Andy's Simple Fuzztone !

[earthrockery]

I gave this a shot a couple of days ago and I think the circuit is working but it doesn't sound that good. The fuzz isn't strong.(It barely distorts.)

Used 2N2222 and 2N3906 and replaced the output cap to a 0.022uF as Andy suggested and it improved the sound a bit...
But I was wondering that it doesn't boost the sound as everyone says yet it does the contrary. I have to turn the volume up to hear the sounds coming out of it.

Anyways, I'm gonna learn how this works and try to find out my mistakes and improve it into something usable.

[Gus]

I would try something like a MPSA18 for Q1.   Then you need to find the Q1 collector voltage range that sounds good.

[earthrockery]

I would try something like a MPSA18 for Q1.   Then you need to find the Q1 collector voltage range that sounds good.

I'm going to try different trannys tomorrw. But most of the transistors mentioned here cannot be found in local shops. And I've to test the voltage ranges before using them...

[earthrockery]

Ignore my comment about the sounds low. It was because of my faults. Now it's working fine.

[cheezit]

Ignore my comment about the sounds low. It was because of my faults. Now it's working fine.

If you got something that sounds like the original clips, esp. in regard to how much fuzz is happening, you'd be (I think) the first one on this thread to get this circuit to work the same way the original does.  Whereas a number of people have gotten a loud booster instead.

Can you describe what you have?  What transistors, hfe values (if you have them), and voltages?  Any other adjustments to the original circuit?

[Dragonfly]

Ignore my comment about the sounds low. It was because of my faults. Now it's working fine.

If you got something that sounds like the original clips, esp. in regard to how much fuzz is happening, you'd be (I think) the first one on this thread to get this circuit to work the same way the original does.  Whereas a number of people have gotten a loud booster instead.

Can you describe what you have?  What transistors, hfe values (if you have them), and voltages?  Any other adjustments to the original circuit?

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From earlier in this thread.....

Yo

  Breadboarded it last night. Worked great right off the bat. 2n222 in Q1, 2n2907 in Q2. Tried some different caps in the. Right now I have a 1uf input, .1uf output. Sounds great! Has balls and a nice texture. Gross! let me rephrase that. Has a nice low end grunt and nice detail in the fuzz sound. Cleans up well with the volume control. Great candidate for a pre gain control.

--Brad

Breadboarded with a 3904 and a 3906, sounds great.

Nice job Andy   

P.S. In addition to the low parts count, its the common values that really do it for me. Just by looking at the schem i knew right away that I had hundreds of all the resistors and caps in the exact values, didn't have to worry about finding say a 66k resistor or something like that. Keep it up!



Zach

and from another forum ....

Thanks Andy - looks like I went a bit overboard with the sockets, not sure what I was thinking. Perhaps I wasn't

I've got 3904 and 3906 trannies in there now and much prefer the sound- still lots of bass but more definition now and closer to your examples. Had a good play with the pedal tonight, on its own and in combination with others. Really like it- it's like a massive pair of size 12 boots! Much like a bass-booster, as opposed to a treble-booster, it adds a really pleasing fatness and girth to any given sound I've got going at the time I stomp on it.

Also swapped a few resistors around in place of the 1k one. I'm sure you know what the effect is, but in case it's of any use to others building, I tried a 10k res which added a very choked lo-fi edge to things. 15k more so. There might be something more genuinely useable around the 2-4k mark but I haven't any to hand at the moment. Went below 1k to .470k and .700k. As you drop below 1k the volume boost offered by the pedal drops and the whole thing naturally then pushes the amp less so the distortion drops too. Sort of useful in adjusting just how hard you want the pedal to stomp all over your ears :twisted:

This is Dragonfly's Circuit...Andy's Simple Fuzztone. On Perf. I used C9102 and 2N3904 trannies. They were the combo I liked best.

