Each component is hand tested and selected in this hand- built discrete circuitry beauty. Has more crunch than the original Fuzz Nutz due to an extra gain stage and a tone control. A sustain and crunch monster! Very British sounding. The Textone control rolls off the high end for a singing woman tone, or open it up to peel the chrome off your Tele's bridge! Great for slide, lead, or crunchy rhythm. You must plug this into a wah wah and approach the tone altar!!! Radio frequency interference proof. Each hand-built unit comes standard with a red LED. True bypass switching is retained by using a 3 pole double throw switch. To preserve the battery, the 9V battery power is only available when a plug is inserted in the input jack. A 9V DC negative center tip "wall wart" power supply jack is supplied as standard on all units.
Like me, you may need to fast forward to 1 min 56 seconds! :o)
Ordering the parts today. Hope it sounds as good as the demo...Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYes I really liked the sound of this too. The only reservation I've got is about the 2SC1815's. I've got some which are fairly low gain (I think they were all essentially below 200hfe), but the datasheet lists them with a massive spread of 70 - 700hfe. I know you can get them with additional designation letters (like 2SB1815-GR for instance) and this brings the gain ratings closer together but I've no idea what was used in the original and so don't know whether my lower gain ones will be suitable.
DeleteI suppose it's just a case of try it and see, and maybe experiment with other transistors if it feels like it needs a bit more.
Cool. I usually buy a couple dozen transistors when I order new types that I don't have so I can try different hfe levels of each one. I also socket my transistors so I can try different types as you suggest. Now I just have to wait a dang week for the parts....
DeleteHey, so I built one of these today as I had the parts. You're right about the transistors, not much fuzz coming out of this, on the plus side it's working as a good overdrive pedal at the moment! What would you suggest trying out?
ReplyDeleteThanks
Thanks for verifying the layout. I'd try something like 2N5088s or 5089s if you've got some lying around. You'll have to insulate the legs and cross over the base and collector, but at least it will give you a good idea how it sounds with higher gain transistors. I'll try and find out the supplementary part numbers for the higher gain 2SC1815s.
DeleteHmmm. Might try the bc109c transistors that I used in the Skreddy Lunar Module build. I bought a few extra of those. The hfe averages around 500 for those. Would that be too high for this circuit?
ReplyDeleteHi, tried the 5089s but the fuzz increase was very little. Also, I noticed that when it does drive there's a spluttery crackle if you hold a chord. Hmm maybe I've done something wrong?
ReplyDeletei had that happen on a couple builds, turns out one of my transistors was flipped the wrong way... check those pinouts!
ReplyDeleteTried this with the original 2SC1815's and with 2n5088`s with very little fuzz increase, will try other transisrors tomorrow, I have noticed that the tone control gets quite hissy as you head to the highs, this also seems to have a bearing on the fuzz, more fuzz at the high end, less at the low. No reference to tone 3 so i`ve tried it unconnected and connected to tone 2 with no real difference. anyone else come across this?
ReplyDeleteAnyone had any luck with this one yet?
ReplyDeleteI built it and got no sound at all. I checked and re-checked everything. All correct - must have a bad component. Weird because when I've had a failed build in the past, I usually at least get some kind of sound coming through when engaged. It's been verified so I am going to try again with a fresh board and test each component before soldering. I really like the demo so it's worth at least one more shot for me...
ReplyDeleteok. Finally rebuilt this in between projects. It works now but I'm getting the same results as the others here. More like a mild overdrive than a fuzz ( that is with my Strats - humbuckers do drive it into a little more dirt ). It is very bright with the tone turned anywhere above 9 o'clock. I haven't seen anyone else mention this but I have to turn the volume to about 2 to 3 o'clock for unity. I do get a tiny bit of sputter on decay of a ringing chord, but not enough to be annoying. I may try some higher gain trannies but it looks like dexxyy has already tried this with little result. I'll set it aside for a couple of days and decide...
ReplyDeleteLittle disappointed. Not a bad sounding pedal at all - just expected something a little different from the demo. That being said though, with the pedal maker being from Texas, I could see how this could be applied to the Texas Blues kind of sound. SRV and others tend to not have a lot of gain on when soloing - just typically a bit of grit added.
