Dirty sanchez= Brilliant design

[Dragonfly]

....as my mind is no longer in "mint condish"

you and me both, brother....you and me both....   


AC

[billings]

Have either of you hooked up that DPDT?  Have you had any problems with it popping?  If it does then I think you could put a resistor in the 12-15k range with an SPST switch in parallel with the 47k and get the same effect - unless you're real picky about the resistance being exactly 10k.  Of course if it works fine then nevermind.

[Dragonfly]

ive used it, either with a dpdt, or 3pdt (with leds) on other fuzzes without issues, so i wouldnt think there'd be a problem...if you use a stomp swith, you could change tones mid-song...

AC

[stumper1]

All right.....it's time.  I've been busy with other stuff lately - built an amp, got a new motorcycle, work....work... - but I have been looking for something to peak my interest. So far I have liked the few Dragonfly builds that I have done - can't live with out my SparkleBoost.

Never been much of a Fuzz guy - I think the time has come

[lerxstlover]

Hey guys I think something may be wrong with the PCB layout below.

I pulled Q1/2/3 and C1 and socketed them so I could try different values AND I thought I might have a bad one because I was getting TERRIBLE hiss (especially when the guitar volume is turned off) and blatty sound.  I also replaced the pots thinking I had a bad one, then I remelted all of the solders (I had found a couple loose ones.)

I've got new caps, pots and trannies and still horrible hiss and blatty sound.  I wired up a 3PDT switch with LED and when the effect is turned on I'm getting low, distorted sound right from the input jack (I'm using the audio probe tool from R.G.'s website) which shouldn't be happening.  No solder bridges, so I'm thinking something is not connected right on the PCB.  I'll confess I'm posting before I really dig into it, but I'm thinking that's it.  I did it from Yun's/Dragonfly's schematics so I might have mis-interpreted and connected something wrong (it's my first PCB from a schematic .)  When I turn off the effect I'm getting clean sound at the input jack, which I should be getting if the effect is turned on or off.

How would you compare this to Tims Triple ...Yun ?

If by tipple; you mean tripple fuzz; then:  i'd say- far better to my taste. 

This fuzz box is actually pretty versatile, man.  You can pretty much get the old Univox/unicord Super-fuzz tones, creammy FF style fuzz (like Eric clapton's tone(s) live in the 1968 "Cream era"), over-driven mixer type fuzz-tones (nirvana's "stay away", or Les claypool's Frog bregade "David makalaston") . 

Right now; to give you an idea of how i got these tones; here's my RIG:

-Old ibanez ES-335 Copy, or 1982 fender strat (AKA the rare bird, bassically a 69' strat with H/s/s configuration, blonde maple fret-board etc.)--->Rack compressor--->dirty sanchez (with Q2 and Q3's collectors at 100K and the diode clipping circuit with compression control)--->31-band Rack EQ--->Old 100Watt peavey tube amp. 

Here's the layout thanks to:  lerxstlover (i fixed the PCB layout, and added a few " new-B goodies")

[lerxstlover]

Hmmmm....I've checked and checked I'm pretty sure that layout is correct.  Don't know why I'm getting a signal bleed back to the input, though.  The only thing I can think of is I used a 10K Audio for the comp circuit (all I had laying around.)  Would that make a difference? I'll try bypassing it and see if that helps.

[Yun]

Hey guys I think something may be wrong with the PCB layout below.

I pulled Q1/2/3 and C1 and socketed them so I could try different values AND I thought I might have a bad one because I was getting TERRIBLE hiss (especially when the guitar volume is turned off) and blatty sound.  I also replaced the pots thinking I had a bad one, then I remelted all of the solders (I had found a couple loose ones.)

I've got new caps, pots and trannies and still horrible hiss and blatty sound.  I wired up a 3PDT switch with LED and when the effect is turned on I'm getting low, distorted sound right from the input jack (I'm using the audio probe tool from R.G.'s website) which shouldn't be happening.  No solder bridges, so I'm thinking something is not connected right on the PCB.  I'll confess I'm posting before I really dig into it, but I'm thinking that's it.  I did it from Yun's/Dragonfly's schematics so I might have mis-interpreted and connected something wrong (it's my first PCB from a schematic .)  When I turn off the effect I'm getting clean sound at the input jack, which I should be getting if the effect is turned on or off.

How would you compare this to Tims Triple ...Yun ?

If by tipple; you mean tripple fuzz; then:  i'd say- far better to my taste. 

This fuzz box is actually pretty versatile, man.  You can pretty much get the old Univox/unicord Super-fuzz tones, creammy FF style fuzz (like Eric clapton's tone(s) live in the 1968 "Cream era"), over-driven mixer type fuzz-tones (nirvana's "stay away", or Les claypool's Frog bregade "David makalaston") . 

