View allAll Photos Tagged fuzzpedal
The actual vinyl inner sleeve is just in B&W, but the cd release has the coloured sky, thus completing the super high-concept illustration cycle. Some of the drawings on the covers of various books visible are by my kids, one by me at age 11, and other random stuff visible elsewhere on this Flickr page. The girl is based on my wife at age 10.
I counted them out into sandwich bags of 100 each. Nine full bags and 82 in the tenth one. So I didn't get exactly 1000 transistors, but close enough, particularly at the price.
Now I can test them a bag at a time and pull the ones that are in the range I need for Q1 and Q2 transistors. Which is sure to cut the numbers down significantly, also. Just randomly checking transistors I've already hit two that came up as diodes, so one of the legs is dead. Some will be completely dead. A lot won't have enough gain for the job. A few will have too much gain to work in the stock circuit.
These are Philips metal-can TO-1 transistors. The first run was in July of 1962, from what I can find online. The last run was in June of 1971. So at the very least these are 44 years old. Kind of amazing that they're still viable at all, but they really built transistors to last. The AC-130 had a minimum rated hFE of 50, but I haven't found any that test that low yet. Mid-60's is as low as I've seen so far. Of course, 50 was the promised minimum and they obciously made an effort to do better than that.
I should take bets on how many will be usable. I'd guess that about a third will be worthwhile for my new Fuzz Face design. Then of course it will take a pair for each pedal. So this huge stack is probably only about 150 pedals, but for me that's going to be a HUGE run. It will be my next project after the first run of Maestro Phasers (which will be 30 phasers). Probably March or so. Hopefully about the a month or so before the run of Troikas is ready.
I'm excited about 2016. The economy still stinks, but when did I ever let a little thing like poverty slow me down?
This is a Tone Bender MK III PCB. I used Russian germanium transistors in this build. Q1 and Q2 are MP39B transistors with an hFE of 48. Q3 is a GT308B with an hFE of 90.
I socketed the transistors just in case my speculation about these transistors turns out to be incorrect. Although, I think they're going to be awesome. Note that Q3 has nonstandard pinout. I had to twist the legs.
I'll be curious to hear how this sings.
Here are those BC109C transistors installed in another Lunar Module clone. The last one I did was matched in the mid-450 hFE range. I've read things from people who claim these circuits need a little more go-go to really come alive, so this one has a 626 hFE in Q1, a 622 in Q2 and a 619 in Q3. I had to experiment with this circuit, since I love it so much.
New!!! Adventure Audio (@adventure_audio) Dream Reaper - Fuzzy Feedback Modulation Machine * * * bit.ly/2km14y6 * * * #adventureaudio #adventure #dreamreaper #fuzz #fuzzpedal #feedbackloop #feedback #feedbacklooppedal #feedbackpedal #effectsdatabase #fxdb, via Instagram: bit.ly/2kWkrRk
I heard a rumor that some of y'all like the sound of germanium fuzz pedals, but hate dealing with the strange reverse-polarity power adapters. Well, 2016 is gonna be a good year for cool fuzz pedals wearing a Fool logo! That's a thousand AC130 NPN germanium transistors, bro!
Note the brass bushing and shaft on the Volume pot. The circuit calls for a 500K audio taper and the only full-size 500KA pots I have are the CTS 450G pots I use on guitar builds, so it's got one of those. The other pot is a 50K linear and I still had some big ones left from the old Big Muff turret builds.
So this is a clone of the old Interfax Harmonic Percolator. I used a board from Fuzz Dog's Pedal Parts in the UK. I built this pedal using a vintage BC108 with an hFE of 284 for the silicon transistor and a vintage Tesla 104NU71 with an hFE of 60 for the germanium transistor.
It's...odd. Sometimes strange and splatty. Sometimes furry and warm. Switching out the diode clipping makes it even more obviously quirky. It's a very unusual fuzz pedal.
