Friday 10 February 2012

Skreddy Pig Mine

Skreddy's description:

Smooth, Intense, Sustaining Distortion

Tight and aggressive fuzz/distortion

Lay into the notes for that deep, harmonic saturation and violin-like sustain.  All your detail and articulation are preserved throughout the sustain knob's travel.  Not too much bass, not too much high end--well balanced tone.  Low noise floor, too!

The mods Marc did to this gets the pedal into Pink Flesh territory whilst allowing for the use of the more modern and easy to find transistors which would sound more harsh in the old Triangle or Rams Head circuits using their standard value components.  Marc makes some excellent pedals for not a huge amount and unlike some builders you know he takes pride in his work, uses his ears to improve them, and the end results are always high quality.  If you like the effects then try to support the builder and buy one.



16 comments:

  1. Verified.

    I only had 2N2222s at hand, but i have ordered a fair batch of BC183s and BC184s - in a week or so i may be able to tell how it sounds with original transistors.

    Once again. Skreddy really knows how to make good better. If i compare any Skreddy design with your average fuzzes, Skreddy will take the upper hand. This is just closer to BMP sound than other Skreddy designs i've built earlier.

    My deviations this time include 220pF caps in the place of 200pF, and i've replaced 1µF electrolytics with 1µF tantalums to save some space. I left the power filter as in layout, since in my experience any modded muff doesn't get offended by it.

    Controls work like they should and that mid flat/boost switch just adds more versatility to it.

    This is probably the most boring of skreddy designs (that could be the reason why he's not building these anymore) i've built, but it's still amazing fuzz, with personal characteristics and some sort of magic to drown every other fuzz in their own vomit. Basically, it sounds like a muff. But coloured by Skreddy. Great thing. I'm definitely going to box this soon.
    +m

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  2. I had time to try out original BC184/BC183 and...

    BMP was completely gone and volume dropped considerably. It sounded more like a poor OD than fuzz. Well.. I guess we'd have to measure the original ones to get closer with those. I do have 100 BC184 and 30 BC183B, so there just has to be four perfect ones. Since i don't know what hFE range they should be, i'll leave finding the perfect set for another day.

    I tried tens of different combinations with other transistors, and to my ear, this sounded the best: Q1 - 2N2222, Q2 - BC183B, Q3 - BC184, Q4 - 2N3904

    2N2222 keeps the germanium-like leaky (or super low hFE) sound intact, and 2N3904 keeps the volume up in BMP-style levels. Might go over some serious testing with BC184/183 soon, but not tonight :)
    +m

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  3. Have this one in the works right now but having some wiring confusion. Anyone have any pics of the guts for this one built?

    Thanks a million!

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  4. Not to hassle anyone but does anyone have any further ideas about expected hfe's for this setup? Thanks a bunch maties!

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  5. where is everyone getting their bc183s? cant find any...

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    Replies
    1. Try here. There's a few sellers of lots of 10 on eBay.

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  6. Built this pedal and finally managed to get it working. I tried it out first with some 2N5089's which I had lying about and awesome muffage. Then I put in the BC184's and BC183 (using the correct pinout of course) and nothing. Dead silence. Put the 2N5089's back in, awesome mufage again. I then tried subbing one transistor at the time for the required correct ones and each time the volume dropped down to zero, or extremely splattery gated faint fuzz.

    Anyone else having this problem? Anyone know what the cause could be?

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  7. Hi anyone tell me , what a extended link is please thank Stu.

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    1. Hey stu. Not sure what you're asking, but if you're talking about the link in the middle of the board from row 1 to row 17 it's just one big link.

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  8. Hi Zach, On the PIG MINE Vero board build diagram above, there is a small Link on Volume three . Never seen this before. Do I make this link at the same time as the others. Or can I do this when I wire up the pots towards the end.

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  9. Hey Stu, Just make your stripped wire end a bit longer and span it over the two holes. That should do it.

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  10. No problems with this build. Sounds pretty great with stock 184/183s but I like it with 2n5088s too for more extreme fuzz. Thanks to the guys who did the work as always. I can't get enough of this type of circuit.

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  11. I tried Mirosol's recipe and it sounds very nice. Stock weren't loud enough or fuzzy enough, it turns out. For anyone thinking of trying this one go with the Mirosol recommended transistors.

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  12. 2n5089 in Q4 for more gain. Sounds best to me.

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