The Fuzz Thread

[DrewJD82]

One of the bigger reasons I want to make my own FF is so I can make a TMNT run of them; green cases and I’ll find colored knobs to stand in for the bandanas, maybe the logos can be colored as well. I’ve been waiting for decades to join my love of Ninja Turtles and gear!

 

[SillyOctpuss]

One of the bigger reasons I want to make my own FF is so I can make a TMNT run of them; green cases and I’ll find colored knobs to stand in for the bandanas, maybe the logos can be colored as well. I’ve been waiting for decades to join my love of Ninja Turtles and gear!

Let me know if you need any help with the enclosures. That sounds cool.

 

[DrewJD82]

Let me know if you need any help with the enclosures. That sounds cool.

I’m actually moving my new desk into my apartment tomorrow so I’ll finally have a space dedicated to pedals and guitar repair!

I also thought the other day; when we do buildouts at work we regularly find old equipment that’s been abandoned for years, I have a good amount of ancient telecom equipment in a couple buildings, I’m going to start eyeing everything for transistors when we demo the spaces. It’d be cool to have a collection of “I dunno WTF these are gonna do” parts.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

I’m actually moving my new desk into my apartment tomorrow so I’ll finally have a space dedicated to pedals and guitar repair!

I also thought the other day; when we do buildouts at work we regularly find old equipment that’s been abandoned for years, I have a good amount of ancient telecom equipment in a couple buildings, I’m going to start eyeing everything for transistors when we demo the spaces. It’d be cool to have a collection of “I dunno WTF these are gonna do” parts.

Post pics of anything you're not sure about. Loads of my cool transistors are salvaged from old broken gear.

 

[Chocol8]

Ha ha, that's a really cool idea. Will you be seeking out 4 different used/NOS transistors to make them all different?

 

[keef]

One can never have enough fuzz slamming your face.

 

[DrewJD82]

Ha ha, that's a really cool idea. Will you be seeking out 4 different used/NOS transistors to make them all different?

I’d imagine the initial rounds will be collecting anything that I can tell is a transistor and then probably organizing them to some degree. Until I know how they all interact with the circuit I can’t really predict what I’ll be doing, I’ve got a LOT to learn and I’m good at being a pack rat, so I figured I’d just start by collecting a bunch.

Might be a little cart before the horse, but we’re going to demo most of these areas in the next few months so I want to jump on it while the chance is still there. It’s a bummer to think about now, but one of our buildings used to be the Bank Of America location where they brought all the cash after picking it up from other branches, the IT “closet” was the size of my office and crammed full of old equipment from the 70’s that all got thrown out, I’d imagine there was something usable in all that crap!

 

[metropolis_4]

One of the bigger reasons I want to make my own FF is so I can make a TMNT run of them; green cases and I’ll find colored knobs to stand in for the bandanas, maybe the logos can be colored as well. I’ve been waiting for decades to join my love of Ninja Turtles and gear!

I fully support this plan

 

[Chocol8]

Until I know how they all interact with the circuit I can’t really predict what I’ll be doing,

My understanding of fuzz face circuits is that while the circuit is simple, it’s the two transistors and how they match that creates the magic. You may need to go through a bunch to find 4 pairs for your TMNT set, but it sounds like a worthy journey to me!

You probably won’t find anything Russian in your old gear, but if you run across any of these 402b’s with the right hFE, in old gear or on eBay, they sound like they look…BIG and FAT!

 

[SillyOctpuss]

My understanding of fuzz face circuits is that while the circuit is simple, it’s the two transistors and how they match that creates the magic. You may need to go through a bunch to find 4 pairs for your TMNT set, but it sounds like a worthy journey to me!

You probably won’t find anything Russian in your old gear, but if you run across any of these 402b’s with the right hFE, in old gear or on eBay, they sound like they look…BIG and FAT!

View attachment 57526

There's some odd part selections in that Sun Face. I've looked inside loads of Sun Faces and I've never seen them use a 1k in there, usually AM uses 470r or 680r. That units gonna be loud. The transistors must have very low leaking too, they've used a 36k bias resistor for Q1. I've not seen any with that style of output cap either. In fairness I've not looked inside many BARTs, that might be standard for those units.

Edit - I've been having a look at BARTs now and they seem to use those yellow output caps on most of the ones I've found. I've also seen them use bias resistors up to 56k! The 1k resistors are pretty common in the BARTs too by the look of things.

 

[Chocol8]

I never looked at the component values, but here is my other one side by side!

Edit: looks like the only difference is the 36k vs 24k. The yellow caps look like different brands but are both .047's.

 

[Dave Lewis]

 

[SillyOctpuss]

I never looked at the component values, but here is my other one side by side!

Edit: looks like the only difference is the 36k vs 24k. The yellow caps look like different brands but are both .047's.


View attachment 57531

Definitely weird that he uses quite different values for the BARTs vs the other germanium options.

 

[metropolis_4]

Just stumbled on these old photos again from a time when I was all about fuzz

My last FF board:

Trying to find the right Muff:

From when I started building my own. The bottom row next to the Little Bug Muff was an Octavia circuit (brown), a Tonebender mkII (yellow), germanium FF (green), silicon FF with a mids control (purple), and at the end by the Fuzz Factory was some sort of germanium boost. I wish I could remember what I put in that purple one because it was the best sounding FF I ever had!

Please forgive the Sonic Stomp

Oh, and I think the orange one on the board was another tonebender circuit

 

[DrewJD82]

My understanding of fuzz face circuits is that while the circuit is simple, it’s the two transistors and how they match that creates the magic. You may need to go through a bunch to find 4 pairs for your TMNT set, but it sounds like a worthy journey to me!

You probably won’t find anything Russian in your old gear, but if you run across any of these 402b’s with the right hFE, in old gear or on eBay, they sound like they look…BIG and FAT!

View attachment 57526

Hello, Mr. Bulbous!!!!

 

[Chocol8]

Hello, Mr. Bulbous!!!!

I have seen vacuum tubes that are smaller They are so fat, you need to order the larger Sunface enclosure to get the BART transistor options.

 

[keef]

Mike builds killer stuff for sure !