Are "NOS" OC transistors a waste of money?

[TrekFX]

To preface: I figured the best way to approach the original tone of a vintage effect was to use as many "original" active components as possible. While resistors and caps may not be a big deal, the transistor gain stages may benefit from whatever original characteristics the "old" parts embodied.

Long story short: I've spent a lot of money on OC transistors to nail my Supa Fuzz build. I bought a boatload that were all crap; dead to the point of not even giving my meter a "is it PNP or NPN" clue.

Then I picked up some OC75s that were supposedly tested for gain. When I put them through their paces on my leakage/gain rig per the detailed instructions posted at GEO (and my resistor values are DEAD on), the gains were nowhere near their labeled "spec" once leakage was deducted.

Lots of money. Lots of time. I am better off just getting a set from Small Bear or similar reputable source? Is whatever "tonal quality" in the gain stages a big deal; will any Ge PNP be pretty much like any other (from any era)?

It's my first build, and I'm looking forward to getting that distinctive Supa Fuzz tone. Sort of been my "Grail Tone" for, what, 30 years of playing?!

Tank U's veddy much!

[cd]

You have to decide whether getting the absolute super vintage mojo tone is worth the time and money, or getting a reasonable sub, save yourself time, $$, etc.

Personally I would rather spend the time playing and practicing.  A tested sub from Small Bear or other dealer is perfectly reasonable.  Remember, there is really no single EXACT vintage fuzz.  Back in the day, they were all made with whatever transistors were available, good, bad, leaky, or otherwise.  If you got a great sounding one, lucky for you!  Besides the transistors, the resistors and caps were often of 20% tolerance, so what's exact?

My suggestion, get a good set of transistors, be they original or otherwise, and tweak the rest of the circuit to your liking.  If you must have the original vintage piece, be prepared for frustration!

[bwanasonic]

It's my first build, and I'm looking forward to getting that distinctive Supa Fuzz tone. Sort of been my "Grail Tone" for, what, 30 years of playing?!

It's not clear to me if you have already built this pedal, and it doesn't sound the way you want it to, or that you are searching for the *Holy Grail* transistors before you even build it. That's what sockets are for!    Anyhow, I am curious what your Supa Fuzz ideal is. I've just recently learned of this pedal in researching Steve Howe's *Yessongs* era tone. What are some other recorded examples of "that distinctive Supa Fuzz tone"?

Thanks

Kerry

[petemoore]

Chunk chicken or -reconstituted?
 I read where the original Ge's were from slices of Germanuim. Some real good, some real 'bad' depending on the structure of the chrystals and the purity of the substance...alot to depend on, even in the early days of GE mining...
 Then they er he er whoevers figured out how to grind it down, purify it, then press it into little wafers, this process 'took over and the subsequent batches of Ge transistors are made from composite Ge Base material.
 I didn't catch any numbers in this article, but it did show PICS of early Ge prototypes and later ones too.
 My guess was that all the 'magic' ones from the early days of production are what people are talking about.
 Like archeology [actually worse probably] finding these early production Ge's [I don't know what difference a sliced or wafer of Ge base makes] has been done, and that most of what you see adverted as "NOS Vintage Original Mojo Magic Ge Semiconductors" the internet is probably second or third pickkins, unless you know somebody...so that's why I never tried getting any old sliced Ge's, also they have a 'rock life' and are known to lose something, sometimes to the point of failure after decades of existance.
 I've worked with SB matched sets, and would have to say they do work and sound great, makes biasing a breeze, and they do sound alot different than Si's in my FF and TB and Rangemaster type builds.
 NTE158's work good too. I've built linear amp stages [basically seriesed boosters], they don't roll off like a FF but sound PDGood and clip quite similar.
 EZ Face is a good one to mention here/
 There are so many ways to FF and TB, an alternative I entertained on was a Rangemaster [pick your Q] into a Silicon FF. It's like having a FF and a TB in one box, [and of course the Rangemaster] if you use two bypass switches. Using a Rangemaster on any Fuzz as Q1 [from the pickup] does quite a number on the Tone.
 Dern Ge Tonebender though...whew...but it was functionably DOA the time I let it get too cooold...must have been the factor, works great most of the time too, well it did start actin' funny in the heat...fired it up lately, a Super Fuzz Box...somehow it still survives.
 I recently discovered that all My FF's had been thrown out of their dwellings...IIRC I was down to the last Ge one, and it was sounding like it needed attention pretty bad...thinking...Miss Piggy, my FF's have been hiding...hafta search or build another...

[Ge_Whiz]

Back in 'the good old days', people cursed germanium transistors because of their generally unreliable behaviour. Then along came silicon, everybody was happy, and nobody wanted nasty old germanium any more, except for specialist diodes.

And nobody would want them now, but for mojo merchants and the kind of folks that P T Barnum described as having been born at the rate of sixty per hour.