New at NAMM: Morley Man FX MCF Cliff Burton Signature Fuzz Box * * * bit.ly/2j8tL0Z * * * #morleymanfx #morley #morleyman #mcf #cliffburton #fuzzbox #fuzz #fuzzpedal #namm #namm17 #namm2017 #nammshow #nammshow17 #nammshow2017 #thenammshow #effectsdatabase #fxdb #gearphoria #iheartguitar #geartalk, via Instagram: bit.ly/2il0Yc3
Recently added: Tym Guitars (@tymguitars) Murderess Scientists Signature Fuzz * * * bit.ly/2jBko8J * * * #tymguitars #tym #murderessscientists #fuzz #fuzzpedal #effectsdatabase #fxdb, via Instagram: bit.ly/2jcDNQM
Recently added: Paradox Effects (@paradox_effects) (PRDX-DEF003) Defibrillator * * * bit.ly/2dahkx7 * * * #paradoxeffects #paradox #defibrillator #octave #octavepedal #octafuzz #octavefuzz #fuzz #fuzzpedal #effectsdatabase #fxdb #guitarpedals #guitareffects #effectspedals #pedals #guitarfx #fxpedals #pedalporn #guitarporn #gearporn #pedalboard #guitar #guitarist #guitargear #geartalk, via Instagram: bit.ly/2cDipQV
This is the pushme-pullyou octave fuzz circuit in a junction box. It's a small box and doesn't quite have room for a 9v battery.
Circuit design:
www.forrestwhitesides.com/files/up/img/layouts/pushpull/p...
This is my own version of the Fuzz Face pedal. This pedal is hand-wired on turrets and the transistors are in sockets, so you can easily change them out to try different transistor sounds. I've included both a Germanium set and a Silicon set, so right out of the box you've got the Jimi at Monterey Germanium thing and the Band of Gypsies Silicon thing goin' on. There's a front panel Bias control so you can adjust the pedal to the transistors you're currently using. The Silicon pair are 2N3799 transistors. Q1 is 159 hFE and Q2 is 227 hFE. Q1 is identified with a black dot on top of its metal encapsulation. The Germanium transistors are a recent-production AC128 in Q1 and a vintage 2N527 in Q2. The AC128 is 72 hFE and the 2N527 is 126 hFE. To switch from germanium to silicon you have to back the bias control almost all the way down, but it's still in-range. Sounds great both ways and both ways have a nice range on the, "Fuzz" control and clean up when you back off the guitar's volume.
The Fuzz Face circuit is a classic, but it's always had a few minor issues. First off, it doesn't normally work well with guitars that have humbuckers. Most Fuzz Faces are great with a Strat, but anything with a humbucker loses some tone and the ability to control it with the guitar's Volume knob. In this version I've added some series resistance to the Input to change the pedal's input impedance. Works like a charm. It doesn't negatively change the pedal's response for single-coils, but it makes the pedal much more manageable for humbuckers.
I've also always hated the Volume control on a Fuzz Face. It interacts with the Input Capacitor and forms a High-Pass Filter. With the standard .01 uF cap and the normal 500K pot the corner frequency on the Fuzz Face Volume control is 31.8309886184Hz. Of course, as you turn it down that nastiness audibly influences the range of frequencies up to 10 times the corner frequency, so you're way up into the range of the high E string. I've opted to use a 1 meg pot. With my 1 meg pot layout the corner frequency (naturally) drops to half that, or 15.9154943092Hz. Much better. The very top of its nastiness can reach into the range of the D string, but overall it seems pretty transparent to me. Such a little shift in components, but it seems to have addressed the ugly sound I was starting to feel like you couldn't avoid with a Fuzz Face Volume control.
Those sockets have spring-loaded retainers that grab the legs nice and tight so they won't go anywhere once they're in the socket. I color-code the legs, so Emitter, Base and Collector are, "Emerald," "Blue" and, "Scarlet," respectively. It makes it easier to remember, but triangle-to-triangle works fine.
