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Saturday, 29 August 2015

Maestro Fuzz Tone FZ-1A

Who's got their AA battery clip ready? Mark has already drawn the Maestro FZ-1, so here's my layout for the FZ-1A.

You may want to try your PNP trannies that have a little bit of leakage to get this going. I've been pondering the best solution for powering this off a daisy chain, and I'm open to suggestions. You could use a charge pump and diodes in series to drop the voltage, but that's a bit of a complicated solution. Does anyone have a 1.5V regulator that they suggest?

I prefer to use my FZ-1A with humbuckers. Low output single coils don't get a very saturated fuzz



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26 comments:

  1. Jimijam29 August 2015 at 20:49

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. The Great Gaze29 August 2015 at 20:49

    I believe a voltage divider could be used to power it off of 9 volts. It shouldn't be difficult to find the resistor values, since 9 divides perfectly into 1.5

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    1. Travis29 August 2015 at 22:11

      Voltage dividers can be unstable when the current draw shifts though, and the attack control on this pedal is a bias control which I think may alter the current draw. I've read that it's not an idea solution, but I'm not an expert on that.

      I would like to find a simple regulator that I could pair up with an inverter to power this, but after all that the diode option may be looking cheaper anyway

      Delete
    2. Travis29 August 2015 at 22:12

      By the way AA battery clips are easily available at just about any electronics store. The battery will last a long time and AA batteries are super cheap to replace

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  3. Jimijam29 August 2015 at 20:55

    My bad... that is the wrong one LOL
    but I am sure you can find the correct one on mouser

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  4. Bear6 September 2015 at 15:10

    For the daisy-chained power issue, couldn't you borrow the power scheme from the Roger Mayer Page fuzz? IIRC, uses an opamp to invert and limit voltage supplied to the Maestro/Tonebender derived part of the circuit.

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  5. Unknown11 September 2015 at 16:52

    Just built one with SFT323 transistors. It's verified.

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  6. Travis11 September 2015 at 18:31

    Awesome! Thanks HarmRazorback for my first verification on the blog!

    How is your build sounding?

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    1. Unknown11 September 2015 at 19:43

      It sounds less gated than I expected, but that probably has something to do with the SFT323s. They have about 200 hfe and a lot of leakage. It is not boxed yet, the transistors are in sockets, and I tested it with single coils. So I am going to try some other PNPs and humbuckers to see what sounds best.

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  7. Travis12 September 2015 at 02:19

    My crusty old FZ-1A isn't really gated at all. In fact it, can be a little noisy when it's hot.

    It's a really cool sounding pedal though. I get really hooked into playing with it because it's so dynamic and responsive, you can have a lot of fun with pick attack or fingerpicking etc

    hope you have fun and dig the fuzz

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  8. jokersmile327 October 2015 at 04:38

    Do I still connect the negative battery terminal to +ground and the positive battery terminal to -1.5?

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  9. ashkan7 October 2015 at 13:50

    I'm working on fz-1 .used a little module which is an adjustable step down regulator .I'm getting -3 volt. but it's not working for me. tried to audio probe it. after the input 100k resistor I get lots of noise and a weak signal.I changed the resistor.and the 10n cap after it and checked for shorts between lines with a multimeter. no luck yet.veryconfused now.there is audio signal at first transistor collector where there is -3 volt. any help please

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  10. Eric15 December 2015 at 04:07

    Stupid question. How can i run this without controls? Basically fully dimed. Where would clean 1 and clean 2 terminate?

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  11. Eric15 December 2015 at 14:29

    Stupid question. How can i run this without controls? Basically fully dimed. Where would clean 1 and clean 2 terminate?

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  12. Dexter2 February 2016 at 05:36

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. Dexter2 February 2016 at 05:38

    What hFE ranges and leakage are best suited for this?

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  14. Travis4 February 2016 at 03:57

    I would like to give you a good answer to this question but I am not 100% sure.

    The first set of transistors that I threw in sounded great so I didn't really bother experimenting, because I got what I was looking for sound-wise

    Here are my readings
    Q1: hfe 56, leakage 100uA
    Q2: hfe 100, leakage 320uA
    Q3: hfe 85, leakage 150uA

    This is pretty dang close to the sound of my original FZ-1A, and could easily pass for an original unit sound-wise

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  15. Anonymous11 April 2016 at 16:55

    What kind of switch does this use?

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  16. Unknown26 July 2017 at 04:00

    It appears the layout photo is no longer working.

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  17. Travis26 July 2017 at 14:26

    Thanks for the heads up. I will update today

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  18. Paddyosonic11 August 2017 at 18:46

    Is there still a layout for this?

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  19. Unknown20 August 2017 at 05:11

    @Travis. The layout picture still is displaying an error. We can't see it.

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  20. Unknown26 December 2017 at 03:14

    Do you have to use electrolytic's on this one? Why are they using electrolytic's? is it to filter out noise?

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    1. mirosol26 December 2017 at 07:51

      Both of them are in the signal path, so any type 1ยต will be fine.
      +m

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    2. Unknown26 December 2017 at 16:55

      Thanks!

      Delete
  21. gee23 December 2018 at 23:26

    I built this and an FZ-1. Sounds great but I still need to experiment with transistors. One problem I am having, with this and the FZ-1, is if I have the fuzz pot below 12 oclock the volume cuts in and out, like a leslie speaker. Why would this be?

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