A Factory of Fuzz

When I first sett of to the journey for the soundscapes of Fuzz territory I didn't really know what I was about to find. I thought that I would build two or three circuits and then box them and go on with my life. As soon as I build the first one I realized that the journey has just begun. From the song list of the previous post you can collect maybe 20 or so fuzz variations which really sound different and probably hundreds of sounds if you go into the details. When I stumbled on the Z. Vex Fuzz Factory video I thought "Man, this is a cool little bastard". It was a Germanium fuzz face (YAFF - Yet Another Fuzz Face) with a buffer input stage and a negative voltage which is an unusual design for PNP trannys. More appealing were the pots located on areas of the schematics which gave the fuzz some really deep control over GATING, COMPRESSION, oscillation STABILITY and, of course, DRIVE.

As I had a few AC128 lying around which I tested for gain and leakage, I thought it could be a simple build and I may find my ultimate sound bank of fuzz versatility. As soon as I finished it I took it to a rehearsal. It was a dense jungle of wires and pots on the studio carpet and... it tore the place down. 

It's a very fun piece of gear with some neat tricks. It will get you close to a straight over the top Fuzz Face, it  reacts well to guitar roll-off and the interaction between the DRIVE and STAB can get you deep into heavy psych-land. The most cool sound I got from this circuit is what Z. Vex call the Velcro effect which is a heavily gated nasal tone that sounds a little like the Mike Ratledge organ fuzz sound on Soft Machine. Like a vintage analog synth or something.

My settings didn't sound exactly like the sounds described on the preset list with hte knobs at the specified locations but a little tweaking here and there and I got the sounds it's supposed to produce.

It's a really versatile unit but I couldn't make it my go-to box because each sound was good but not perfect, except for that sweet sticky Velcro sound and the weird oscillations which are always good when you just wanna go plain crazy. Not a complete winner but definitely worth a shot if you want to scorch some guitar asphalt. Again, I owe you some sound samples and if you comment, I will post them. If you want to build this one, use the verified schematic shown here.

The Germanium Fuzz Face

Once I had a few Germanium Tranny lying around and I knew how to measure them properly for leakage and gain I continued my quest for the perfect fuzz with the most famous fuzz in the world of Rock and Blues. My first fuzz ever was the Runoffgroove Silicon Fuzz Face which I built a few years ago. This time I'm going all the way back to 1968

This was, of course, Fuzz Face, issued around 1966 by Dallas Arbiter in the UK. The original Face was built with 2 Germanium trannys which were replaced in the early 70's with Silicon ones.

Hendrix, Muddy Waters and Gilmour used the Ge version and I thought I'd give it a go as it is such a simple design. I got a round candy box from a friend at work and finally decided to go with the FullTone '69 schematic which appears on GeneralGuitarGadgets. It's not the finest enclosure but....its round just like the Face and I kept the name - '69. 

This version implements BIAS and BODY controls for more tone control, very similar to the FullTone version and you can really play a lot with the sound. The AC128 Ge Trannys are supposed to be less stable and temperature dependent but I don't  feel any weird behavior from the unit on stage or at home. All I heard was great singing quality which really makes your guitar sound like a square wave synth. Using the BIAS knob or the guitar volume knob gives you that clean edgy sparkling Hendrix sound which is heard so often when he plays chords. I always thought this was an amp thing. Compared to a Silicon Fuzz Face it is deeper and bassier. anyway its singing quality and voicing is great. quite an amazing sound for such a simple design. Most of the time I find myself having the FUZZ knob cranked all the way up.  You can look up the schematic on the GeneralGuitarGadgets website or get it here.

The fuzz that Burns

Continuing my search for that perfect fuzz sound I realized that in those days our great forefathers used Germanium Transistors in their Fuzz boxes and that included The Beatles, Stones' Keith Richards, Robert Fripp of King Crimson, Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Dick Dale, Mick Ronson and probably every Psych and Garage band in The US between 1965-1969. These guys have either used a Maestro FZ-1 (USA) or a Tonebender MK1 (England). Those two pedals shared a lot of similarities with regards to the schematics and the trannys used in them (low gain high leakage Germs) and both seemed impossible to build without some research and experimentation.

Needless to say I had to build one of those. I found a lot of material but a lot of controversial stuff too and it all seemed like there was a lot of voodoo around these schematics and those Germanium Trannys that eventually I decided to start with some easier Germanium pedals before I reached the hard ones.

The first schematic I found that seemed reliable and tunable was the Baldwin-Burns-Buzzaround (produced 1965-68) which according to the stories was used by Fripp on the King Crimson "RED" album which is probably one of my top 10 albums of all times. His Les Paul sounds just incredible through that fuzz and probably followed by a HiWatt amp. I gave it a go and it came out FANTASTIC. My first Germanium Fuzz with AC128 Trannys measured for Hfe Gain and leakage. It's not the original trannys used in the original circuit but it still sounds like the real deal to me. The Schematic can be found here. I used my own layout but a lot of info can be found here, and here

So here is my BBB takeoff which I named BURNS and had it enclosed in a RED (like the album) enclosure. The controls are labeled "Balance" (volume), "Timbre" (tone) and "Sustain" (gain) but they are so coupled (interleaved) so that you can't really use them in the ordinary way and really tune all three for each setting. This box really nails that Starless sound... btw it would be a few months before I really succeeded building a variation of the Maestro FZ-1.