The guys here go out of their way to praise smallbear to the skies for a reason - they get good value there. Everybody else, with a few exceptions, is selling snake oil, watered down.

Rejoice, it's the 21st century! Use 21st century parts to build 21st century effects, and enjoy the 21st century sounds that you can get. Most of those 1960s sounds aren't down to mojo, but to a heavy mixture of compression, EQ and nostalgia.  And Steve Howe's fingers. Sorry, you can't buy NOS Steve Howe fingers, I've looked. And I ain't found an ES-175 that I could afford, neither.

[Torchy]

I love these snake-oil debates  :lol:  ... AFAIK it makes no difference whether the base ge was sliced diced wafered or shredded. A lump of ge substrate is useless until you dope it to make a pn junction. The doping process early days was haphazard and results varied from manuf to manuf, batch to batch.  

I wonder why there are so many '50s and '60s tranny testers around ...  :mrgreen:

[petemoore]

The exception:
 Old SS hand held radios, the kind that fit in your pocket, sold mostly in the 60's, plastic box may say Solid State on it and use a 9V battery for power.
 I've got a couple of these units, one has 8 NOS Ge Transistors, many reports are that they could be excellent DIY BYOSB units.
 I haven't had the heart to tear the working units down and scavenge from them.
 Maybe some day the working unit will fetch some good price, DIY'ers might pay more of a premium for them in the stock, unmessed with radio than if I pulled them and tried selling them as the 'real' thing.
 The only Ge's I have around here are NTE158's and those purchased as matched sets from SB, NTE's are expensive, [hit or miss, some work better than others, something like 1 in 3 are 'better'] the SB units are what I'd recommend, because they work great, first time with no further testing, every time [I guess I'm selling SB Ge's here], and no left over 'duds'. Of course the duds can be used as diodes, but it's a rather expensive diode supply.
 So SB... or old radios and 'some' testing. Anything else is hit or miss, and probably less bang for buck....of course you'll never know how lucky you are if you don't try your luck...old Ge's leak snake oil. :lol:

[tomtom]

I always though good things about Ge, mainly because of some artists who use TB or FF and do sound good.
My first try (after buying all the stock of my local shop  :oops:) was just horrible sounding and even after bias/tests and all the things to be done,
all my wonderfull batch of OC75,AC128,AC188k,... just two average sounding SB175 but really disapointed.

 I have search for low leakage ones and found some metal OC44, expensive but with low leakage and a really good and detailed sound,
even with the sources, the second batch I received (same OC44) were
out of the gain range, so barely useable in treble circuits  :?
 I have to put them aside and order some more, they were great this time but somewhat different than the previous ones...

 Just my two cents but a matched pair is nice and from a reliable source, I tell you, you will enjoy to solder it and play... I just love the sound of a good Ge fuzz circuit but sourcing...

[TrekFX]

As far as my "Grail Tone" (fuzz-wise, at least) I've always been partial to the early 70's Justin Hayward (of The Moody Blues) bumble bee-buzz fuzz. Actually, the best examples can be found on the "Blue Jays" solo album (a co-effort with group bassist John Lodge) and Hayward's first true solo effort, "Songwriter."

Very rich, fuzzy, organic with a nicely animated filter-sweepy decay. (Sheese, sounds like wine-tasting!!) I know most of the stuff is multi-tracked to death, but there are a few tracks with single guitar lines and the tone still stays very "alive."

I actually got a pretty good match using, of all things, a Morley Power Wah Fuzz pedal, one of those big old chrome beasts. I had on back in the early '80s and it did a fair approximation. Now that the web is here and you can find schematics for just about anything, it turns out that the fuzz section isn't too far off from the typical three-tranny Tone Bender/Supa Fuzz model.

I just picked up another one yesterday for $25... really beat to hell, but it'll give me a chance to re-evaluate the sound. I don't have my 335 anymore, having moved to a PRS CU24 (just had to have the versatility, but I miss that 335 growl) but it should be a fun test anyways. And I'll have a wah again. Amp, BTW, is a Boogie DC-3, a four-banger EL-84 which has had two tubes pulled with the blessing of a Boogie factory tech to reduce output to a more reasonable studio level. Still incredibly loud!

Thanks for the input. A lot of things you folks are discussing make good sense.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Then along came silicon, everybody was happy, and nobody wanted nasty old germanium any more, except for specialist diodes.
And nobody would want them now, but for mojo merchants and the kind of folks that P T Barnum described as having been born at the rate of sixty per hour.

I don't suppose there are many people more cynical than I am.. but, in fairness, if you look at the actual data sheet curves for silicon and germanium transistors, you will see that the curves are in fact consistently different. Whihc I think is significant for some fuzz circuits.
But, I certainly agree with your comments on SmallBear! GO STEVE!!