Forgot to mention, I did sub a 220uf for the 470uf because the 220 was physically smaller. I don't think this would affect anything much since it appears to just be for filtering.
ReplyDeleteOn to the next...
All right, one last thing and I'll shut up ( probably ). Just because I had it socketed ( because I had to combine two resistors to get to the 590 value and wanted to replace them later if it didn't work ), I tried some different values in the spot where the layout calls for the 590R resistor. I figured since it was connected through the 8.2k to the collector, it might have some thing to do with biasing ( not sure - I'm a paint by numbers guy at this point but I'm learning )and the distortion level. Jumpered it and got nothing. Put in a 3.3k and actually got a little more kick. I then went overboard and put in an 18k. Sounded very gated and voltage starved like some of the booteek makers put in an external pot to do. Settled on a 10k for the moment. It now sounds like a fuzz and has more gain and output. I may stick a trimmer in there and tweak to an even better sound.
ReplyDeleteFor you guys who know your circuits, I wonder if tweaking/increasing the 820R resistor would give any more gain...what do you think? Also, I wonder if there is a way to add a little more bottom end ( I think I'd rather add low end than subtract the highs, if that makes sense ).
Thanks
Has anyone made any progress on this one? I built it and everything works but it sounds like a mediocre distortion - nothing like the demo. There must be some strange alchemy in this pedal.
ReplyDeleteAlex
ReplyDeleteYou can try the 10k in place of the 590R resistor. That gave more gain. It still never sounded as thick as the demo for me though. I gave up on it...
Thanks for the info Tim. Don't know what to suggest with this one because the layout definitely matches the schematic, but of course there could be an issue with the schematic. I'll keep a eye out for any more info and update if we get something more on it.
ReplyDeleteI think I've found an error in the schematic. It basically follows a silicon tonebender layout so the resistor to the collector of the first transistor is more likely to be 10K rather than 1K.
ReplyDeleteI was wrong in my last post, the first transistor doesn't bias properly with 10k to the collector, but does with 1K as shown in the schematic. I'm thinking that the person who drew the schematic might have used the wrong multiplier when reading a component value. Last night I tried the fuzz face section on it's own and missing out the 1K resistor from the third transistor to the fuzz pot bought the voltage at the collector of the third transistor down to 4 volts from 6, it sounded much better. I think this resistor here should be 100R not 1K. Now to fix the first transistor bias....
ReplyDelete4 years later, you were right when you said "I think this resistor here should be 100R not 1K". The other quirk is that 130R is actually 100k
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ReplyDeleteFor those finding this doesn't fuzz, change the 1k between the 590Ω and 33k to 100Ω, change the 130R to 100k and you're golden. Also, looks like earlier models had a 22uf in the place of the 47n at the input for more low end
ReplyDeleteHad a spare hour today so built this using the above mentioned fixes and its great. Socketed the input cap so i could test different values and i prefer 22uf gives an overall nicer tone.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the work on the fixes.
Edit: This pedal is awesome. Can't stop playing it. IMO its more like a fuzzy overdive but a really nice one. This one's for keeps.
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ReplyDeleteNot sure what made me look at this again on FSB but glad I did. I guess I had always hoped someone would pick it up again. Came back here for the layout and made the changes.
ReplyDeleteRebuilt over the weekend with suggested changes. This pedal sounds better than the demo. Big fat fuzz. It's in my top ten now. I also changed the 1K directly below the 470k to 10K as both final schematics at FSB indicated this - not sure how much difference it would make. I socketed it but left the 10K since it sounded great. i tried the 22u for input cap but swapped back to a 10u. I will probably set up switchable input caps on next build.
Build it...
Hi I know this is an old thread - just to be 100% clear - should the 130R on the layout above actually be 100K as Tony mentioned earlier? So the final schem on FSB is now correct but this layout is still showing that difference?
DeleteOh.... and the layout is still showing 1k to the fuzz pot but the FSB final schematic is showing 100R
DeleteI'll have to look up my layout that I made notes on for changes. Hopefully I can find it in my stack of layouts.
DeleteSorry - I meant the 1K directly below the 470u cap ( I used a 220u there for the smaller footprint ).
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