The Super GroundHogs Fuzz

During my last few years hunting for that "one fuzz to rule them all" perfect fuzz sound, I investigated literally hundreds and hundreds of albums, setups, schematics and actual pedals looking for those magical sounds that we all know and love so much. It's no secret that most of the fuzz hype and plethora of versions come from the seed designs of the early Fuzz Tone, Fuzz Rite, Fuzz Face, Big Muff etc. Once you hear a sound that you think you never heard before, and like it, you start digging in deeper, trying to understand what was going on during that recording that made the guitar sound so damn good. Over the years I've had some success tracking several epic guitar sounds which I truly admire like those created by legendary players like Dave Allen, Dick Dale, Robbie Krieger, Harrison, Clapton, Hendrix, Fripp, Gilmour, Page, Blackmore, Allman, Lee, Howe, Hackett, May, Barre, Iommi, Corgan, and many others. Each one with his own playing style, modified amps and the insane voodoo stories around the use of secret arsenal of fuzz and booster pedals.

Townshend using his Super-Fuzz
into the legendary Hi Watt stack

A few years ago I ran into the Groundhogs. I didn't know anything about them or about Tony TS McPhee the guitarist-vocalist-bluesist mastermind behind the band. What started out as mild appreciation quickly grew to hard core admiration. The sound produced by McPhee on albums like Split and the live albums completely blew me away and this was after I thought I heard it all. Boy was I wrong. McPhee's bluesy finger-picking style along with his massive use of fuzz, octave-fuzz, wah-fuzz, and modified amps is a demonstration of true hard rock personality: Inventive, powerful and lean. And I didn't say the word 'punk' yet. I tried everything from vintage fuzzes, octave fuzzes and different amp combinations and couldn't get anywhere near this crazy tone of his. He founded the Groundhogs after a song by John Lee Hooker. In 1965 they were his backup band during his English tour. Imagine that! 

Anyway, running around the web and trying to mimic his incredibly extreme and experimental sound I ran into a few interviews and forums suggesting that much like Pete Townshend, his setup included a few fuzz pedals. One which seemed most interesting, most over-the-top and most promising, was the Japanese Univox Super Fuzz. Definitely the most intense sound I've ever heard.

TS McPhee finger style on a Strat

TS McPhee finger style on an SG

Without offending any Townshend and Who fans I must admit that Tony McPhee, although maybe not as huge as Townshend, does a much better job ripping apart your ears and guts with his playing and sound techniques. His got a very bluesy fingerpicking style that shows how deep his playing is connected to traditional blues.

The Super-Fuzz controls

The circuit was designed in the late 1960s by the Japanese company Shin-ei, (who also produced another well known fuzz box, the Shin-ei Companion FY-2 and manufactured in Japan by Unicord. The first Super-Fuzzes were made in 1968, and production continued until the late 70s. The original Super fuzz had two knobs and a Tone switch, apart from the huge bypass switch. The BALANCE knob is a Master volume knob and the EXPANDER knob is like your regular FUZZ GAIN knob. The TONE control is a mid scoop switch which adds a whole new dimension to the pedal. Most of the layouts and schematics I found suggested several mods to the circuit for some added functionality and versatility.

And so, even though the circuit looks too big for a fuzz, I decided that once I get a chance, I'll build it. For a year or so I was just eyeballing the circuit not knowing if I was capable of the task, and it took me a long time to go through all the possible versions, layouts and schematics until I decided to go for the layout suggested by Mark at TagboardFX layouts which which was verified by numerous builders. However, as always, I could not resist the suggested mods which aimed to enhance the sound and versatility of the pedal.

I used old layouts by Derringer and by Mike Livesly which suggested a mod for reducing the clipping effect on the clipping OA-90 germanium diodes and even completely replace them. I added a switch to change the clipping from stock to mild and named it "SAT". When clipping is suppressed the volume of the pedal increases and the saturation is reduced. Overall this means less compression, a trimmer on a switch gives you a better control over the sound.

Another mod suggested by Derringer was to add a trimpot which can bias Q4 and Q5 to get a better matching of the trannies so that the octave effect is better controlled.

Also suggested by Derringer and others was a TONE pot which replaces the TONE switch. This switch is designed to give a mid-scoop tone option and using a switch and a pot you can actually move from natural to mid-scoop using a switch and with the pot you can move continuously between full mid-scoop and no mid-scoop. The only reason I kept both switch and pot is that the no-scoop mode doesn't sound exactly like the mid-scoop with knob fully CW. They do sound alike but not exactly the same.

All these mods really give the pedal a new life and with such a large scale circuit it only serves it right.

The Super Fuzz - gut shot.

Notice the switch connected to Q5.