This thing is kick ass. It has a ton of low end. When cranked, it will make your a**hole quiver. In fact, I am calling it the ASF QUIVER! Black Sabbath, Melvins, TAD lovers should build this guy.

[cheezit]

From earlier in this thread.....

Erm, ok, perhaps I overstated the issue  ... however there are multiple folks that got a loud booster instead.  Just trying to figure out what the common success factor is. 

Funny thing is that I like the booster that I got, esp. with a red LED for fuzz.  It's just not anywhere in the ballpark of the clips.

[earthrockery]

If you got something that sounds like the original clips, esp. in regard to how much fuzz is happening, you'd be (I think) the first one on this thread to get this circuit to work the same way the original does.  Whereas a number of people have gotten a loud booster instead.

Can you describe what you have?  What transistors, hfe values (if you have them), and voltages?  Any other adjustments to the original circuit?

Mine also works as a loud  booster but it gives enough fuzz too although it doesn't sound like the original. But if you read this entire thread you'll find out some modifications that will help you to lower the sounds as some suggested, and I'm gonna try them soon.

Ok, I built the same thing as in the first post and used 2N2222 and 2N3906.(sorry about the voltages) I changed the output cap into a 0.022uF. No pots for volume or gain. The circuit is exact as the original one. And it's usable, and I'm glad that it doesn't give any hums.

[Gus]

I posted some things in this thread and I guess I need to "spell out" what I hinted at.

First simple circuits like this can be fun: however the simple part limited circuits sometimes set limits.

If you have a scope take your guitar(s) and strum direct into the scope note the peak to peak output at the attack and as the note decays.
Then load the guitar with the scope still attached with 1meg.
Then try 470K
Then try 220K etc.

Next calculate the input resistance of the simple fuzztone AOE.  This why I posted try a transistor like a MPSA18 for Q1

Now you know or can test and know the max level your guitar will output into this circuit direct connected.

People that have problems did not post what guitar/pickup/active/passive that did not cause fuzz.  It could be as simple as not enough output level from the guitar the pickups might be low output or can not drive this circuit input resistance hard enought

SIMPLE TEST

The input resistance part is easy to test take an effect like a stock TS9 etc set to bypass and the buffers in this will remove the loading of the simple fuzztone.  If that does not help try with a little bit of gain in the TS this will show if there is enough pickup output to drive the circuit into clipping.  Another fun test try a passive P bass etc and see/hear if it clips.  It might make a very nice bass fuzz because of the output of bass pickups.

Now if one take a close look at the fuzz face.  It is a two stage gain design and sometimes it does not have enough gain sometimes.
The 2nd stage of a FF at max is about the same gain of ASFT Q1 section

When posted questions about circuits not working "correctly" sometimes the guitar/bass and amp/speakers used can help.

[cheezit]

I posted some things in this thread and I guess I need to "spell out" what I hinted at.

Apparently so.  I don't have a scope and didn't connect the dots from your posts (from input resistance to pickup output level).

I did experience the buffered vs. non-buffered effect, but with the transistor selection I had in place the result wasn't that great.  Just like a FF, the buffer reduces touch sensitivity considerably.

The guitar I was using has a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker in the bridge and a Yamaha humbucker of similar output in the neck.  Both are reasonably loud pickups, though not crazy loud.

Looking back over the posts in this thread, I don't have any NPN transistors in the 200+ hfe range, as Andy used.   I do wonder if chaining two of the NPN stages together might give something interesting...

[Branimir]

I used an Edwards LP goldtop copy with mild output P90 seymour duncans and got loud boost too...

In the meantime i took apart the perfboard, but I'll give it a try once again this during this week...

