Darlington Pig...

[petemoore]

  I figured start a new thread on this one.
  You take a Ge transistor that is too low gain for Q1 FF or RM use, and do a 'limited darlington' or DarlingPig affair, using the pnp Ge as the left half of the Darlington configuration, and anonther PNP for the right half, but with the gain cut using a resistor or R/C between the Emitter of first and Base of second Q in the DPQ FF. That doesn't sound right, ..Darling Pig Face.
  The only reason I say this is because I don't know enough about it to say it should work, and I'm too lazy to just try it ... I've got FF's...just 'idea fodder'.

[R.G.]

The problem with germanium darlingtons is the leakage. If one germanium leaks, a germanium darlington leaks gain squared as badly, because the first transistor's leakage current is multiplied by the gain of both transistors. That's one reason there are doggone few germanium darlington circuits.

Try it - but be aware that thermal stuff is going to be a problem.

[Stevo]

I have built boosters this way with germanium trans..without the resistor to the base of the second trans another words like a real darlington setup...I made an LBP-1 out of many of these but to give it a bit more punch I added a 22uf on the emitter parallel to the resitor there. addes some cool gain like that !!!! If you have useless transisrors what do you have to loose..... Another trick I did was use a real 10k pot on the collector in series with a very small resistor like 220 ohms and used it to bias the darlington you will find it works like a tone/gain control thingyofamajigger......It sounds germanium like too though it better its cool!

[petemoore]

     The particular Ge in question is 'low' leakage, how low...lol?...only a circuit may tell. It is also low Hfe...
  Thank you for shedding light on the subject !!
  I have nothing to lose but time to learn.
 

[petemoore]

  Works great with 100k pot between Q1 [OC44...low gain] and Q2 [2n4402]
  Really sparked up the otherwise unboxed [dull] circuit !!!
  Dialilng down the resistance I could hear the OC44's tone more, dialed up the gain of course went up alot.
  I've drawn up a schematic, and may post it when things settle down with the forum server.
  Basically I just wired a small perf to socket the two transistors, and taped and soldered the pot to the back of that, three connecting wires plug into the socket in the Rangemaster Circuit board for testing, preliminary results are very good, so far no noise issue...and alot sparkier sound.

[petemoore]

  Yupp
  I put the OC44 into the circuit again, and dull as remembered.
  I just built a new board with darlington sockets, a 100k with a small bypass cap between Q1e and Q2b.
  Gain goes up markedly as does the chimeyness !!!
  Hafta say this is may be the ticket to use of those low gain Ge's you haven't liked yet.
  http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/petemoore/RangePIG.jpg
  Try some different gain Q's and adjust the 100k...I settled on 100k there.

[WGTP]

Might be worth noting that these Fuzzes at FuzzCentral - Q1 and Q2 are a darlington arrangement.   

http://fuzzcentral.tripod.com/3knob.html

[Paul Marossy]

Might be worth noting that these Fuzzes at FuzzCentral - Q1 and Q2 are a darlington arrangement.

Interesting. I didn't know that the Sola Sound Tone Bender was a darlington affair.