And last but not least is the choice of NPN transistors. I went and ordered the 2SC828 with the twisted pinout and had to go through twisting the ECB to fit in the CBE layout. I also tried various combinations with 2N222A, 2N5088, MPSA18 and even BC108. The differences were not really significant and not worth the time. Super saturation, nasally, slightly gated and mean was the character no matter what I stuck in there. It even sounded less nasally and more crunchy without Q4 at all !!!! The Q4-Q5 giving you that octave sound can be defeated by taking Q4 out and leaving the circuit pure. A cool mod for the future. I also tested single coils and humbuckers. With different amps and different playing techniques.

I don't think this circuit is for everyone. It is really one for the fuzzoholics, fuzznatics and fuzzophiles. I might name this one Fuzz-o-phile instead too. But after 3 months of trying out different settings and different styles of playing I think I understood what was missing....

Super Fuzz with some added tweaks

The Q4-Q5 pair is really the essence of this pedal, and tweaking the 10k pot between them is really what gives it that nasal octave effect which is so unique to this pedal. So after trying various configurations I decided to drop the SATURATION switch and use it for toggling Q5 emitter (could have been Q4 instead) in and out the circuit. The SAT control is not an OCTAVE switch. This did miracles to the pedal because it gave me that fuzzy crunch without the rich harmonics which, although sounds good on riffs and solos, i.e. single notes, did not sound good but actually too muddy on chords and arpeggios. The back to back diode pair which was on the SAT switch are no hardwired as per stock. It is worth noting that when Q5 is disengaged, no SAT, the EXPANDER control is less effective.

McPhuzz - what a name!

Now it was time for the pedal's name:

Super Fuzz, Fuzz-o-holic, Groundhog Fuzz, McPhuzz. I had to decide. I think this pedal is closer to the TS McPhee's sound rather than the Pete Townsend sound. Being such an underrated player as he was and probably still is, I decided to name the fuzz - McPhuzz after TS McPhee. Really proud of that name...

Anyway, you can get the schematic of this pedal with the added controls on:

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc241/guyatron/superfuzzMyMods.jpg
The original schematic on:
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j6/IvIark_2006/Layouts/Schematics/UnivoxSuperfuzz.gif
The Layout I used for 2SC828 trannys is that on:
http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.il/2012/01/univox-super-fuzz.html
And if you use regular transistors, use:
http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.il/2013/12/unicordunivox-super-fuzz.html
You can also use the layout from Derringer:
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc241/guyatron/SuperfuzzVero090630.gif
Or that by Mike Livesley:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v48/MikeyJazz/superfuzz.gif

All of the above layouts and schematics are confirmed. :)

So here's a sizable clip (24 min. long!) demonstrating all the Yings and the Yangs of this pedal with and without the Q5, with the SCOOP tone switch off and with the switch on and the accompanying scoop TONE control. The Q5 switch can be named OCTAVE or SUPER or something like that. The demo is played on a MIM Telecaster through a simulated amp.

Superfuzz clone demo by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

Britannia - The new British Channel by Runoffgroove

In 2004 the Runoffgroove team released their famous "English Channel" pedal version for the VOX AC30 Top Boost amplifier. Their acclaimed JFET take on the tube overdrive sound was a big part of the amp-in-a-pedal mania that soon flooded the guitar world with boutique vendors releasing pedal versions of every amp known to man. What started as a unique way to generate the tube gain stage using silicon transistors was slowly replaced by new techniques which replicated the tube sound better but was not necessarily based on the original amp schematics. Using the new technique, Runoffgroove updated their schematics starting with the fabulous "Azabache" circuit to replace the "Professor Tweed" as the Fender style circuit. "Britannia" is their new approach to achieving the famous sound of the VOX AC30 Top Boost. The "English Channel" was a very good overdrive in my opinion. I built it in 2011 and I was quite happy with the results. I even compared it several times with a software version of the amp and I was always satisfied.

When the "Azabache"came out, I built it right away ("Tweed Palette" on this blog). Immediately it was obvious that the ROG team has made great progress in understanding the overdrive character of the tube amp, so it was no surprise that when they released Britannia, it instantly reached the top of my list.

I decided to go with the 1776 Effects PCB this time just to check out this path as I usually build the circuits on pref-board or vero. I was really pleased with the PCB because it was built so well, with so many small features to ease the work of the builder. I highly recommend these PCB layouts for everyone who is interested in building his pedals faster and safer. The features I really liked about the PCB:

Clear and logical layout.

Clear printing for each part, including pots, trimmers, grounds in/out and 9V supply.

Tips on the drain voltage for each transistor with the voltage values printed next to the biasing trimmers.

Location for soldering test points.

Great value

So, back to the VOX AC30 Top Boost story (from wikipedia):

"The Vox AC30 was originally introduced in 1958 as “big brother” for the 15W AC15 model at Hank Marvin's (The Shadows) request because the AC15 was not loud enough with the screaming fans at Cliff Richard's concerts. Vox's original flagship amplifier. The Original first generation AC30, or AC30/4, had only a single 12" Goodman's 60W speaker in a "TV Front" cabinet, as opposed to the later, conventional twin 12" speaker configuration. The AC30/4 sported two channels with two inputs – hence the “4” in the model name. The amplifier used a GZ34 tube rectifier, three ECC83s (12AX7) for the Normal channel and it had EL34 tubes in the power amplifier circuit.