This case is very similar to the old Big Muff case. Electro-Harmonix just used to let the circuit board, "float" and hang from the wires to the pots and footswitch, but I really don't like that at all. I could have mounted the circuit board on the base, but then every time you opened up the case you'd have to be careful not to tug any of the wires going to the pots and footswitch loose. Instead I drilled mounting holes and mounted both the circuit board and battery clip to the back of the control panel. The circuit board is attached with standoffs and screws, but the battery clip gets a lot of manhandling, so I riveted that in place. This way everything lifts out as one unit when you open it up to replace the battery or change transistors. The service life should be MUCH longer this way.
The components are all good stuff. Full-sized 24mm Alpha pots instead of the little 16mm mini-pots that almost everyone uses now. Metal oxide resistors; they don't carry the nostalgia of carbon comps, but they're less prone to noise and that's important in these transistor circuits. A Roederstein, 'Golden Bullet' bypass capacitor, Philips MKC "Chicklet" output capacitor. The board should be as nice a Fuzz Face circuit board as you're likely to find...but even cooler, since it's on a turret board instead of a PCB. That means it's easy to mod if you ever decide to try something new. And of course transistor sockets so you can change out the transistors for whatever you happen across in the future. If someone happens across a pair of Newmarket NKT-275 transistors from Brian Jones' footlocker or whatever, you can plug 'em in and go.
I've been obsessing over this circuit for a while. This is the variation I've been the happiest with. I hope you'll love it as much as I do.
A few bags of 25-120 picofarad trimmer capacitors showed up today for the autobiasing fuzz pedal builds. These will allow the high-end fizz to be adjusted to taste. Shown next to a 2mm Adamas graphite pick for scale. Teeny buggers.
Now that I'm not living on 650 calories a day anymore and my brain's (kinda, sorta) working right again, I decided to go ahead and finish this turret-board Big Muff build.
Man, the front of the board may look like chaos, but the back of the board is kind of a frenzy, too. I'm pretty sure this is going to be a one-off. Wow. No wonder they used a PCB at Electro-Harmonix.
Oh, BTW...I know the mix of resistor sizes/types is kind of a social faux pas, but I used what I had available and there are a lot of values in this build.
This is my own version of the Fuzz Face pedal. This pedal is hand-wired on turrets and the transistors are in sockets, so you can easily change them out to try different transistor sounds. I've included both a Germanium set and a Silicon set, so right out of the box you've got the Jimi at Monterey Germanium thing and the Band of Gypsies Silicon thing goin' on. There's a front panel Bias control so you can adjust the pedal to the transistors you're currently using. The Silicon pair are 2N3799 transistors. Q1 is 159 hFE and Q2 is 227 hFE. Q1 is identified with a black dot on top of its metal encapsulation. The Germanium transistors are a recent-production AC128 in Q1 and a vintage 2N527 in Q2. The AC128 is 72 hFE and the 2N527 is 126 hFE. To switch from germanium to silicon you have to back the bias control almost all the way down, but it's still in-range. Sounds great both ways and both ways have a nice range on the, "Fuzz" control and clean up when you back off the guitar's volume.
The Fuzz Face circuit is a classic, but it's always had a few minor issues. First off, it doesn't normally work well with guitars that have humbuckers. Most Fuzz Faces are great with a Strat, but anything with a humbucker loses some tone and the ability to control it with the guitar's Volume knob. In this version I've added some series resistance to the Input to change the pedal's input impedance. Works like a charm. It doesn't negatively change the pedal's response for single-coils, but it makes the pedal much more manageable for humbuckers.
I've also always hated the Volume control on a Fuzz Face. It interacts with the Input Capacitor and forms a High-Pass Filter. With the standard .01 uF cap and the normal 500K pot the corner frequency on the Fuzz Face Volume control is 31.8309886184Hz. Of course, as you turn it down that nastiness audibly influences the range of frequencies up to 10 times the corner frequency, so you're way up into the range of the high E string. I've opted to use a 1 meg pot. With my 1 meg pot layout the corner frequency (naturally) drops to half that, or 15.9154943092Hz. Much better. The very top of its nastiness can reach into the range of the D string, but overall it seems pretty transparent to me. Such a little shift in components, but it seems to have addressed the ugly sound I was starting to feel like you couldn't avoid with a Fuzz Face Volume control.
