my humble contribution to the world, YAFF, "the liberal komrade"

[pinkjimiphoton]

470R in series with power to reduce noise is something we do in synth modules. lots of people that were using ferrite beads switched to 47R resistors instead. I will leave it in. R2 and C2 low pass filter can be moved to before the input cap where R2 actually does something. I will try something like 1k and 560pf. another option would be to put a VR 100k before C1 to go with that 560pf C2. I have had good results in the past on a FF with an input VR but this time it serves double duty as a real 8khz low pass when you get closer to 100k + 560pf.

thanks again, I will post my results when I'm done.

all good bro, hope it works well for ya!
i can send ya some mp16b's if ya want.

[pinkjimiphoton]

luv ya , jimmy, but would never build or use a pedal with this name.

well, it was either that or socialist bastard.

pretty simple explanation...

what do ya call a fuzzface with commie trannies in it?  socialist? no... LIBERAL, completely abusing the connection between liberalism and socialism, which contrary to some folk's beliefs are NOT the same thing.

to me, much like sunny side up eggs on acid, fuzzfaces appear to smile at you.

who has a friendly face? your friends. what's a russian friend? a komrade. with the k backwards. done deal.

nice fuzz. sounds great, cleans up well. gave it to my bro mark before he went on tour a few months ago in europe. he loves it.

you, of course, are free to call it whatever ya want, joe.

may i suggest commie face? lol

[pinkjimiphoton]

ps. if it was a conservative face, it wouldn't be friendly, and most likely wouldn't sound too good.

[pinkjimiphoton]

EDIT: I TOTALLY SCREWED THIS VERO UP, SO I'M PULLING IT BEFORE SOMEBODY WASTES A BUNCH OF TIME... IF I FIGURE IT OUT, I WILL REPOST,
SORRY FOR THE SCREW UP!!   
SO....
my brother's studio burned to the ground the other night, total loss...everything gone, pa, recording stuff, ... a bloody nightmare.

he really liked the liberal komrade, so i had given it to him.

it was in the barn when it went up.

so in the spirit of glasnost, i cobbled this thing together for him, gonna give it to him tomorrow, when i bring his brother a new drum set. (also lost in the damn fire)...

this is the liberal komrade, with a couple tweaks.
one thing that always pissed me off was this thing wasn't quite as "in your face" as i'd like, so i added a real simple boost to the end of it.
this is NOT VERIFIED, tho i expect it will be by tomorrow afternoon.... so if ya get crazy, and build it, no guarantees, but i believe it is right and should work outta the gate.
i mean...there's not a whole lot to it!!


it's quite literally just a pnp fuzzface with a diode clipper with a series switchable boost for overdrive with a really simple low pass filter hard wired on (he is a tele player, and loves his treble)
i think it should be a simple, useful, toneful addition to the arsenal, and hopefully ease the pain of losing 50 years of irreplaceable rocknroll memorabilia, performing and recoriding gear, and so much more.

with apologies to joe gagan, it's still a commie pedal with soviet transistors...

so i present my lame and humble contribution, in the name of glasnost, the liberal komrade II with boost:

[digi2t]

Is that the same tail end boost as the Gemini III Dual fuzz circuit?

[pinkjimiphoton]

yesssir, dino!!

other than being a 3906 and pnp.


thanks for turning me on to that, it's the stupidest simple boost. love it!!!
just made it so it's footswitchable. if the komrade wasn't quite loud enough before, well, now it should be.
added pulldown resistor to the output of it, and a simple lpf using a small cap to bleed off some treble to help with the noise.

will add props to you on this later on, that was done stupid late last nite. been sooooooo much stuff happening... crazy.
how are ya bro?

[Keppy]

Hey Jimi, I noticed in the layout above that Q3 says 3904, not 3906, and the wire from I18 isn't labeled. Good luck with the build!

[joegagan]

afraid i am being misunderstood here. your responses illustrate my point. i would not name a pedal after a political ideology, no matter what side i am on. it is polarizing to do so, would you not want to reach as many people as possible?

[pinkjimiphoton]

afraid i am being misunderstood here. your responses illustrate my point. i would not name a pedal after a political ideology, no matter what side i am on. it is polarizing to do so, would you not want to reach as many people as possible?

no, i totally get your point.

did you get my earlier response? called it liberal komrade just cuz it's a russian ff. doesn't have anything to do with politics, the cold war has been pretty much over for a long time. i think you see it as a political statement (my joking with you was, i guess) but it's just a fuzz with russian transistors... i can't call it a trotsky drive.

the point is moot, i guess. i'm pulling the layout i did last nite, there's some kind of fatal error with it i haven't figured out yet.

back to the big debug. i screwed something up pretty bad somewhere. if i disconnect the boost part, the fuzz isn't working, if i disconnect the fuzz, the boost isn't working.
some form of typical pjp idiocy. i'm getting 9v+ to the e of c1, so something is mega amiss.

didn't mean to offend ya joe. the original pedal was built a couple years ago, and named then, too.

peace out

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks keppy, yah, i screwed it up pretty badly!!
gotta stop doing this stuff when barely awake. 

