Hello Hello Jim===
    Yeah, that must be a little "stressy".  Are you going to play at your wedding reception??
All the best!!
Brian.

Hey Brian,

No! No playing from me - besides the prettiest thing I can think of to play is "Little Wing".  

We're actually going to Scotland to do the deed at a castle.  To be honest I can't remember how we decided on that but it should be entertaining.  We thought that leaving family at home and going off on our own would make things less complicated but I dunno about that now...

Any good Scottish gear shops I should check while I'm there, fellow Stompboxers?  If we were getting married in London I's ask her to register at Macari's -- but I don't think she'd appreciate that.  

Jim

Hello Hello Jim-
    Scotland would be amazing!  
Yeah, not having the WHOLE BLOODY FAMILY making the trek could result in some problems, I guess.   Maybe if you bring back lots of photos of the Loch Ness monster as presents ?
Better take lots of WARM clothing, though!
Now, about that Tonebender......
Brian.

Thanks for your review of the CS Overdriver.
 I put one of these together...took me a while to get it striaght...I started with a touch too small piece of perf...lol...It's in the box now whew...took a couple days before it fired up right.
 I took heed to your post, and this thing sounds really great!!!
 I like the way the four knobs work ... I tried with no volume control for a moment...put a 100k on there...Very Nice!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Pete,

I've been meaning to build an Overdriver for about a year now - and I still haven't gotten to it!  A friend of mine has a real deal Colorsound jobbie from 1972 and it's awesome.


Brian,

I finally got a chance to crank up up my 3-knob TB with the trimmer for Q3.  Even using a 25K trimmer I'm not getting a whole lot of voltage variation.  The tone changes a tad but not enough for me not just to use a fixed 18K there.

It's a very smooth sounding fuzz - I like it!

Jim

Hello Jim--
  Are you using a socket for Q3??  I was gonna say that maybe you could try some other trannys in there and take some readings from those.....
Sometimes if the germ has high leakage it won't bias correctly.
Brian.

I'm really starting to appreciate these Si FF type ckt's.
 The Colorsound Overdriver being a prime example.
 Once I got it 'right' [I just ordered some, my first,  BCxxx's and will retune], I can tell I'm really liking this one.
 The knobs work quite well, it seemed unusually easy to dial in classic TB Tone,  and the low end Gain 'with' definition, was something I noticed instantly the thing just is smooth and more forgiving.
  RIght now it has 5088/9's and an input cap marked 563k.
  Pretty dang sweet/smooth less raspy, seems like it's about tops, can't wait to try it this weekend

Quote from: petemooreI'm really starting to appreciate these Si FF type ckt's.

'twas a silicon 'Face that seduced me into compulsive pedal building.

The big 3 factors that make or break a Si FF are type of transistor (2N3904's give me a headache), bias (4.5 on Q2's collector), and if you have some gain-slamming transistors (as I prefer to use), layout.

Si 'Faces can get a nasty oscillation riding atop the signal if the components and traces are not in the right physical relationship to each other.

Hello Hello Erik--
   What layout do you use for yer FFs??   I've been trying to nail down a good  [NOISE FREE !!] layout for some time.
Thanks for any help!
Brian.

My layout is a PCB that I designed myself, and it's a big part of my proprietary tooling.

20 years ago, I was laying out thick film integrated circuits, then I worked for a company that is famous for its musical RF products. From these I learned about component density and about interference.

My boards are 1" square, and I don't cheat by standing my resistors on end. Yet. :-)

Most of the FF layouts I see do not follow my own PCB design principles. Nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn't try to build a Crucible Fuzz on one.

Basically, arrange the components to keep your traces as short as possible, avoid running traces side-by-side (that's the biggest violation I see), and remember that it's okay NOT to have all your wires terminate at a single edge of the board. As a matter of fact, I like to spread them out so as to keep the signals away from each other.

Check out the sound samples on my Crucible page, especially the ones where I'm strumming and muting with the humbucker'd guitar. That's how noise-free a high gain Si FF-type can be.

Of course, with single coils, anything that adds gain will make it noisier, but that's not the fault of the gain-adding device.

Hello Hello Erik--
  I always went back to the original Fuzz Face and Tonebender layouts for reference but there always seemed to be one or two traces that were a little long, and when I tried to change that around it screwed up the rest of the layout!   Sometimes I  just lay out a board as per the schematic......seems to work o.k. alot of the time.
Thanks!
Brian      [say "hi" to California for me!]

Hi,

 Why some old 3 Knobs TB are very deep sounding,not in your face even in transistors amps ? I'm asking if old  PCBs design and material (epoxy or bakelite)could affect so more the sound?
Regards
Bruno