Those sockets have spring-loaded retainers that grab the legs nice and tight so they won't go anywhere once they're in the socket. I color-code the legs, so Emitter, Base and Collector are, "Emerald," "Blue" and, "Scarlet," respectively. It makes it easier to remember, but triangle-to-triangle works fine.
This case is very similar to the old Big Muff case. Electro-Harmonix just used to let the circuit board, "float" and hang from the wires to the pots and footswitch, but I really don't like that at all. I could have mounted the circuit board on the base, but then every time you opened up the case you'd have to be careful not to tug any of the wires going to the pots and footswitch loose. Instead I drilled mounting holes and mounted both the circuit board and battery clip to the back of the control panel. The circuit board is attached with standoffs and screws, but the battery clip gets a lot of manhandling, so I riveted that in place. This way everything lifts out as one unit when you open it up to replace the battery or change transistors. The service life should be MUCH longer this way.
The components are all good stuff. Full-sized 24mm Alpha pots instead of the little 16mm mini-pots that almost everyone uses now. Metal oxide resistors; they don't carry the nostalgia of carbon comps, but they're less prone to noise and that's important in these transistor circuits. A Roederstein, 'Golden Bullet' bypass capacitor, Philips MKC "Chicklet" output capacitor. The board should be as nice a Fuzz Face circuit board as you're likely to find...but even cooler, since it's on a turret board instead of a PCB. That means it's easy to mod if you ever decide to try something new. And of course transistor sockets so you can change out the transistors for whatever you happen across in the future. If someone happens across a pair of Newmarket NKT-275 transistors from Brian Jones' footlocker or whatever, you can plug 'em in and go.
I've been obsessing over this circuit for a while. This is the variation I've been the happiest with. I hope you'll love it as much as I do.
This is my own version of the Fuzz Face pedal. This pedal is hand-wired on turrets and the transistors are in sockets, so you can easily change them out to try different transistor sounds. I've included both a Germanium set and a Silicon set, so right out of the box you've got the Jimi at Monterey Germanium thing and the Band of Gypsies Silicon thing goin' on. There's a front panel Bias control so you can adjust the pedal to the transistors you're currently using. The Silicon pair are 2N3799 transistors. Q1 is 159 hFE and Q2 is 227 hFE. Q1 is identified with a black dot on top of its metal encapsulation. The Germanium transistors are a recent-production AC128 in Q1 and a vintage 2N527 in Q2. The AC128 is 72 hFE and the 2N527 is 126 hFE. To switch from germanium to silicon you have to back the bias control almost all the way down, but it's still in-range. Sounds great both ways and both ways have a nice range on the, "Fuzz" control and clean up when you back off the guitar's volume.
The Fuzz Face circuit is a classic, but it's always had a few minor issues. First off, it doesn't normally work well with guitars that have humbuckers. Most Fuzz Faces are great with a Strat, but anything with a humbucker loses some tone and the ability to control it with the guitar's Volume knob. In this version I've added some series resistance to the Input to change the pedal's input impedance. Works like a charm. It doesn't negatively change the pedal's response for single-coils, but it makes the pedal much more manageable for humbuckers.
I've also always hated the Volume control on a Fuzz Face. It interacts with the Input Capacitor and forms a High-Pass Filter. With the standard .01 uF cap and the normal 500K pot the corner frequency on the Fuzz Face Volume control is 31.8309886184Hz. Of course, as you turn it down that nastiness audibly influences the range of frequencies up to 10 times the corner frequency, so you're way up into the range of the high E string. I've opted to use a 1 meg pot. With my 1 meg pot layout the corner frequency (naturally) drops to half that, or 15.9154943092Hz. Much better. The very top of its nastiness can reach into the range of the D string, but overall it seems pretty transparent to me. Such a little shift in components, but it seems to have addressed the ugly sound I was starting to feel like you couldn't avoid with a Fuzz Face Volume control.
Those sockets have spring-loaded retainers that grab the legs nice and tight so they won't go anywhere once they're in the socket. I color-code the legs, so Emitter, Base and Collector are, "Emerald," "Blue" and, "Scarlet," respectively. It makes it easier to remember, but triangle-to-triangle works fine.
