Fuzz face bias knob

[ItsGiusto]

Hey everyone. I have a germanium fuzz face that sounds pretty good. It has an input gain knob which I never use, as I tend to use the guitar's volume control instead. I was thinking about replacing it with something more useful like an external bias knob, for temperature tweaking and getting crazy sounds.

Right now, there is an internal trim pot in place of the usual 8.2k resistor that sets the bias of transistor Q2. This trim pot is set at about 5.45k. My idea was to replace this trim pot with a 10k potentiometer with a center detent, so that I could always find a basic usable setting. I could put this in series with a 470 ohm resistor, so as to get the bias just right on the detent.

Does this seem like an alright idea? If this knob were turned down really low, could the transistor potentially be damaged? I obviously don't want to include a setting which could cause damage to the pedal.

[LucifersTrip]

I know you want the center to be around where you have it set now, but that's not too important.  You may just need something a little larger than the 470 in series. Just test it with different series resistors until it's large enough that you're still getting fuzz and you shouldn't damage anything.

[italianguy63]

5K pot inline with a 2K7 fixed would be perfect.

MC