Found this on TGP from the man himself when he was first releasing it:
Basically, it's an FY-6 with some extra bells and whistles in a "pedal board friendly" enclosure. The official name is the EFY-6, with "E" meaning "Enhanced".
The "Expander" knob has been renamed "Fuzz", and the "Balance" knob has been renamed "Gain", as these more clearly describe what these controls do.
We fiddled with the differential amp and worked out a way to be able to adjust the amplitude of half of the cycles coming out of it. Turn it all the way down and voila! No octave step up! Turn it all the way up and it sounds like an original FY-6. In between you can adjust for however much chord smashing synthy overtones you want. This knob is appropriately called "Octave".
A cross-fade knob was installed between the mid-scoop filter and the voltage divider that used to be connected to a switch labeled "Tone". You can now blend between the two tone settings. Obviously, this knob is called "Tone".
The final stage got a gain boost so that the maximum output signal level is more than 4X the maximum output level of the original FY-6, or more than double the volume.
With the knobs set appropriately, it will sound just like an FY-6. Move the "Octave" or "Tone" knobs away from their limits and you can get tones not possible with the original FY-6.
Unfortunately, Wattson Classic Electronics has shutdown, and while they were around they made very few of these. What brought me to find out about this pedal is that the guys of SUNN O)))) have been known to use this pedal.
What is the circle with the link(?) coming out of it right above "Balance 3"? Oh it's D1 right?
ReplyDeleteThis thing is nasty! I love it. I also really enjoy demos by this particular dude. His playing is tasty, and barring a few exceptions, his background tracks are always mixed low enough you can hear the flavor of the device. Ill go ahead and add this to the list. I must have more fuzz.
Yea man, it's D1. I forgot to label it after I wrote the build notes. If you want to build the stock pedal build layout 1. I changed the balance trimmer to a pot, so not sure if it should be linear or log, and not sure how useful it would be, just thought it would be an interesting addition.
Deletecolor this one verified. used bc239c's and a bc550c for q6
ReplyDeleteAwesome. Thanks man. How does it sound and which layout did you use out of curiosity.
Deletei used the one with the onboard trimmer which i think is a good call. it only really works with the trimmer set right. i haven't had too much time to mess with it but it sounds like a much fatter superfuzz. the octave pot acts a bit like a mild volume knob so i may poke around there a little bit. i also though the 10u above q5 should be the other way around but it seems to sound the same either way. i'm boxing this one up though.
ReplyDeletei also didn't have any 50k pots so i used 100k's across the 1 and 3 lugs
Deletecool. i expected the balance pot wasn't really going to be worthwhile, i just removed the layout.
Deletebrought it to the spot and slammed it through my amps and she dooms hard. real good sound
Deletethe 10u above q5 should really go the other way. it's louder and the octave pot works better
ReplyDeletelooked at the schematic again, and i think you're right. in the original superfuzz that cap is the way i had it on the board before, and didn't notice the change. made the change.
DeleteHey Zach,
ReplyDeleteAny chance you can pass me that layout with the trimmer as a pot as i built it without seeing the updated posts and seem to have an issue. Cheers.
shoot me an email and i'll gladly send it to you. the only change that would need to make is to flip the 10uF cap on the row above Q5, that's in between the 470r and 100k resistor.
DeleteThat Diode above the 9v+ is labeled D3 in addition to the lay down clipper there. Should be D1 right? ;)
ReplyDeleteAh shit. Yea it should. Quick easy fix. I'll do it when I get home later. Cheer man.
DeleteNo grief intended! I'm super pumped to build this when I can order some parts. It sounds really good. Thanks for your hard work on the layout man!
Deleteno worries. just been brain dead due to exams, so i'm making stupid mistakes like that. really annoying. lol
DeleteJust finished this. Q4-Q5 are 2N3904 matched at HFE 197, the rest are 2N2222. Sounds really good! I'm having trouble hearing any difference with the octave pot which is wired correctly so i'll order a replacement incase it's faulty. Really nice. Thanks for the layout Zach.
ReplyDeleteOk so I adjusted the trimmer and found the octave sweet spot which for me is about dead centre, great... The octave pot may sound like a mild volume as described in an earlier post if you don't get that octave going but also I believe the layout has it wired backwards; CCW will give you octave or just lower output, CW is just the fuzz (no octave) at slightly higher output. I checked the schematic and I think Octave 1&2 go to Q4 collector and Octave 3 goes to Q5 collector because now mine works perfectly. Zach can you please check this some time? Thanks again!
ReplyDelete