View allAll Photos Tagged buzzaround
Just messing around with my Skreddy Lunar Module clone and the Telematic.
BTW, I've been trying to find someone to demo the Telematic for the Kickstarter and just haven't had much luck. I hate to do a demo myself because I'm such a mediocre player, but it may come to that. As it is, the Telematic Kickstarter is going to happen in the month leading up to Christmas when nobody has money to spend. I really hate to self-sabotage one of the coolest projects I've tried to launch. So I'm having a bit of a nervous breakdown. Heh...
Anyway, the Lunar Module, man. I've built and tinkered with a lot of fuzz pedal circuits since I started building some pedals. Nothing comes close to the Skreddy. I won't build these for sale because he sells 'em right now. I don't mind cloning stuff where the company went out of business when I was still learning to shave, but I don't want to undermine someone's product who's depending on it for a living.
So go buy one of these. Buy a used one if you can find a deal. They are just the most freakin' amazing fuzz pedal of all time. Not a massive gain thing, but other than the Buzzaround, they're about the only fuzz pedals I know of that can be used for things where you'd normally use a distortion pedal. I mean, you can make this wooly and fuzz-y, too, but it can also do 70's rock riffing like a mofo. Just an amazing design. Like, if I had to pick just one dirt pedal, the Skreddy would be the one.
This same circuit is used in the Skreddy Screwdriver and Hybrid Fuzz Driver pedals. The Lunar Module has three silicon BC109C low-noise transistors. The Screwdriver replaces the one up front with a MOSFET, probably because of the way MOSFETs avoid impedance-loading. So I'd imagine you can use pretty much any guitar in front of the Screwdriver and keep pretty much the same settings. Then the Hybrid Fuzz Driver replaces the transistor at the back end with a germanium transistor. So the Screwdriver is BS170/BC109C/BC109C, the Lunar Module is 3xBC109C and the Hybrid Fuzz Driver is BC109C/BC109C/AC127.
I'm really going to have to buy one of the Hybrid Fuzz Drivers. As soon as I get a new set of tires.
Thanks to Andrew for providing this shematic. I used to have a Burns guitar many years ago - but I did not know they ever made effects pedals. Doctor Tweek is educated. Looks like a germanium fuzz face with an extra stage - they call it sustain but I reckon it is just super extra gain!
"Aggressive germanium fuzz device based on the Baldwin Burns Buzzaround". This one has a 'Pea Green' finish and is serial no #005.
I missed that one! Posted by @twintownguitars: New from Plum Crazy FX is the Roustabout! Based on the very rare Burns Buzzaround, famously used by Robert Fripp on the Bowie track "Heroes"! Come on in and take this thing for a spin! #Bowie #fripp #knowyourtone #geartalk #gearwire #buzzaround #fuzz #tonequest #plumcrazy #plumcrazyfx, via Instagram: bit.ly/23Qxmzm
Well, my wife's gonna kill me, but I drilled another enclosure. I got this really cool hybrid Buzzaround board from a guy in England. In fact, you should look him up. Russell Technologies. He sells these boards.
In the original Buzzaround there are three transistors, but the first two are a Darlington pair. Because quality transistors were hard to find back then and to get stable, reliable high output they'd pair up two lower gain transistors. So this guy has redesigned the circuit. First off, he's made it in NPN circuit, so it will run off a wall adapter without an inverter. Then he uses a single high-gain silicon transistor to replace Q1 and Q2. Then that drives a single NPN germanium transistor.
It sounds exactly like a normal Buzzaround, but it's WAY less finicky and runs off standard power. This is as close to a perfect fuzz pedal as it gets, IMO. Other than not having an output volume pot, which I'm gonna have to add to the next one I build.
Featuring NOS NKT213 germanium transistors that cost me over $20 each. PCB courtesy of www.madbeanpedals.com
Here's another thing that's been on my mind, so I've had to pick up a board to experiment.
A while back I built out a hybrid Buzzaround board that replaces Q1 and Q2 with a single high-gain silicon transistor and uses a germanium transistor at Q3 for the overall tone of the pedal. Which is actually very cool. Q1 and Q2 in a normal Buzzaround circuit are a Darlington pair. Which is a way to use a pair of lower-gain transistors as if they were a single higher-gain transistor. It was a common thing back in the days when it was hard to come by high-gain transistors. So really the hybrid board makes a lot of sense. And it worked remarkably well.
However, ever since I got these old Russian germanium transistors, I've been thinking of ways I wanted to try them. Because they're amazing. No leakage. Zero. The meter always reads, "0.0 mV," which is insane. All germanium transistors have leakage, but not these Russian ones. They're extremely well-built and consistent.
They're not very high gain, though. In fact, when testing them tonight the MP39B transistors were almost all hFE 46. Which is just nuts. Usually there's a fair amount of variation in any batch, but like I said, these are extremely consistent.
SO, I was thinking that a pair of them as the Darlington Pair in a traditional Buzzaround circuit might be worth investigating. I found two that were 49 hFE and put those in Q1 and Q2.
