@bigo
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I usually shoot for 70-90 hfe for Q1 and 100-130 hfe for Q2 with low leakage. Higher transistor leakages are better reserved for Mk1 and Mk2 Tonebenders as the leakage is used to self bias the transistors in these circuits. Low gain Si transistors also can work well for Si fuzz faces, although higher can do as well. I have built NPN Ge, NPN Si/Ge, and multiple NPN Si Fuzz Face circuits over the years and done all the variations including PNP Ge variants (Vox Tonebender).
Barry is right about placement. It can go before or after your dirt box. It may sound better before some dirt boxes and better after other dirt boxes. However, it can sound fine but different before or after other dirt boxes. You just have to try the different combinations.
I also found the lack of controls for this circuit was not entirely desirable and did my research to see what others had done. So I added a Gain Control, a “Balance” Control (aka Null Control) and a volume control. The gain Gain Control is what I found to be the most useful. The final schematic is below.
The final pedal appearance is below.
I don’t know if you really need to put it in the donation pile, you may want to just experiment with it. However, I am not sure if it has much utility with a bass. I will have to experiment with a bass myself.
I can’t believe it’s been that long! Congrats on staying relevant over the years. Others have bit the dust during that time.
Brd, the tip I can give for artwork is using the free program paint.net as it really took my artwork design to an new level. The Pougnet Pedals Youtube channel has a video on pedal graphics that started me with this program – ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXnGe68dGCY ). Just cut and paste the link.
Paint.net allows you to do layers and reorder them as well as select and deselect different layers. For example, I would make alignment layers with lines to keep knob labels even with each other, then deselect the alignment layer to take it out of the final graphics image. Also, borrowing and modifying images available on the internet is helpful to do your designs. Images can also be manipulated with MS Paint if you have a PC. I think doing the graphics has been equally fun for me as actually building the pedal and have it work.
Below is the first pedal I built and the last – you can see how my graphics abilities have developed over the years.
Another Playsforfun Super Combo build! You are way more industrious than I am when building the combo’s. The ones I made had only up to 5 PCBs in them. I count seven that I can see, but you probably have more packed in there!
That is sort of what I meant – a trace not connecting properly to a pad. Upon inspection, the trace on the Aion board I built appeared to be totally continuous, but there was no continuity via my multimeter. So there was a break in the connection somewhere, such as a microscopic discontinuity somewhere along the trace. Building on vero I had a problem with a circuit not working properly. I found a tiny, nearly microscopic solder bridge under high magnification that was the cause.
By the way, I never have ever had any problem with a Guitar PCB board.
I think this happens sometimes in the manufacturing of PCB’s. I had the same thing happen to me with an Aion PCB for a Mk3 Tonebender. It just didn’t work right after building it, so I took out my diagnostic tools and spent nearly 2 freaking days trying to figure it out. I discovered that there was no connection between the leg of one of the transistors (Q1 Collector) and another part of the circuit (R3 Resistor) that was supposed to be there. I reviewed the schematic and the PCB, double checking everything and reflowed the solder joints twice with no success. Knowing where the problem was through continuity testing, I made a jumper for where the missing continuity was and voila – the pedal worked! Just a bad PCB. Aion has a solid reputation. I’m just glad this wasn’t my first ever project because I would have never figured it out and would have given up. You can see my jumper on the back of the board going underneath a pot. Stuff happens.
Mick Ronson combo idea. Fixed wah circuit + Si TB Mk1 + Marshall amp emulator. Rono used the “Pig” aka a Marshall Major with his wah and Tonebender. Reportedly he ran only two output tubes on his amp so it wasn’t so loud and clean. I don’t now if there is any Marshall Major emulator circuit out there, though.
A couple of other combo ideas (i.e. Nostalgiatone): Ritchie Blackmore/Deep Purple with a Hornby Skewes treble booster circuit into a Vox AC30 emulator, and a Michael Schenker circuit using a Fixed Wah into a Marshall Amp emulator. An early GFR combo could be made with the Tone Messer circuit into a West Amp emulator. The Tone Messer portion would have to have a voltage step down feature since it runs on a 1.5V source – I don’t know if you could mix the 1.5V fuzz with an amp emulator that runs on 9V. I’m not an EE or expert circuit designer. As far as I am concerned the HS treble booster and Tone Messer circuits are not proprietary so anyone can have at it. I don’t care if anyone copies what I have done – and maybe the circuits can be improved upon.
The GBOF board provides lots of fun! I have built several pedals with it alone or in combination with other boards. I have built several versions of the Hornby Skewes treble booster (both Si and Ge versions), Rangemasters, Fuzz Face variants and Electra/Trotsky drives. I love this simple, yet versatile board, and actually is the reason I discovered Guitar PCB and Barry years ago as GPCB was mentioned on the BYOC forum.
Congratulations on a great idea for a pedal. When I built my modded Emerald Ring, I tested it out with a One Knob Fuzz (that I also modded as a 1+1 knob fuzz). The two work well together.
Here is my wiring diagram for the HS Treble Booster with Output Pot. Although the 22n Input Cap is the standard, I usually use a switchable Input Cap (not shown here) for more flexibility. Usually 22n (default), 33n (slightly more mids) and 47n (even more mids).
For the output mod, I used a 500K or 1M pot, which worked better for me. The Pot after the output cap will work as a High Pass filter, so the larger the pot value, the lower the 3db cutoff frequency is. For a 100K pot that frequency is about 1590Hz, a 500K pot the cutoff is at 318Hz and for a 1M pot the cutoff is at 159Hz. So with a 100K pot you start losing low frequency content sooner on the pot rotation compared to the larger pot values. Of course this is a “treble” booster and and you don’t care about losing the low frequency content that much. But really a treble booster is really more like a mid and treble booster except for the Ehx screaming bird/tree which has a super treble content to the extent that it is unusable for me.