Right now; to give you an idea of how i got these tones; here's my RIG:

-Old ibanez ES-335 Copy, or 1982 fender strat (AKA the rare bird, bassically a 69' strat with H/s/s configuration, blonde maple fret-board etc.)--->Rack compressor--->dirty sanchez (with Q2 and Q3's collectors at 100K and the diode clipping circuit with compression control)--->31-band Rack EQ--->Old 100Watt peavey tube amp. 

Here's the layout thanks to:  lerxstlover (i fixed the PCB layout, and added a few " new-B goodies")

Well, i think with this circuit, it's never going to be a feed-backer.  I mean, it's allways going to decay; The trick is the right resistance to provide sustain, man.  

Anyways, about the debugging:

What trannies are you using exactly eh?, try a 47K resistor for Q2's collector (the resistor from 9V+ to collector of Q2) .  I have a feeling that the trannies you're using are either too low gain or too high gain.

about the comp pot (10K)  try either 25K, 50K, or even 100K, man.  see if that makes a difference.  Actually; try ommiting it, the compression pot that is.  then work your way through pots.  It worked fine on mine though. 

But- i bet more than anything that it's your transistors.  Make sure that they are indeed NPN silicon, and make sure that you have the pinout correct.  Sorry about saying this- i just don't know how new you are to electronics.  i don't want you to think that i'm saying that you're stupid.....

[stumper1]

I think Yun has a good point. Remove the Compression/Diode part and see if it works. You may also want to try the 10k collector resistors per the original schem for Q2 and Q3 instead of the 100k per Yun's mods. Make it work per the original schem and then mod from there.

Just finished a layout - hope to build it tomorrow. Lots of sockets.......

[lerxstlover]

But- i bet more than anything that it's your transistors.  Make sure that they are indeed NPN silicon, and make sure that you have the pinout correct.  Sorry about saying this- i just don't know how new you are to electronics.  i don't want you to think that i'm saying that you're stupid.....

Well, I am relatively stupid...er, I mean "new" at this stuff 

I have a 5088 at Q1 and 3904's at Q2/3.  I didn't get a chance to pull out the comp mod last nite.  I'm going to try that in a minute and swap out the resistors as well.  I'll put it back to spec and then work from there  (this board is going to be full of sockets  )

Thanks for the help!

[lerxstlover]

Ok, here's my debug info......dang I'm frustrated it's such a simple circuit, yet I still found a way to mess it up...   I did try a 47K resistor on Q2's collecter per advice, and the sound is that of an overdrive with the neck pickup on, and every once in a while the "dirty" fuzz pops through but it's still really blatty.  I checked all solders and remelted a few to be safe.  I got my Mouser package today so I put a 100K Audio on the level pot.  I also have a 25K linear for the comp circuit, but I haven't hooked that back up yet and won't until I get the "normal" circuit working right.

Here's what I've got.  I went back as close to original spec as I could.  I socketed Q's 1/2/3 and R's 3/4/5 so I could try different values.  When I put all the Q's back to 5088 and 47K for R3 it seemed to get a littler better, so maybe it's a question of finding the right balance?

Anyway, here are the readings (R3 was at 100K when I took these):

Q1: 5088
Q2: 5088
Q3: 5088

C1: 1uF
C2: .1uF
C3: .1uF
C4: .1uF

R1: 10K
R3: 100K
R4: 10K
R5: 10K

D1: 1N914 (original calls for 1N963)

R2: 100K Lin Pot
R6: 100K Lin Pot (now 100K Audio)

I took out the compression circuit (D2,D3) and jumpered C4 to Collector of Q3 per original specs.  I'm getting blatty sound, but the hiss is gone 

Here's the readings from the board:

9V in: 9.3V

Q1:
C = .89
B = .61
E = 0

Q2:
C = .67
B = .57
E = 0

Q3:
C = .01
B = .67 (to Q2 Base)
E = 0

Resistors, diodes and caps are top to bottom from "top" of board (where pot hookups are):

R1 = 9.3, .89 (to Q1 C)
R3 = .58, .68 (to Q2 C)
R4 = 9.3, .68 (to Q2 C)
R5 = 9.3, .01 (to Q3 C)

C1 = .01, .61 (to Q1 B)
C2 = 0, .91 (to Q1 C)
C3 = 0, .58 (to Q2 B)
C4 = 0, .01 (to Q3 C)

D1 = .61, .91

I'm working on it now with the audio probe...so hopefully I'll find it soon.  Thanks again!

[fixr1984]

I drew this up for stip. How does it look?  I'm sure it could be made smaller.
So did i miss anything or have the layout wrong? Is the first pot a gain pot?
Yun labeled his as P1 and wasn't sure what to call it.