This case is very similar to the old Big Muff case. Electro-Harmonix just used to let the circuit board, "float" and hang from the wires to the pots and footswitch, but I really don't like that at all. I could have mounted the circuit board on the base, but then every time you opened up the case you'd have to be careful not to tug any of the wires going to the pots and footswitch loose. Instead I drilled mounting holes and mounted both the circuit board and battery clip to the back of the control panel. The circuit board is attached with standoffs and screws, but the battery clip gets a lot of manhandling, so I riveted that in place. This way everything lifts out as one unit when you open it up to replace the battery or change transistors. The service life should be MUCH longer this way.
The components are all good stuff. Full-sized 24mm Alpha pots instead of the little 16mm mini-pots that almost everyone uses now. Metal oxide resistors; they don't carry the nostalgia of carbon comps, but they're less prone to noise and that's important in these transistor circuits. A Roederstein, 'Golden Bullet' bypass capacitor, Philips MKC "Chicklet" output capacitor. The board should be as nice a Fuzz Face circuit board as you're likely to find...but even cooler, since it's on a turret board instead of a PCB. That means it's easy to mod if you ever decide to try something new. And of course transistor sockets so you can change out the transistors for whatever you happen across in the future. If someone happens across a pair of Newmarket NKT-275 transistors from Brian Jones' footlocker or whatever, you can plug 'em in and go.
I've been obsessing over this circuit for a while. This is the variation I've been the happiest with. I hope you'll love it as much as I do.
This looks cool!!! @midnightamplificationdevices: Oh maaaaaan.... #midnightamplification #guitar #guitarpedal #fuzz #fuzzpedal #fuzzfriday #pedal #effects #effectspedals #pedalboard #pedalboardmadness #shoegaze #indie #doom, via Instagram: bit.ly/248lniD
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SO...I've discovered how to make things more expensive. I'm apparently a master at that.
At some point I just caved and tossed an ancient black glass OC75 into Q1, which is what they used in the original pedal.
Then I used a pair of vintage AC128 transistors in Q2 and Q3.
The pedal kind of seems to like these transistors.
Not perfect, but it seems much better. What a finicky circuit, though. Sounds really cool, but even now there are splatty spots on the gain control.
So here's where it's at right now:
Q1 - OC75 hFE 74
Q2 - AC128 hFE 88
Q3 - AC128 hFE 58
Another one from @tonehome.de's collection: A bunch of funky Brits of the late 70s: Top Gear Wah, Fuzz, Funky Fazer and 4-channel Mixer #effectsdatabase #pedalboardmadness #pedalporn #pedalcollection #vintagegear #topgear #topgearpedals #wah #fuzz #fuzzpedal #fuzzfriday #fuzzesofinstagram #tonehome #lucyguitar #phaseshifter #fazer #funkyfazer #vintagegear #vintagepedals #tonematters, via Instagram: bit.ly/1pWq5Rt
An infographic detailing the history of guitar effects, starting all the way back to the 1930s with Rickenbacker’s Vibrola Spanish Guitar and progressing to the present day. Along the way, we’ll see iconic guitar-effect breakthroughs like gain and reverb in the 1940s to 1950s’ effects like fuzz (discovered by accidentally dropping a Fender Bass amp on a rainy street!) and distortion (the fortuitous discovery when Link Wray stabbed a hole in his amp’s speaker). The guitar effects hit their stride in the 1960s with the first transistor-powered guitar pedals, including the first wah-wah pedals and the first octave effect pedal among glorious others. The explosion of effects pedals in the 1970s reverberates today: signal alterations, distortion, modulation, time-based effects, and filter effects. A timeline of all these effects along with the iconic musicians who used what—Bo Diddley’s Trem Trol 800 Tremolo, Jimi Hendrix’s Leslie rotating speaker, the Rolling Stones’ Maestro Fuzz Tone, etc.
Feel free to use this infographic but please give credit with a link to www.songsimian.com. The original infographic, with embed codes, can be found here.
