easy face questions

[cajununicorn]

hey everyone....my turn to ask the repetitive fuzz face questions! i built an easy face...it has the 250k pre-gain, 500k output, and 10k bias pot. it sounds pretty damn cool, lots of choices on the biasing. one thing i notice is there's not a bias setting i've found that doesn't make my guitar volume knobs crackle when i turn 'em down..it doesn't clean up much.. is this normal? also, there's no setting on the 10k bias pot that allows me to turn the pregain all the way up....it's really scratchy and cuts out just before it's at 9 (out of ten). i'm sure you've all answered these questions a hundred times....can you answer them once more for me? thanks, i really appreciate the help.  also, i did try a few different nte102a's.
ps, the thing sounds very cool. i want to get it stable enough to use live.
thanks, jon

[Travis]

My first though is that the guitar volume knob crackling is just that, a problem with your guitar pots, not with the easyface.

As for the pregain pot, what type of pickups are you running into this thing?  Are they hot or very hot?  If this is your main guitar, you may just want to add a resistor to the pregain portion of the circuit so that "10" still has xyz ohms resistance.

Measure the remaining resistance on the pot when you have advanced it as far as possible without encountering the bad effects.  This will be the size of the resistor.

Since you really like the way that it sounds, you don't want to mess with too much.

I'm not really familiar with the circuit and its usual problems, though, so someone else will probably come along with a better idea of what's going on.

[cajununicorn]

thanks for the ideas travis...i was thinking about doing that pot/resistor swap. no, my guitar pots are fine. i am using fairly high output p90s on most of my guitars. maybe the pregain pot is bad...it's a used one i had lying around.

[J Gagan]

it sounds like the first thing I would try is some different trannies , especially the Ge for Q2.

those NTEs can be a little spotty, try a set from Small Bear maybe

[cajununicorn]

joe,  it's so cool to get a reply from the guy that worked out this design! thanks. you've got a great sounding circuit here. i messed with it today...still makes my guitar pots crackle. i'll try some more experimenting tonight. thanks for the help.   jon