[lerxstlover]

Ok, after MUCH experimenting and a little research (thanks R.G. for the debug page on Geofex!) I realized what was happening....

I was getting a "blatty" sound unless I hit the strings really hard.  I remember reading something on GeoFex and I found the following:

======
If no sound happens until you really hit it with a lot of signal, the signal is having to supply the bias, so look for a transistor with its base too close to its emitter - less than 0.4V or so.
======

When I hit a string, as the sound began to fade the signal got blatty and then just clipped off.   Referencing above and looking at Q2/Q3, the base of Q3 is tied to the collector of Q2, so their voltages are the same, however the reading on the base of Q2 is only about .1 different.  The way this circuit is setup, I don't see how to fix that since the base of Q3 and the collector of Q2 are tied to the same resistors.  I tried different values of resistors, but the difference between collector and base stayed about the same no matter what the voltage reading.  I had socketed the trannies, caps (except C4) and resistors (except R1) so I was able to experiment and get some different tones.  Here is what I settled on and it gives a nice loooooonnnnnngggg sustain:

C1 = 1uF
C2 = 1uF
C3 = 1uF

D1 = 1N963

R1 = 10K
R3 = 47K
R4 = 100K
R5 = 100K

Q1/Q2/Q3 = 5088

This seemed to give the best tone and sustain.  No more blats, either and no hiss, etc.  Nice and quiet until you play.  I don't have any 5089's laying around, so next I'll probably socket R1 and C4 and play with different mixes of trannies, caps, etc.  But for now I'm happy with the tone.  Sounds like a vintage fuzz and the compression mod is great!

On another note, I finally got tired of flipping wires, etc. out of the way, so I grabbed a spare piece of 1/8" birch plywood from the shop and took the uni-bit and made a wiring faceplate.  I'm sure I'm not the first person to do this, but MAN did it make working on this thing so much easier!



Not fancy but you can mount the pots, jacks and switches so they stay in place, then plug in your guitar to test it out and get wiring lengths manageable.

Thanks guys for the help!

[Yun]

Ok, after MUCH experimenting and a little research (thanks R.G. for the debug page on Geofex!) I realized what was happening....

I was getting a "blatty" sound unless I hit the strings really hard.  I remember reading something on GeoFex and I found the following:

======
If no sound happens until you really hit it with a lot of signal, the signal is having to supply the bias, so look for a transistor with its base too close to its emitter - less than 0.4V or so.
======

When I hit a string, as the sound began to fade the signal got blatty and then just clipped off.   Referencing above and looking at Q2/Q3, the base of Q3 is tied to the collector of Q2, so their voltages are the same, however the reading on the base of Q2 is only about .1 different.  The way this circuit is setup, I don't see how to fix that since the base of Q3 and the collector of Q2 are tied to the same resistors.  I tried different values of resistors, but the difference between collector and base stayed about the same no matter what the voltage reading.  I had socketed the trannies, caps (except C4) and resistors (except R1) so I was able to experiment and get some different tones.  Here is what I settled on and it gives a nice loooooonnnnnngggg sustain:

C1 = 1uF
C2 = 1uF
C3 = 1uF

D1 = 1N963

R1 = 10K
R3 = 47K
R4 = 100K
R5 = 100K

Q1/Q2/Q3 = 5088

This seemed to give the best tone and sustain.  No more blats, either and no hiss, etc.  Nice and quiet until you play.  I don't have any 5089's laying around, so next I'll probably socket R1 and C4 and play with different mixes of trannies, caps, etc.  But for now I'm happy with the tone.  Sounds like a vintage fuzz and the compression mod is great!

On another note, I finally got tired of flipping wires, etc. out of the way, so I grabbed a spare piece of 1/8" birch plywood from the shop and took the uni-bit and made a wiring faceplate.  I'm sure I'm not the first person to do this, but MAN did it make working on this thing so much easier!



Not fancy but you can mount the pots, jacks and switches so they stay in place, then plug in your guitar to test it out and get wiring lengths manageable.

Thanks guys for the help!

Far out, man!  glad you got it working, dude. 

Glad that i could be of assistance.  If i was that is hahaha. 

How do you like the compression pot eh?  You can do that mod with bassically anything with a standard diode clipping circuit, man. 

I think that we should make a layout with 100K trimmers for the collector of Q2 and Q3; as Dragonfly suggested. 

[Yun]

I drew this up for stip. How does it look?  I'm sure it could be made smaller.
So did i miss anything or have the layout wrong? Is the first pot a gain pot?
Yun labeled his as P1 and wasn't sure what to call it.

