@bigo
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I opened up my American fuzz yesterday and have a 2N5088 that is around 600 HFE at Q1 overdriving a S9013 at Q2 and a 2n2222A (TO-92 version not a metal can version) for the 3rd gain stage.
I built another similar fuzz, A-Merkin fuzz, that is a slightly modified version of the American Fuzz Pro circuit (two capacitors are different). This has three 2N2222’s at Q1, Q2 and Q3 (metal can TO-18 package version). Same fuzz characteristics as I A/B’d the two with a 2 loop bypass looper and interestingly they had slightly different tonal variations, one of the fuzzes was slightly more nasally sounding than the other.
I not one of the experts on the board, but I will give it a try. Hopefully I am following what you are trying to state as the problem.
First, is the input to board wire from the footswitch soldered to the input pad/eyelet marked with a “T” and the same for the output wire from the board to the footswitch?
Second, could you have a bad footswitch?
I, too, am befuddled that you are having problems as you are one of the true guru builders on the net, especially with vero. We are quite honored to have you visit the board!
Well at least the company is up for sale and hopefully someone will take it over. It likely will take some time as there are usually negotiations. In a 7 figure sale, the buyer will probably have to get some financing, maybe from the seller. I have been through this before as a principal shareholder in a small company so I know how these things can go.
And things can go bad along the road potentially derailing a deal. Somebody leaked the information we were selling and our five biggest clients decided to leave, so our original deal had to be renegotiated leaving us with less favorable terms. We think the leak came from the buyers, a billion dollar company, but we had no way to prove it in a court of law, so we settled for a lower sale amount. Interestingly, those clients are back with the company.
So I hope there are no glitches along the way and we won’t even notice the transition from old to new owner. But you never know. The company could be sold and the stock of parts absorbed by the new entity without being offered for sale.
Barry, didn’t want to step on your toes here. Just wanted to let the poster above how I do things at this point and time.
You may be right about the paper. The Merlin fuzz photo was done on the last sheet of photo paper I had in my cabinet. The one that smeared after Armor All application (Clean Dirt) was printed on paper from a different box (inkjet paper) that I have had for awhile and was purchased at a warehouse club. This was not a name brand like Kodak or Canon so maybe the reason for smearing. It had dried for around 48 hours prior to Armor All application, so it may be due poor quality paper that lacks good bonding of the ink.
I mostly am now printing on a laser printer with laser paper, so I will experiment with my next artwork attempting the Armor All directly to the photo method.
As far as painting the enclosure I was just trying to illustrate the method I employ above as the poster asked about painting the enclosure as well. I am starting to use more powder coated enclosures now, however, since I can get them at a reasonable price from Tayda.
Not Barry, but I “sand” the enclosure using a 3M abrasive pad. The idea is to rough up the surface slightly so that the paint sticks. I first use a green followed by a gray (between coats) pad. Then I use a soft lint free cloth with denatured alcohol to clean the surface and then paint it. I then clear coat the paint with clear acrylic lacquer. If I use enamel paint I wait a day or two to clear coat it. If I used auto lacquer for the color coat I wait a couple of hours and then clear coat it.
I now clear coat my photo prior to applying the Armor All to avoid the problems I experienced above in the beginning of this thread.
Example of finished product.
The photo sticks to the paint or clear coated paint without any problems in my experience.
So my steps are the following. Abrade, clean with alcohol, paint, and clear coat the enclosure, then clear coat the photo, glue the photo and then Armor All.
Small Bear was my main source for Ge transistors. Hopefully GuitarPCB can provide more of these, but as available hard to find stocks dwindle I think that this would be a difficult proposition for Barry.
I have been using a cheap head magnifier from Harbor Freight that cost around $4. I use a small desk lamp with LED bulb for light. Works like a charm, a lot better than my old setup using a stationary magnifier and separate light.
