I bought a fuzz pedal. After buying it I now should have got one with germanium trans instead of silicon.
 My question is can I swap out the silicon ones and put in germanium ones.
  the pedal does have a trim pot to adjust the voltage.
   Here a pic of the pedal can be found.
http://home.earthlink.net/~alexisg73/
    the pedal as it is now has a very heavy Mudhoney type sound and really isnt that great for leads.
    Im looking to get more of a lead guitar sound like hendrix band of gypsies with less bass.
     Any thoughts or help is appreciated and thanks in advance!
Chris

Generally, you have to re-bias the circuit for a germanium. When you say voltage trimpot, do you mean to the collecter? Or to the potential divider before the base?  With this 'voltage controler', you may be able to adjust the bias, but i think you may have to sub a couple of components in there. Looks cool though  

I would try putting different silicon transistors in there before going to germanium.

I suggest BC109's, readily available at Small Bear.

It is possible to put NPN germania on a NPN silicon FF PCB, but in my experience, NPN germania have vastly different bias needs from NPN silicon.

Go to my website and listen to the Crucible Fuzz samples. It uses BC109C's, and is probably a similar circuit.

eric,   that's a great sounding fuzz (the crucible).....and it uses bc109c's. i like it!  jon

I will try differnt silicons and see what happens. I like the fuzz....maybe i shoud just buy another one!
chris

Have a look at the thread on "piggybacking" Si transistors for low gain.  There's a description there of how to get a Ge (or better) sound from Si transistors (yeah, I know that's heretical, but it's true).

Quote from: gringo699cI bought a fuzz pedal. After buying it I now should have got one with germanium trans instead of silicon. I'm looking to get more of a lead guitar sound like hendrix band of gypsies with less bass.

Well, a germanium fuzz is probably gonna have more bass than the silicon one you have. The sound of a fuzzface type pedal really depends on what amp you're plugging it into. Hendrix plugged his into a non master volume Marshall Super Lead 100. Plugging the same fuzz into a solid state amp is gonna sound like Mudhoney. What is your rig?

Regards

RDV

I been there before..same type of delima..Unless you know what your doing, soldering..ect..dont mess with it. Im sure you paid a good price for it..Leave it and buy another..thats just the way it goes..If u ruin it trying, u cant resell it. If you really dont ike it, theres always ebay. Sell it and buy the one you want. Besides, how do u know the granium one u want will even sound good with your rig? Some of my effects sound better w my solid state than my tube amp and vice versa..good luck! jim

I also wanted to toss in that on BOG that is a silicon fuzzface.

Regards

RDV

That pedal looks good...you might not want to mess with it too much.
 Try adding [looks like theres room] a buffer before it and you can alter the frequency response and tone alot' with it's input cap value.
  Sometiems a booster or buffer in front of a FF is niceto have in case you want to drive it with a wah...
 just changin the input cap makes a very difference in how loose the bass is in fact how much the bass is cut.
  also there's that 22uf ? polarized cap, I sometimes liek 10uf there.
  Germanuim in Q1 [postition may possibly be easier to find one that biass and sounds good, I've think I notice Q1 W/Germanuim influences more Ge mojo that Q2...but I would save all that for the 'next one'...
  I like all my feedback loop kids. I recommend building another...might take some 'doing'...Pete was down there still taweekin' on FF's Again...but even after all this time...I think I got it now...oh yes ... I can't wait again I'm getting the first batches of BCxxx transistors to try out soon...

That way you can use a breadboard or get a perf with a couple or few resistors on it the rest trimpots and sockets and really tune a set of transistors or matched Ge's.

ErikMiller, is your pedal a tweaked Fuzz Face?

Quote from: javacodyErikMiller, is your pedal a tweaked Fuzz Face?

Pretty much (although I prefer the terms "hot-rodded" or "souped up":-). I select the transistors for gains much higher than suggested by conventional wisdom, and adjust the resistors (and layout!) to accommodate them.

One of the differences in approach, and why I don't pitch it much as a "fuzz face," is that I'm not trying to copy the sound of a fuzz face.

It uses the basic fuzz face circuit, but I think of the Crucible Fuzz as the Boogie Mark I to the Fuzz Face's Princeton.

From a financial standpoint, I'd try to sell it & if you get a ggod offer, buy a GE pair from SmallBear.
Failing that, try running a very small cap at the input (say 470pf), it is an easy try, just in case.

Im not gonna mess with the pedal. Its actually kind of cool and I will get another one. The workmanship is incredible and I dont want to mess it up.
 My rig is a Hughes and Kettner triamp. It has six channels and is a tube amp. I have a 4x12 with vintage 30's.
 I also have an sd1 that i modified and will try that in front of the fuzz pedal as a clean boost.
 I only paid $80 for the pedal off ebay so I got a good deal on it.
 I tried messing with the bias knob and that changed things a bit.
 Thanks for all your suggestions and help I appreciate it!
chris