1t308b fuzz face... video demo

[Chris Brown]

Hi all... thought I'd share.. it's been a while.

Here's a fuzz face I built using really low gain soviet union germanium... 45/55 hfe using rg method... these 1t308b transistors have virtually no leakage.. i guess they're the mil spec of gt308b ... for such low readings they sound nice and fuzzy. They clean up great too... I've been through a lot of germanium and I really like these... enough to solder the leads lol... anyway here's the vid.... there is a tiny bit of camera distortion but not enough to ruin the demo.

[LucifersTrip]

sounds very cool...as expected with low gain/low leak...less soft saturated fuzz and less sustain

[Chris Brown]

sounds very cool...as expected with low gain/low leak...less soft saturated fuzz and less sustain

Thanks man... I have a bunch of fuzzes on the pedalboard but this low gain box get's a lot of play. btw I listened to your 7" the other day... I always enjoy it.

[pinkjimiphoton]

sounds great chris,
great tones, great playing, and awesome demo!! well done, mate!

[John Lyons]

Yes sir, nice clip there. I dig the feel of it.

[Chris Brown]

Thanks guys... I'm getting some more demos together so I'll post them up when I get a chance...

Here's that same fuzz with low and high voltage settings... the low is < 3v and the high is almost 6v on q2c... It's really fun to play a fuzz face with the super cold bias so originally this was going to be part of the first video but I clipped it out to keep the time down... anyway, here's the video:

[IvIark]

I'm with you on this one Chris, the most consistently good Fuzz Faces I've made have been with the 308's.  Incidentally I think all of this era germanium transistors were military in some way, the IT308 is actually a "Г"T308 which is the Cyrillic "G".

[chi_boy]

Chris, nice demo!  Thanks!

Since you stirred the pot, any tips on buying 308's?  Is eBay ok for these?  How many did you buy to get the hfe and leakage you wanted?

They don't look horribly expensive on ebay, so it would seem wise to buy a bunch if they were highly variable.

Thanks again!

GP

[Chris Brown]

I'm with you on this one Chris, the most consistently good Fuzz Faces I've made have been with the 308's.  Incidentally I think all of this era germanium transistors were military in some way, the IT308 is actually a "Г"T308 which is the Cyrillic "G".

I'm guessing that there are millions of untouched soviet germanium transistors still in warehouses... they are probably the future of great fuzz. The old euro stuff is getting harder and harder to source... we can still find bulk lots of mullard on ebay here and there but the prices have gone way up. The newmarket stuff has vanished... but this soviet union stuff...  Hopefully we'll be discovering new part numbers of great transistors for years to come.

Chris, nice demo!  Thanks!

Since you stirred the pot, any tips on buying 308's?  Is eBay ok for these?  How many did you buy to get the hfe and leakage you wanted?

They don't look horribly expensive on ebay, so it would seem wise to buy a bunch if they were highly variable.

Thanks again!

GP

Thanks!

I have been through 60 of them from ebay between 2 different sellers and the gains are mostly 40-60hfe... The seller's measurements always seem to be about 30hfe higher than what I get when I test them with the rg method.

Regardless of the low gains they do make great fuzz.. I have tried using low gain 2n1305s and OCxxx and they never sound quite as good or warm as the soviet stuff... also with the super low leakage they are pretty stable in different temperatures.



Thanks for all the kind feedback... I'll post some demos of other transistors when I get a chance.