Tube fuzz?

[Cardboard Tube Samurai]

Is this possible?  Anyone know of schems?

[amptramp]

It is possible.  There are also hybrid designs that use tubes to obtain certain functions and use semiconductors elsewhere such as this thread:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=89363.0

A submin tube version is here:

http://beavisaudio.com/projects/ValveCaster/

if you are looking for a distortion design rather than a fuzz.  Fuzz circuits were originally designed to mimic the sound of severely overdriven amps, many of which were tube.

[digi2t]

There is also this one;

http://www.dogstar.dantimax.dk/tubestuf/mctube.htm

But I'll echo amptramp, these pedals are more overdrive/distortion than fuzz. The tube tends to mellow things out somewhat.

Cheers,
Dino

[Cardboard Tube Samurai]

I certainly wouldn't call the valvecaster a fuzz. Barely even a distortion really. Brilliant overdrive though.

I'd really like to be able to make a raspy fuzz incorporating tubes somehow. Keep the ideas coming if you have them

[anchovie]

Stick clipping diodes to ground on the end of a Valvecaster minus tone control. If that's not fuzzy enough, stick another one (with pin3 straight to ground instead of a gain control) in series after it.

[teemuk]

Laney KLIPP.

Just let the guitar signal hit the clipping / distorting stage with almost no pre low frequency attenuation at all and voila: fuzz tone.

[Brossman]

If you're going to go the clipping diode route on any of those tube pedals...

How about toggle switches (or footswitch) to change between these?

[tubelectron]

Hello,

I'd really like to be able to make a raspy fuzz incorporating tubes somehow. Keep the ideas coming if you have them

Basically, you can take an ECC83, cascade the 1st stage in the second stage with a 1n to 10n coupling cap and an 1M pot, 100 to 220K on the plates, 150 to 250V B+, and you will have something like a fuzz - should I say : something between a bad overdrive and a bad fuzz... Many circuits are designed like that, and I often find them deceiving when I experimented them, unfortunately. So for fuzz, I prefer solid-state designs like : Univox SuperFuzz, FoXX Tone Machine, Mosrite FuzzRite, Shin-Ei FY-2, Maestro FZ-1... But you may be more lucky than me in you trials, according to your taste.

A+!

[Brossman]

Just read this...

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=89363.0

How about doing something like this with a SS fuzz?

Univox SuperFuzz, FoXX Tone Machine, Mosrite FuzzRite, Shin-Ei FY-2, Maestro FZ-1...

those are all GREAT circuits...

You can sub out valves for Si diodes to clip the signal.  Using a pot, you can have active voltage control of the heater of the diode, changing the characteristics of the clipping...(careful with that one...maybe use lm317...?) just watch the voltage so as not to kill the tube (too fast )

you can also have switches to go between SS and valve diodes, or as in the other thread, use triodes (or, probably ANY other valve) wired as diodes...

There's actually a lot of potential here...

[Cardboard Tube Samurai]

All very good ideas! I just have copious amounts of boxes of valves I have accumulated and want to start looking into "valving" my entire pedal collection.

[petemoore]

  Tube Fuzz.
Guess it has to have all tube design ?
  Gonna be a whole hoseworth more trouble than transistor.
Transistors don't 'bend' peaks as 'easy' as tubes when they distort, they tend to square things off, while 'creating' a different set of harmonics.
  Very similar but very different, kind of like the definitions of Fuzz.
  Treble, altered [squarer it is the 'fuzzier' it tends to be.
  Triple rectifier or trainwrecks or whatever are examples of extreme signal shaping by seriesing gain stages, maybe that's called fuzz too.
  Because "Fuzz" was originated as a label for transistor type distorters doesn't mean it can't or won't be related to a 'tube fuzz'...there is one of these and it is CMOS [uses no tubes], it's more of an output tube-amp sounding overdrive though.
   Perhaps get the "Fuzz'' with the forbidden diode clipping, then put the 'tube curve' to round over and ease the sharp knee squared top portions of the wavepeaks.

[tubelectron]

Just read this...

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=89363.0

How about doing something like this with a SS fuzz?

Thanks Brossman for this interesting link - it's an idea that I thought about 15 years ago, made some drawings but stupidly never tried to experiment it... merlinb has done the job extensively +++ : I will have to study it accurately...

Just for the fun, a link to an old vintage fuzz sound : the Mosrite FuzzRite, operated by The Ventures in the early 60's on the title "The 2000 Pound Bee" :

http://www.deezer.com/fr/#music/result/all/the%20ventures%20the%202000%20pound%20bee

A+!

[jasperoosthoek]

More fuzz sounds can be squeezed out of tubes by making them work outside the normal design range. Otherwise they won't be much more than high gain distortion with some vacuum diodes.

You could use blocking distortion: Say you bias a tube with zero grid voltage and a very large anode resistor. It will have a pretty large voltage swing going up (grid going below zero). Connect the input signal by a reasonably large resistor to the grid. When the input is possitive current will start to flow from the grid to the cathode and the input is 'blocked'. The input resistor makes sure the grid doesn't burn. The output (anode) is already low and cannot go down much more.
What you get is serious asymmetric clipping or tube Fuzz .

There was a thread on AX84 from Merlin (the guru there) who posted an octave effect from a single pentode tube. A LOT of crazy stuff can be done with pentodes. Much more than triodes and diodes.