I built a “Two Face” but not quite as complex as yours. Using a standard NPN FF circuit I used a S9013 Si transistor paired with a NPN Ge transistor that was chosen and spec’d specifically for this circuit. The Ge transistor is the overdriven/fuzz transistor in my pedal. I cannot tell the difference between my hybrid FF and my all Ge FF sound wise.
</p>Forgot to add – love the themed graphics. Sort of a rising sun motif surrounding a cartoonish character. Simple but eye catching.
I just finished some designs for future pedal builds and am trying to keep things more simple design-wise. Sometimes less is more.
The SA Fzzz Bxxx was used in the James Gang (post Joe Walsh) and Deep Purple MkIV version by the guitarist in those groups at that time, none other than Tommy Bolin. Also was used by Bolin on the album Moxy by the Canadian rock group Moxy as they lost their lead guitar player right before recording and borrowed another guitar player that happened to be in the same studio at the time in order to lay down some tasty lead lines on the record.
I remember the first time I heard the Moxy album, which was right after listening to “Come Taste the Band” album by Deep Purple that my college friend decided to play for me. I remarked at the time it sort of sounded like the same lead guitar sound on both albums. However, Bolin was not credited on the Moxy album. It was only years later that my ears were proven right when I read an article about Bolin that said he played on the Moxy album. I was not surprised that my listening ears were validated.
Some have said that this pedal can act as a treble booster and it has something like 40dB of boost on tap.
On the BYOC board one of the moderators stated that Steve Daniels, apparently the man responsible for Small Bear, called him and told him he is retiring. Hopefully he will sell his business, but there is no word yet that anyone is taking over the business.
By the way, it is the BYOC board that brought me to GuitarPCB. That board is another good source of information for pedal building in addition to the forum here, which is also excellent and chock full of information.
I hope you are right Barry, and someone takes over the business. If they do, though, prices could be going up.
Regarding Transistor selection, I prefer lower gain transistors in this circuit. I have tried 2N3904’s, 2N2222’s and S9013’s primarily at Q1 and Q2. I don’t know what I have now, but I adjusted the transistor selection to taste to try to get a slightly more gritty fuzz. The circuit this pedal is patterned after a pedal that used 2N2222’s and slightly different component values in a couple of places, made by a certain adult kitty baked dough company.
Just wanted to revisited this build.
Had an afternoon to play around with this pedal and A/B it with my MKC. I will say it can pretty much mimic the MKC, especially with using the Ge diode pair for clipping and lower gain. Also gets a pretty good Brown Sound with a more mid range EQ (frown curve) on my amp switched to the “British” setting and using the LED clipping diode mode on the pedal. If I had put my EVH Phase 90 in front of the pedal, I think I would be pretty close. AC/DC sounds can be had by using the 1N4001 clipping diode setting, although all I would have to do is put the Treble, Mid and Bass on 5 as well as the Presence at about 9 O’clock (not 9) on the amp and turn the gain up slightly to get the AC/DC vibe (probably one of the easiest band sounds to mimic).
All in all, I am quite happy with this build.
After I had built my Ultra Purple Boost Hornby Skewes style treble booster that has a multi (7) input cap selector did I run across those boards at GGG. I wish GuitarPCB had them since you can get a couple more cap or other component mods compared to the 4 one gets with the Rototone. Unfortunately I had to wire the rotary switch to a multi cap array on perfboard with numerous wires arising from the switch to the perfboard, which made it somewhat messy to build.
By the way, love the pedal mods and the graphics. Sort of reminds me of my only chorus, a non-modded CE-2 style pedal, but mucho better.
Absolutely great to hear from the board designer himself! I will definitely socket the diode and see! I’ve got a lot of them – 4148’s, 4001’s, 1N34’s, 1N914’s, D9’s, 1N4733’s and the 4739’s are on the way.
That is what I thought. I know Zener diodes can be used for voltage regulation so I figured that voltage through the circuit would be heavily affected using the one I have, especially since the Zener voltage of the diode I have is about half of the one called for in the circuit.
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