Front of the Schaller fuzz 'clone'. I just stuck with the simple design from the original Schaller when I painted this one, only th words are written in german i believe on the original?? Turned out good though, and you would think it turned it AWESOME if you HEARD it! :)
Recently added: Insane FX (@victor_insanefx) Red & Ugly JELLY Sweet Muff * * * bit.ly/2fIpDTe * * * #victorinsanefx #insanefx #jelly #fuzz #fuzzpedal #effectsdatabase #fxdb, via Instagram: bit.ly/2g07lQ5
Recently added: Formula B (@marco_bovelli) Mini Bender Mk1.5 * * * bit.ly/2ah72eZ * * * #marcobovelli #formulab #minibender #mk1.5 #mk15 #fuzz #fuzzpedal #effectsdatabase #fxdb #guitarpedals #guitareffects #effectspedals #pedals #guitarfx #fxpedals #pedalporn #guitarporn #gearporn #pedalboard #guitar #guitarist #guitargear #geartalk, via Instagram: bit.ly/2aEp4LC
Side shot of the Schaller fuzz. I kept this one pretty true to the simplicity of the original design with the hand-painting.
Nope, not a Maestro, but the difference is very small: Formula B (@marco_bovelli) Maestra Fuzz-Tone * * * bit.ly/2cWNcVx * * * #marcobovelli #formulab #maestra #fuzz #fuzzpedal #effectsdatabase #fxdb, via Instagram: bit.ly/2dP5nmg
This thing is seriously the work of a twisted mind, and I say that in admiration. It's a clone of the Durham Crazy Horse. I guess the idea was to get tones similar to the ones Neil Young got on Ragged Glory and the Weld/Arc stuff. I don't know that it really does that exactly, but the effort yielded something insane in its own right.
The controls are Drive, Fuzz, Tone, Volts and Volume, from left to right. So this pedal is basically two sections. An overdrive using a 4558 opamp that's kind of like a Tube Screamer...and a fuzz pedal using a pair of 2N2222 transistors. The first section is the 'Screamer and you can turn the, "Fuzz" control all the way off while you adjust it.
So you bring up the, "Drive" until it's clipping about where you want it and then you bring down the, "Volts" control. That starves the 4558 (but not the fuzz circuit). At first there's no change, but as you gradually reduce the voltage the 4558 will start to get compressed a little and finally it will get kind of wheezy and sputtery. There's a very small range of the throw where this all happens, so it takes a little experimentation to see just how much you want the 4558 to suffer. If you back the power down too much the circuit will cut out completely.
So then you can bring up the, "Fuzz" control and this will start banging the signal coming out of the 4558 into the pair of 2N2222 transistors. Which can get nuts. The malfunctioning 4558 hitting a fuzz can do crazy, oscillation-y stuff. It's all just sputtery and splattery and completely and totally cool.
The, "Tone" control is just a typical pedal tone control. You can take the bright edge off with that if you like. Maybe match it up to your amp better.
Crazy Horse. Glad I tried this. Into a distorting amp this might be really nuts. I'll have to try that when it's not midnight.
Daredevil Pedals (@daredevilpedals) Model 2015 Chicago Big Fuzz (based on Sekova Model 2015 Big Muff) * * * bit.ly/2dGL5cr * * * #daredevilpedals #daredevil #model2015 #fuzz #fuzzpedal #effectsdatabase #fxdb, via Instagram: bit.ly/2e6FCda
#Repost @thefrontroomfuzzlounge with @repostapp. ・・・ Huge thanks to my buddy Steve @raygunfx for this monster of a fuzz pedal,really looking forward to putting it through its paces and seeing what filthy fuzz tones I can extract from it!!!!! #fuzz #fuzzjam #raygunfx #meatropolis #fuzzbox #knowyourfuzz #tonetalk #GearTalk #gearporn #knowyourfuzz #fuzzpedal #fuzzporn #ilovefuzz #fuzzaddict #fuzzjunkie #fuzzfordays via Instagram ift.tt/1QCkQRD