Saturday 26 January 2013

Jen Fuzz III

Pretty close to the earlier version of Jen Fuzz, and i may have promised not to do Fuzz Faces nor Benders, but here i go again... Seems to be a classic - so some of you might want to clone this one to the specs too.


27 comments:

  1. Love this Fuzz. Had the uk version (JHS Fuzz). Slight difference in transistors had a 238b, but otherwise exact to this. Very bright snd excellent in front of a dark tube amp.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Is it a gated fuzz like the sustain and fuzz?

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tag it! It´s a great sounding fuzz and cleans up really well, sounds great before my ic big muff (which i made with the layout posted in this page) :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. mwaaaaah! in 1985 or so i bought one for...50 french francs! (approx 5 pounds sterling or 7 us$.... then in 1996 i turned 30 and i lived in london and stupidly said "to hell with electric guitars and all that! i'm too old for roque and rolle! and gave it away to some squatter who probably lost it in an eviction... % years later i was strumming like mad anew but .... how could i get a jen mark 3? ...then i saw the internet prices and felt like slashing my wrists with a butter knife to celebrate my stupidity! i LOVED the uniquely insane trashy sound of this pedal! and now i don't have de balls to build my own...
      i am a miserable failure!
      i want the old flat blue thing back!

      Delete
  5. It isn't just a little bright... it is more like a swarm of ice hornets attacking your eardrums with knitting needles.

    I have yet to decide if that is a good thing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Would BC109 transistors work in this build?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Built one of these today, these are my suggestions for essential mods.
    Up the input and output caps from 10n to something around 20n, I went for 18n. Crucially, up the 1.2n cap to something around 10n, this pedal is painfully trebly untill you up this cap. If you suffering from oscillation, put a 100uf filter cap in, it completely solved this problem in my build. A nice pedal when you do those things, I used bc550 transistors.
    Cheers
    Dave

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I got oscillation with high attack. Where do you think I can put the 100uf filter cap..?
      Thanks
      Andrea

      Delete
    2. I got oscillation with high attack. Where do you think I can put the 100uf filter cap..?
      Thanks
      Andrea

      Delete
    3. I got oscillation with high attack.
      Where do you think I can put the 100uf cap..?
      Thanks.
      Andrea

      Delete
  8. thanks... i used to own one and i've been dying to get it back... it will be my first build (but i am no stranger to the soldering iron)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Really nice one this.Using the Bloviator to give it that extra punch. Quite like the thrashy nature to this one. I am using BC109cs as only have one BC549c and it sounds good. Maybe the slighter lower volume is attributed to that. Will check when i make/get my next order. I use Bitsbox and Dr Tweek in the UK to get most of my supplies (shameless plug) and Dr Tweek should be back online again very soon hopefully.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Finally built this one! Sounds like it's supposed to, I think.
    I am going to up the 1.2n to see if it gets eq'ed lower than my dog's sense of hearing!

    PROBLEM: I have to back off my guitar volume to get any sound at all. Seems like till then the it is overpowering the first stage.
    Besides sticking a resistor before the input to, what do you think could be happening?!?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What kind of pickups does your guitar have?

      Delete
    2. Medium output humbuckers.

      I tried a 100k resistor in front, and had the same problem. A 220k works fine and you still get gobs of fuzz.
      Ended up with a .01uf cap in the middle, and it is bright by not silly. Plus, it looks cool with matched red caps!

      Delete
  11. Recently acquired a Ricken's branded version. Very piercing highs, annoyingly so. Since it's a later Vox Tonebender derivative, anyone building this should try adding a 10n cap from input to ground.
    +m

    ReplyDelete
  12. 2n2222 didn't provide much excitement in my build. I upped all the cap values. 18nF on the ends and 10nF in the middle. I settled on BC109cs after trying 549c, 550, 2n3904 (which gave me clean output). I'm getting oscillation at full attack so will need to take care of that before boxing. I think I'll keep it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. If I replace the 150k to a pot would that give me a bias control ?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Any ideas if the 150 k can be used as a bias control ?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Not bias in the usual sense of this kind-of-a-fuzzface type pedal, but it will do something useful. In the zvex woolly mammoth (which has the similar Q2+3 arrangement) a pot in this position was labelled "pinch", and "PW" for Pulse Width. It affects the "voltage feedback biasing" arrangement and effectively goes from cleaner (low resistance) to increasing saturated and gated as you get to higher settings. The exact effect will slightly masked by the clipping diodes on the output, but it might still be a useful mod - You'll need to replace the 150k in the layout with a minimum-setting resistor (maybe 10k-27k?) because the sound will cut out altogether if you short Q2b and Q3e (or near short through the 220r).

    I would put a cut to the left of the 220r, put a 22k in place of the 150k, hook-up lug1 of your bias/PW/pinch pot (250k?) to the left-hand end of that row, and connect pinch pot2 to Q3's emitter two rows down from +9v

    ReplyDelete
  16. Thank you. Will give it a try.
    Before I do that, I need to see if I can get a little more volume out of it.
    Which transistor change would help boost the volume.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Any ideas if there is a way to increase the volume, would one of the resistors need changing ?

    ReplyDelete
  18. I settled the pedal now.
    I put 18nF instead of 10 at the input, 22nF at the output and upped the 1.2nF cap to 33nF: Very nicely sounding now, more a low-medium distortion pedal, than a fuzz, but with great presence and attack.
    Great for solos.
    Thank you, as always...!

    ReplyDelete
  19. I used the BC547 but output level really low...any clue please? I followed components value in main picture.

    ReplyDelete