 

[zachary vex]

I'm serious!  8^|

[soulsonic]

I'm serious!  8^|

I'm working on it! I get sick to death of dealing with bad batches of inconsistent germaniums.... I can only imagine how crazy it must be sorting through big batches.
If I can get some silicon transistors to do that "Germanium Thing", then I will definitely share my findings.
On a related, yet different, note; has anyone else noticed how germanium fuzzy an LM308 can start getting when its stressed in extreme ways? I was messing around with modding my Rat and I was able to get it to do some very interesting stuff with that neat gooshy gooey feel you can get from a germanium circuit. Under compensating it whilst asking it to do extreme gain seemed to be part of the formula (usually a Rat-type circuit is over compensated to get that signature sound). I think we might be able to mimic the good things of a germ with some opamp stuff... maybe.

[joegagan]

yesterday i found a stash of Sanyo SD187 at my local surplus place, this is NPN germanium, there were about 200 of them

in the same drawer were some other NPN with a weird # 121-641-2, on top of the part #  a letter"H" and  below, date code 6917 JAPAN



i bought two samples, will try a npn fuzzface with them. time to fire up the RG Keen style leakage tester i built in 2000.

[cbriere]

i have put 2 x 2n5087 PNP's on mine, and enjoy the sound,
can't stop tweaking the knobs to get weirds sounds,

[coffee]

Do you reckon 2X 2N3906 would sound decent?

[soulsonic]

Check some of the different silicon Fuzz Face circuit derivatives that are out there. The Fuzz Factory is basically just a Fuzz Face with a Booster added to the front and a bunch of extra controls added. So, you can start with a decent silicon Fuzz Face circuit and then tack on the booster and the extra controls and roll your own noisy fuzz thing.

[tcobretti]

Here's one Dragonfly put together a while back.  This is not a Fuzz Factory, but it is the same principle.

[nugget]

I'm interested in this too. For my first project I'm gonna build a simple fuzz box but I don't feel like shelling out 12-15 bucks for a pair of germanium transistors just to screw it up. Not to hijack the thread but would the transistors be at mouser by any chance?

[Dai H.]

you could just use heat sinks (the alu kind you can buy, little alligator clip type ones with the tip shaped for heatsinking, pliers with rubber bands around the handle, etc.) or sockets if you are not fully confident of being able to solder them to the board. I've sorted through a couple of hundred of them I bought over the years and the leakage and gain tested ones from Small Bear (or whomever else that offers the same) are worth the price IMO (also search for the page where you can plug in gain and R values for the FF circuit). You MIGHT get lucky with the gain/leakage (some batches are better than others) but then again you may not be.

[nugget]

Well the actual soldering part is no problem for me, I've dabbled in it a little before and I'm fairly competent. However putting the entire board together the right way is what I think I'll screw up. Plus if I can do it cheaply and find out meh, this is not for me then I won't have wasted as much money.

[tcobretti]

Not to hijack the thread but would the transistors be at mouser by any chance?

Sorry, no.

[Plexi]

I built one today and used 2n3906 in Q2 and Q3 (hfe from lowest to highest respectively).
It does not sound good at all, not at all like the demos on YouTube.
The controls do not respond correctly.
I'm sure that the gain of these is the cause of that.

Sorry for re-opening an old thread