The 2point3 Fuzz

[poulie]

I created this by accident last night, Ive always been a sucker for Fuzz Faces of all kinds, so I thought I should try the Vox tonebender schematic from Fuzz Central, a bright Fuzz Face would
be nice for my detuned guitars. I was a bit lazy, so insted of measuring up som germanium transistor, I just grabbed a bunch of BC107 with a hfe of about 350. I thought that if they would work
in a Fuzz Face, they would work for the Vox variant.

So after building it, I biased the Q2's collector to 4,5V and started playing, it sounded heavy compressed but harsh as hell.

I fiddled a little bit with the bias control, and discovered that it behaved different than any FF clone Ive built. When underbiased it didnt start to gate or get that velcro quality, instead it fattend
up the sound and started to resemble a amp almost blowing up, very Neil Young, and it responds very well to the quitar volume, instead of instant clean up, like Ge FFs, it goes from oversaturated to heavy over drive to almost clean. And its very dynamic to the pic attack. The magic point was when Q2's collector was at about 2.3 V. I named it 2point3 fuzz.

It liked it so much that I built two identical ones, and one of them had the honor to replace the fuzz in my vintage Shin-ei 6tr fuzz-wah.

This is my first post here, and my english is so so, but anyway I thought I share my schematic, I like it best without C2, but then it whistles a bit at full gain, but i think the treble respons is better, I will try maybe 33p and se if it takes away the whistle without sacrificing treble. In the one I use in my band I have a 10ohm resistor between Q2s E and R4/C4 to tame it down a bit for use at high volumes, I also use a 4n7 output cap as I tune to a open C. but in standard tuning a like the 10n. I play with guitar volume at 5 and save full blast for the solos.

[ORK]

Where do you get the 4.5V from? No power to be seen anywhere.

[poulie]

Sorry, Draw it up in a hurry, 9 volt should go between 1k and 10k resistor, thanks

[bluesdevil]

Thanks for sharing your experiment, Poulie. I'm a sucker for Neil Young Crazy Horse sounds, so I need to try this!
No bc107 in stock, but will try some 2n3904's that have hfe of 300 laying around here.
Do you find yourself just crank the 100k input pot all the way or is it really useful?

[poulie]

Im glad that you will give it a try! I Think your 2n3904 Will work great. Thé low bias on q2 Will muffle things up a bit so i Think its. Important to go with as small collector Base capacitors as possible without oscillation and then Change thé output Cap for desired bass respons. A 10 ohm resistor between q2s emitter and r4/c4 helped to get treble without oscillation, thé gain pot wont Do anything that your guitar volume wont Do, its helped Me to cut trough in a band and to get an almost Clean sound out Of it, but i Think thé blowing up amp sound is best at full, going Into. A slightly overdriven amp with volume at half, i made one Of them without it, then i had 10k up front just to tame oscillations and no Cap for q1

[poulie]

Sorry for all thé Capital letters, my computer is trying to help Me with thé English Language 

/Paul

[Jaicen_solo]

Can you do some sound samples?? Sounds interesting,.

[poulie]

Crappy soundsamples trough a old tandberg tape recorder -> powersoak -> greenback 12 -> mobilephonerecorder, cheap stratcopy guitar, fuzz on full, fuzz vol on half on all samples

1 bridge pup, guitar vol 5 then 10
http://soundcloud.com/poulie/2point3-fuzz

2 neck pup, guitar vol 5 then 10
http://soundcloud.com/poulie/2point3-fuzz-2

3 neck pickup guitar vol 1
http://soundcloud.com/poulie/2point3-clean

4 neck pickup guitar vol 5
http://soundcloud.com/poulie/2point3-semiclean