Q3, though...has to be very leaky. Abnormally leaky. Its bias depends on its leakage. So I put in a leaky 2N527 for the Q3 transistor.
All three are socketed, so I can change 'em out if this doesn't work as hoped, but it should be great. I mean, the hybrid circuit is still probably a better way to go, but I had to satisfy my curiosity about these old Russian transistors.
I hadn't planned to build another one of these any time soon, but plans change.
This is Fuzz Dog's Pedal Parts' clone of the Skreddy Pedals Lunar Module. I don't sell these. I haven't even done a demo of one, because it's Marc Ahlfs' thing and I only own a clone because I'm too poor to own a real one. However, it's an amazing circuit.
Anyway, last night I offered up a clone of a Fuzzrite and a clone of a Scrambler as a last-minute thing to take my Troika Kickstarter campaign over the line and someone who'd already pledged a Troika tried to get in on the pedals, but Kickstarter only allows you to pledge one reward in a campaign. So he got frozen out and I felt bad. Someone else got the pedals.
So I contacted him today and offered him the Buzzaround I just built (and tested with a variety of different transistors). I also offered him my Lunar Module clone. He took me up on the offer and then I realized I had to build another Lunar Module, 'cause I can't be livin' without one. So I just put another one of these boards together. I bought a spare in case I screwed the original up somehow. It's loaded with three vintage gold-pin BC109C low-noise transistors.
These are one of the greatest fuzz designs ever. I guess they were intended to get David Gilmour's, 'Dark Side of the Moon' tone (hence this clone's, 'Dark Side of the Fuzz' name), but this circuit covers a lot of ground. It's one of those pedals that you kind of can't live without once you've spent some time with it. I really want to try the Skreddy Hybrid Fuzz Driver, which is very similar to this circuit, but with a germanium transistor in Q3. Maybe one day I'll have some spare cash and that will be my first official Skreddy purchase.
In the meantime, I had to get this built tout suite.
About 6-8 months ago I stopped doing my turret and terminal strip builds and started building out commercially-available PCBs. I know a few people found that odd. I mainly did it for the sake of expedience. I wanted to gain some experience with a wide variety of circuits without having to get to know them intimately enough to troubleshoot complicated turret builds of them. It made things go MUCH faster. I recently ran out of 3PDT footswitch PCBs that I've been using and I'd originally bought a bag of 50. Which is nothing to a big manufacturer, but for me to build 50 pedals is a lot of soldering.
Anyway, after messing with a ton of different circuits, I've apparently just played some kind of Confirmation Bias game, because I'm still hung up on the same few circuits I've always loved. I mean, there are a few things I've built from PCBs that stuck with me. The Timmy was pretty amazing. I still don't know why that works as well as it does. I really liked the Superfuzz and Fender Blender circuits. The Ampeg Scrambler was cool.
Anyway, I'd like to start easing back into turret and terminal strip builds again now that I've (mostly) got that out of my system. I was just fishing out some supplies and came across this unfinished Buzzaround (another favorite) board.
Er...I was going to say more, but there are men with chainsaws in my back yard cutting on my trees...I have no idea why...uh...I'm gonna go check out this scene...
I haven't even started the off-board wiring for the Rangemaster clone yet, but I had this running around in my skull and needed to see if it would work. As soon as April left I started right in.
So I've been looking at the work several people have done cloning the old Baldwin Burns Buzzaround and it seems kind of real-estate-intensive. Which made me think template. Because if there was any chance of this fitting on one of my little boards, it was going to have to be laid out with a template.
So I pulled out that same perfboard I used to make a template for drilling the potentiometer holes in the Tone Bender case. One side hadn't been used, so I figured out how much space I'd need between turrets and marked the board for pilot-holes. I drilled those spots out to 1/16" and then flipped the board to mirror the other side.
Then I drilled and staked the board. It's tight, but should be fine. Of course, I don't have all the components to build this clone right this second. Still, now I know I can probably jam it all in a tiny enclosure. That's got my brain going pretty good.
I haven't even started the off-board wiring for the Rangemaster clone yet, but I had this running around in my skull and needed to see if it would work. As soon as April left I started right in.
So I've been looking at the work several people have done cloning the old Baldwin Burns Buzzaround and it seems kind of real-estate-intensive. Which made me think template. Because if there was any chance of this fitting on one of my little boards, it was going to have to be laid out with a template.
So I pulled out that same perfboard I used to make a template for drilling the potentiometer holes in the Tone Bender case. One side hadn't been used, so I figured out how much space I'd need between turrets and marked the board for pilot-holes. I drilled those spots out to 1/16" and then flipped the board to mirror the other side.
Then I drilled and staked the board. It's tight, but should be fine. Of course, I don't have all the components to build this clone right this second. Still, now I know I can probably jam it all in a tiny enclosure. That's got my brain going pretty good.
Featuring the Buzzaround PCB, three NOS NKT213 transistors, and wiring that leaves a bit to be desired.
I started populating the board for the Baldwin Burns Buzzaround and when I went to grab the 4.7 uF capacitors (of which I need two and noted that I had a number of them) I realized that the caps I have are higher-voltage than I need and HUGE for this little board. Dunno why I didn't catch that. I was going, "OK, need those. Got those." Should have been paying more attention.
