More Buzzaround
I'm sending the Buzzaround out to one of the Troika backers who missed the pedal deal last night, so I wanted to do one last test with it before it goes.
I put the 2N598 back into it and soldered a 10 picofarad capacitor to a pair of alligator clips so I could connect the cap between the Base and Collector of the '598. I figured it might tame the brightness, but it made almost no difference at all.
So while I had the thing opened up, I tried a couple of different silicon transistors with it. Which of course don't perform quite right because they don't have any leakage and this circuit depends on leakage from Q3. So they sound gated and sputtery as the note decays, but you can tell the overall tonality. The vintage BC179 actually didn't sound as bright as the 2N598 or the 2N527. This is something I've kind of suspected. It may be that a good germanium transistor basically sounds like a silicon transistor. The overall, "warmth" of germanium may really be the sound of really crappy germanium transistors that can't reproduce the high frequency range very well. Because a strong germanium transistor sounds just about as harsh as silicon. Although these robust transistors are great in the linear way they respond to the Volume control of a guitar.
I need to do some experiments with pairing fuzz circuits and tone-shaping circuits. Maybe pre and post tweaking with something like Harmonic Energizer circuits will give me some ideas. Or not. As always, Your Mileage May Vary and all that.
More Buzzaround
I'm sending the Buzzaround out to one of the Troika backers who missed the pedal deal last night, so I wanted to do one last test with it before it goes.
I put the 2N598 back into it and soldered a 10 picofarad capacitor to a pair of alligator clips so I could connect the cap between the Base and Collector of the '598. I figured it might tame the brightness, but it made almost no difference at all.
So while I had the thing opened up, I tried a couple of different silicon transistors with it. Which of course don't perform quite right because they don't have any leakage and this circuit depends on leakage from Q3. So they sound gated and sputtery as the note decays, but you can tell the overall tonality. The vintage BC179 actually didn't sound as bright as the 2N598 or the 2N527. This is something I've kind of suspected. It may be that a good germanium transistor basically sounds like a silicon transistor. The overall, "warmth" of germanium may really be the sound of really crappy germanium transistors that can't reproduce the high frequency range very well. Because a strong germanium transistor sounds just about as harsh as silicon. Although these robust transistors are great in the linear way they respond to the Volume control of a guitar.
I need to do some experiments with pairing fuzz circuits and tone-shaping circuits. Maybe pre and post tweaking with something like Harmonic Energizer circuits will give me some ideas. Or not. As always, Your Mileage May Vary and all that.