[joegagan]

i am not offended at all. you still don't get it. i am trying to help you achieve a more mass audience.

[pinkjimiphoton]

naaah, i get it bro, but this isn't something i would really care about reaching anyone with.m
it was a cool fuzz when i built it/named it. now, it's not as special i guess. i mean, all it is is a fuzzface, really!!

to me, it's just a joke... the name i mean. always was. just my asinine sense of humor again i guess.
if it matters, no, i wouldn't call something i was gonna do commercially something rude like this. but to me, the idea of goofing on the whole
cold war thing was just... funny.

that said, man, i can't  believe the original one even worked, seeing as what a mess the "update" turned into.

i found a couple seriously fatal flaws with it.

at this point, i've got the booster part working, and can almost get the fuzz working. very quiet. too tired to debug.

just visited the ashes of the studio. amazing no one was hurt. the headlights on my brother's truck even melted, the siding on the house 100 feet away.
his cousin's trailer next to it melted. inSANE.

the fire returned tonite again... third time. the fire department had just left when i got there.

all ya see is cinders and speaker frames. my nephew's truck was buried and burned when the barn came down to.

only took 15 minutes to be completely engulfed. imagine all the soundproofing stuff in the walls and ceiling were like pouring gas on a flame.

bloody tragic.

peace out

[bluebunny]

Sheesh!  That sounds tragic indeed.  Glad your family's OK though.  I get properly p*ssed if I put a ding in a guitar.  Can't even begin to imagine losing everything like that.  Heartbreaking...  

Back to your scheduled program...  Now waiting for the updated layout/schemo to yer commie pinko fuzz, Jimi!  

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks mark.

lol... i'm on it... i messed up the interface between q1, the fuzz control and q2...late at nite, i should have known better.
but...once the addiction kicks in... you know the drill!!!!

powerless...

"my name is jimi, and i'm a fuzzaholic" (hello, jimi)

thanks for the kind words about my family. we're hoping they emerge from this experience STRONGER.

now...as for the liberal komrade, i see joe's point, but he's banging a gong needlessly.

my naming it has NOTHING to do with politics whatsoever, if he only sees that, it's his trip.

i won't get into his/my differences on politics, i'm pretty centrist personally... and don't see the word "liberal" as anything worse than "conservative". there is no yin without yang, no wang without chung, and leave it at that.

i LOVE my kommie fuzz... love it so much, in fact, i just bought over 100 bucks worth of commie NOS ge military transistors so i can build more... if ya do some research, they can be had for a song, and even NPN versions.

the original liberal komrade has been burned at the stake as it was... so now it's time to pump a few out, and see what happens.

i mean, i have to ask if dano's trotsky drive is an issue?

comrade is a cliche... and liberal, as i think some people see it, is as well. some peeps take bullshit way, WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY to seriously,
and frankly aren't too jazzed about political ideologies being uttered over a @#$%ing russian fuzz face.

while i get his point, i think it's completely overblown and unnecessary and will leave it at that.

that said, i love joe... he is a strong, upstanding, righteous guy, a great fuzz and wah maker, and a hell of a nice guy, to boot, someone on my bucket list of peeps to hang out with one day.

onwards and upwards, komrades...da?

[bluebunny]

Just been checking out your Lounge thread.  You should box a few of these up (when the design is finalised) and put 'em up for sale to raise a few bucks!  I'm envisioning a distressed "fire damaged" design for the boxes...   

[pinkjimiphoton]

not a bad idea. once i get the bugs worked out..

if any of the amp chassis survived, i'm hoping to rebuild them back into whatever they were for the guys.

[SmoothAction]

LOL... Jimi, it sounds GREAT dude. That's what matters here. Name that sh*t whatever you want, let the dogs eat the scraps 

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks bro.
i can't get how i f'd up the second edition so badly, lol...

but... it's giving me some ideas for an octave fuzz version that may be kinda cool.
right now, i'm getting fuzz down an octave, but it's wicked unpredictable.

it's kinda cool, it self oscillates, almost like a ring mod. i REALLY @#$%ed it up!! 

as for the name... dude, it is what it is. i'm not gonna get hung up over someone else's hangup with a term i feel is pretty much abused. whatever.. lol

[duck_arse]

geeze, reading your earlier posts, I thought yr pedal musta started the fire in the barn .....

you could call the update "don't go in the barn", but there's no politics in that.

[digi2t]

You still working on this bro? If so, can you sketch out what you've got so far, maybe I can help with the switching part. I was too slow on the trigger, and I didn't get a copy of the vero downloaded.