Looks good, man.  I've personally never strip-boarded anything, just a "perf-kinda-guy" i guess    . 

P1- it's called a "texture control", man.  Not a fuzz control at all, more like a "tone" control but it controls.....well.....the texture of the fuzz.  When you build it- you'll se what i mean, dude.....

[lerxstlover]

I think that we should make a layout with 100K trimmers for the collector of Q2 and Q3; as Dragonfly suggested. 

Yeah that sounds cool.  I've got an Omni Drive I'm trying to finish up this weekend....that thing is a monster on the faceplate (I'm trying to wire all the switches as DPDT w/ LED, so it' 6 stomps total w/ LED, plus four pots...)

[slacker]

I've been after a really evil sounding fuzz for a while and after reading this thread I though I'd give the Dirty Sanchez a try. I'm glad I did this thing is amazing   I haven't enjoyed myself so much with a pedal for ages, The ripped speaker and the splatty "missbiased" sounds are great and theres loads of weird synthy sounds in there as well.
Like Yun said it's very Effector 13.
Just to try something a bit different I built mine with a BC108C for Q1 and a BC107B for Q3. For Q2 I used a leaky old AC127, probably no good for a fuzz face but works great here. I also put a couple of clipping diodes on the output, but without the compression control.
I used 10k collector resistors for Q2 and Q3 and a 470k pot in series with the 10K on Q1.
The other mod I did was to put a 560ohm resistor between Q3's emitter and ground. This completely got rid of the gating effect and made the pedal into a great high gain fuzz with loads of sustain. The texture pot controls the tone of the fuzz and it even cleans up when you back off the guitar.
So that I could get all the original sounds back I put a switch across the 560ohm resistor that shorts the emitter to ground.
Dirty Sanchez, it's filthy

[Dragonfly]

I've been after a really evil sounding fuzz for a while and after reading this thread I though I'd give the Dirty Sanchez a try. I'm glad I did this thing is amazing   I haven't enjoyed myself so much with a pedal for ages, The ripped speaker and the splatty "missbiased" sounds are great and theres loads of weird synthy sounds in there as well.
Like Yun said it's very Effector 13.
Just to try something a bit different I built mine with a BC108C for Q1 and a BC107B for Q3. For Q2 I used a leaky old AC127, probably no good for a fuzz face but works great here. I also put a couple of clipping diodes on the output, but without the compression control.
I used 10k collector resistors for Q2 and Q3 and a 470k pot in series with the 10K on Q1.
The other mod I did was to put a 560ohm resistor between Q3's emitter and ground. This completely got rid of the gating effect and made the pedal into a great high gain fuzz with loads of sustain. The texture pot controls the tone of the fuzz and it even cleans up when you back off the guitar.
So that I could get all the original sounds back I put a switch across the 560ohm resistor that shorts the emitter to ground.
Dirty Sanchez, it's filthy

glad you like it...it was one of my earliest circuit designs, so i'm pretty darn fond of it....its loud, evil, obnoxious, and VERY modd-able....

post some soundclips if you have a chance...i believe someone has a soundclip gallery in the layouts gallery section....

AC

[slacker]

Ok then here's some soundclips.
These are in normal mode using different texture pot pot settings and tweaking the guitars tone and volume controls.
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_60s.mp3 60s style fuzz
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_blown.mp3 Don't worry your speakers haven't just blown up 
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_oct.mp3 Octavy sounds
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_synth.mp3 cheap synth sounds

A couple more with the Q3 "high gain" emittor resistor mod. They're a bit noisy, but the circuit's not boxed up yet.

http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_hgfuzz.mp3 high gain fuzz
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_swell.mp3 weird swell fuzz

enjoy

[Dragonfly]

Ok then here's some soundclips.
These are in normal mode using different texture pot pot settings and tweaking the guitars tone and volume controls.
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_60s.mp3 60s style fuzz
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_blown.mp3 Don't worry your speakers haven't just blown up 
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_oct.mp3 Octavy sounds
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_synth.mp3 cheap synth sounds

A couple more with the Q3 "high gain" emittor resistor mod. They're a bit noisy, but the circuit's not boxed up yet.

http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_hgfuzz.mp3 high gain fuzz
http://aronnelson.com/gallery/albums/slackers-stuff/ds_swell.mp3 weird swell fuzz

enjoy

its hard to do anything but smile

the best part is that there are bunches of other sounds too ! 

another possible mod....use a 1k pot from Q1 emitter to ground...should give more control of the fuzz....you might try this idea if you still have it on the breadboard...

AC

[slacker]

cool, glad you liked them. I've got it vero, but as it happens I've got a jumper between Q1's emitter and ground so I could easily splice a pot in there. I'll give it a try.