[arawn]

Ok has anyone figured out where the magic is? I breadboarded it yesterday and ran into the same problem most everyone else did huge boost no fuzz and my q1 voltage readings are out of whack although q2 was pretty close to the specified range.
q1
c 8.54v
b 2.537v
e .2mv (prolly should have waited another second my meter is slow to go to zero)

q2
c .1mv
b 5.44v
e 6.13v

used all specified values and even took out the optional pulldown resistor and volume control.
I tried all the different trannys i could even so far as a 2n5089.
I used a dell pocket dj and audio probe through a crate gx15r ss amp.
when I try a guitar either jayturser tele with average pickups, my strat with hot rodded texas special copies, or my jackson with generic 2 wire humbuckers  I get nothing
but the dj is able to pass a signal with the volume down as low as 8 or 9!
what could i have missed? I reworked it on the breadboard 4 times and am 100% positive that i have it wired correctly, am also positive about tranny pinouts ?
thanks 

[DougH]

c 8.54v

That should be much lower. My sim showed that to be around 3v. That may vary but even so 8.54 is way too high and probably the source of your problem.

[Branimir]

I know, I'm bringing up this topic from page 999... I've perfed it again, put sockets for transistors...

I tried 2N2219A, 2N3904, 2N4401
pnp is 2N3906, hfe is around 250.

Volume boost with all of them, highest hfe was from 2N4401, hfe was 280.

Currently I have 2N3904 installed so here are the voltages:

Q1:
C=1.98V
B=0.66V
E=0V

Q2:
C=0V
B=1.98V
E=2.65V

Even tried with th BC549C, and it seems that the bias won't work for BC549C...

I got something that could be called early breakup from 2N4401 that has higher hfe, but it's still just a loud boost...

anyone cracking up this one?

[Zben3129]

I'm thinking this is probably an impedance issue. General rule of thumb for me is if there is something unexplainable going on that seems like magic (but bad magic), its impedance.

Try a different guitar?

Zach

[John Lyons]

I'm thinking this circuit has a lot to do with the amp's headroom level.
A cleanish amp with a loud boost in front of it (like this circuit) is going to overdrive hard and sound like Andy's clip.
From listening to a few of Andy's other clip, his amps clean sound on the edge of breakup/overdrive.

With a truly clean amp this circuit will just be a loud boost and not much else.
Seems to make sense to me.

john

[Zben3129]

I'm thinking this circuit has a lot to do with the amp's headroom level.
A cleanish amp with a loud boost in front of it (like this circuit) is going to overdrive hard and sound like Andy's clip.
From listening to a few of Andy's other clip, his amps clean sound on the edge of breakup/overdrive.

With a truly clean amp this circuit will just be a loud boost and not much else.
Seems to make sense to me.

john

When you suggested this I went "why didn't I think of that"

But then I tried it to confirm and that isn't the case  . My solidstate doesn't break up on the clean channel ever, and I had it at low gain and volume (absolutely no chance of breakup) and still tons of fuzz. So for me, mine is working with a 3904 and 3906 as a fuzz without breaking up the amp at all.

And its still a mystery 


Zach

[John Lyons]

Hmmm... Ok, well I guess I 'll have to build this and see for mice elf.
Good to know though, thanks Zach.

john

[earthtonesaudio]

Just wanted to say that "Andy's Simple Fuzztone" deserves some more props, as it was a big inspiration behind my latest project.  Thanks Andy!  (unfortunately I couldn't get it to bias quite right using "approximately" the same values, and didn't investigate further  )
Anyway thanks for the inspiration, and the clips sound great as always.

Schematic:
http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/Schematics-etc/earthtonesgallery/Bootstrap.png.html
Sample:
http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/Schematics-etc/earthtonesgallery/bootstrap.mp3.html
The other source of inspiration:
http://sound.westhost.com/ism-fig8.gif

[Joe Stone]

Hey! I breadboarded this a couple weeks ago and I finally got around to recording a sound clip last night... 



Wav File

coooool...  first time I used a breadboard, and only my second completed circuit.
I'm not sure if I got it exactly right, but it sure is fuzzy.  .  . some of the other break-up in the clip is from the ill maintained 5-way switch on my guitar.

And the clean signal is barely audible, but I'm learnin'.

Thanks for the project, Andy!