Wednesday 23 January 2013

Briggs' Unknown Fuzz

So as i was drawing up the Briggs' designs...
A new fuzz design from myself. It's silicon transistor based but with a difference. I've been playing around with the old Vox Tonebender circuit for a while and this is what sprung from those experimentsTaking inspiration from the Fred Briggs Fuzz I made a few years ago that used "piggy-backed" silicon transistors to emulate lower gain germanium devices I used a couple of piggy backed high gain silicon trannys in the first stage with the hfe set to 25. This first stage pushes a NOS BC108 transistor in the second stage - it sounds great, there's no ear shredding like the usual silicon fuzz boxes just a nice fat low end and a warm mid section. The three controls are for 1; a bass cut, 2; a width control (which adjusts how "wide" and gainy the fuzz sounds) and the third is just a volume control. As you can see there is no "usual" gain control, that's because the only gain control you need is your guitar's volume knob, it'll do everything from mild overdrive right through to full on FuZzZzZzZz.



3 comments:

  1. Congratulations guys! The goal of reaching 600 verified layouts has been reached!
    you can tag this one.

    I had to lower the 1.8K resistor to 820R though, in order to get the voltage up to about 4.5v.
    I would also recommend replacing the 1.8K with a jumper, and bring the 10K trimmer off-board as a sag control. Or you could jumper the trimmer and replace the 1.8K with a 2K pot i guess...
    The "Sag Control" then becomes quite interactive with the "Width" pot and you can dial in some nasty spitting and gated fuzz-tones.
    Anyway. It is a nice fuzz with a creamy low end that can be thinned out with the "Bass cut" without it ever getting harsh in the top.
    Another interesting and nice contribution from Mr.Briggs, which is a man I have come to love for his nice low part-count circuits that sound sweet!

    Happy New Year everybody!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Neil! Thanks for the notes!

      I'll tag it and start harassing Mark to post the speech.
      +m

      Delete
    2. Nice one Neil. Damn I was sure it was your turn!

      Delete