Off to Mouser. And then wait.
Here's a peek at what I'm up to right now. The board had to be a little bigger, so if you'll notice there's a little overhang on the potentiometer end that I extended to allow two more turrets on each side. Seems to fit fine, though.
Only the caps are on the board so far, but right in the middle you can see the pair of input caps. On the right is the 4.7 nF that the first Rangemaster I built had. To the left of it is the 100 nF cap that some modders use for a nearly-full-range boost. You'll be able to continuously fade between those two values with a second potentiometer.
I have high hopes for this. I was going to do the Buzzaround clone first, but then the Rangemaster clone sold and I wanted to get one of these listed today if possible. If this works as hoped, it may be the coolest pedal I've built so far.
I haven't even started the off-board wiring for the Rangemaster clone yet, but I had this running around in my skull and needed to see if it would work. As soon as April left I started right in.
So I've been looking at the work several people have done cloning the old Baldwin Burns Buzzaround and it seems kind of real-estate-intensive. Which made me think template. Because if there was any chance of this fitting on one of my little boards, it was going to have to be laid out with a template.
So I pulled out that same perfboard I used to make a template for drilling the potentiometer holes in the Tone Bender case. One side hadn't been used, so I figured out how much space I'd need between turrets and marked the board for pilot-holes. I drilled those spots out to 1/16" and then flipped the board to mirror the other side.
Then I drilled and staked the board. It's tight, but should be fine. Of course, I don't have all the components to build this clone right this second. Still, now I know I can probably jam it all in a tiny enclosure. That's got my brain going pretty good.
That console thing is giving me issues. I decided to build something I really like as kind of a palate cleanser.
Four knob NPN Buzzaround using AC176 transistors in Q1 & Q2. Then a 2N527 for thrills and chills in Q3. Turned out pretty cool.
I meant to finish this when I got up today, but I forgot all about an appointment I had. So I just got it all together. I need to do knobs and labels still, obviously. Four-knob NPN Buzzaround. So it will run off a Boss adapter. No finicky power needs.
If you noticed that PCB shot last night, the PCB had a whole power inverter section up in the corner that I left unpopulated. I never can quite get power inverters to work right with fuzz pedals. Always a whistle or a shriek somewhere in the fuzz knob's throw. So I just leave that off and use NPN germanium transistors.
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.
OK, so to recap what I was doing here, I wanted to try a pair of old Russian germanium transistors as the Darlington Pair that a Buzzaround uses for Q1 and Q2. I used a pair of MP39B transistors with an hFE of 49 for that because these Russian transistors have zero leakage and they seem very consistent. They seem to work really well as the Darlington Pair. I couldn't use a Russian transistor for Q3 (which is the "Fuzz" transistor) because in a Buzzaround circuit the leakage from Q3 is essential to the circuit biasing. So I used a very nice (but leaky) gold pin 2N527 in Q3. I believe it has an hFE of 109.
So this thing is kind of amazing. The, "Balance" control of a Buzzaround actually adjusts the bias of Q3. So normally you go from weak and farty to loud and splatty with some well-behaved stuff in the middle. Not this pedal. The 2N527 is too stable for that. At the extreme low end the volume starts to drop and then eventually the transistor has too little power to function and it turns off. As you turn it up there's more and more fuzz, but it never misbehaves at any point. There's no wheezy, farty stuff at the low end and no random, splatty about-to-explode stuff at the high end. Which is bizarre, really.
Overall this thing is exceptionally well-behaved. It's almost like an overdrive pedal with Accessory Fuzz. I don't know whether I love it or fear it.
I love this circuit. The Buzzaround is probably my favorite fuzz. Even better when you build them NPN and don't have to bother with finicky power.
Trying to clear off my workbench before the phaser boards show up and I happened across this. I built this a few weeks ago and it got buried in my clutter. It's a "reversed" Buzzaround circuit designed for the NPN AC130 germanium transistors I'd just bought. I should put some transistors in it and put it in some kind of enclosure. It was cool working on this old Paxolin tagboard, though. I like these a lot.
Here's a look at that Buzzaround PCB. I used a BC108 in Q1 and a leaky (it needs to be leaky) germanium AC130 in Q2. Great circuit.
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"There can be only one!"
Heh...it's probably no secret that I love Buzzarounds. Bang out the intro to, "Omega Man" through one of these and tell me it isn't the greatest fuzz of all time.
So lemme see if this experiment with Russian transistors works out like I'd hoped.
Diseño by Tube Silva.
Basado en el original Baldwin-Burns Buzzaround, pero escalado para ser más amigable con pedalboards reducidas. Además, se le añadió entrada para fuente con inversión de polaridad (perfecto para daisy-chain) y LED de bypass.
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Happy NPD @innerflight! A very cool @stevewilliamspigdog Spectrafuzz! By @inerflight: "Here from Canada in 4 days flat, with no customs fee 🎉⚡️" #pigdogpedals #spectrafuzz #buzzaround #fuzzfriday, via Instagram: bit.ly/23NPYA2
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