In 1961 the "Top Boost" (or "Brilliance") feature became available as Vox's optional addition of a circuit that introduced an extra gain stage and tone controls for bass and treble (as opposed to the single "tone" control of earlier AC30s). The unit became so popular that its features were soon incorporated in newer AC30/6 models, and the controls moved from the rear panel to the control panel.

The classic VOX AC30 Top Boost

Vox AC30/6 amplifiers from around 1963 had already implemented the top boost, and therefore had 3 tone controls. People began to refer to these amplifiers as AC30TBs. In addition to the "Normal" version without the Top Boost, and the Top Boost version (which was a Normal version with the "Brilliance" unit added), Vox, with slight circuit modifications, created two more versions that were “voiced” in Brilliant (Treble), and Bass styles. Of all the different models that came around many consider the AC30 "Super Twin" to be the ultimate AC30, with a "trapezoid" shaped head and separate speaker mounted on a trolly."

Brian May and his VOX wall of AC30 amps

Those early 60's TB models became the tone of choice for many legendary musicians and bands. To name just a few, we are talking about The Beatles, The Byrds, Hank Marvin (The Shadows), Brian May (Queen), Vic Flick (James Bond theme), Rory Gallagher, Tom Petty, Noel Gallagher (Oasis), Johnny Greenwood and Thom York (Radiohead), The Cure, The smiths, Muse, R.E.M and almost every band who wanted that sweet British crunch. Vox was quite an amazing music company which developed many solutions for musicians and had VOX organs, VOX wah pedals, Vox guitars, VOX PA systems and each one of those lines became a legend of its own.

More info can be found on the VOX website: http://www.voxamps.com/history/

Inside the original VOX AC30

The front panel and tubes of the AC30

All I can say is that this amp-in-a-box completely blew me away and it rocks soft and hard at the same time. I love the range of the GAIN pot which really goes from completely clean to jangly crunch to ooomph power drive. The TONE controls are BASS and TREBLE which are super effective. With high GAIN settings and high BASS you can really rock hard a la Brian May, while low BASS gets and mid GAIN gets you to Rory Gallagher territory. Guitar volume is effective too. Putting a Treble Boost in front or a fuzz will give you ultra tonal flexibility. An additional overdrive on wither side will be super cool also. The coolest sound I got so far was with my Tele in neck pickup, volume knob on the guitar backed off a little and GAIN at noon. What a sweet smack in the face. I used my former ENGLISH CHANNEL enclosure and changed the knobs so the pedal looks quite similar, but underneath the hood it's a whole new beast.

All this magic in a small PCB - The Britannia on the "1776 Effects" PCB 

And the amazing pedal in a unique enclosure which used to house my English Channel

The Runoffgroove page with all necessary info is found here:

http://www.runoffgroove.com/britannia.html

The 1776 Effects website:

http://1776effects.com/

Below is a long demo of the pedal with my MIM Telecaster through a Dr. Z MAZ 18 cabinet.

Just listen to the vast amount of sounds obtained by tweaking the guitar's volume knob, the GAIN level and the TONE controls. Just dime that GAIN knob and start those Tom Petty chords or those open arpeggios. Add a fuzz in front and you are in 60's heaven. 

ROG Britannia demo - Telecaster-Britannia-Dr. Z MAZ18 by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

Don't miss out this great pedal. It quickly became on my top 5 all-time overdrive/tone pedals.

King Watt - The HiWatt grinder king

The WIIO clone - KING WATT

When the fuzz era began in the early sixties most players hooked up their fuzz pedals to the amps which were available at the time. The best names on the market were Fender, Marshall, Vox, Gibson and maybe a few small boutique companies. The combinations of the guitars, fuzz pedals and amps defined what we all know today as the sound of the 60's. By the end of the decade new sounds started emerging due to the demand of leading players trying to extract more juice, grind and power from their amps. Live shows of super bands like The Who and Led Zeppelin were all about modified amplifiers which made their shows thrilling and ear piercing as ever.

The 70's started off with a totally different sound with Marshall issuing their powerful JCM-800 amps and Orange amplifiers infiltrating the heavier rock scene. Fuzz pedals still remained very popular but now it was more about overdrive and smooth distortion and less about buzzy fuzzy noises. One name on the British scene stood out as the amp for high power rock with a very distinctive tone and grit which had incredible dynamics and picking sensitivity as opposed to the compressed Marshall stacks so popular with heavy metal.

The Sound City amp prior to the HiWatt brand

Hylight Electronics issuing the first HiWatt amps

HiWatt was started by Dave Reeves in 1966 building amps for Ivor Arbiter's store Sound City (yeah, the same Arbiter who sold Fuzz Face pedals). In 1968 Reeves started building his own designs with 50W (DR-504), 100W (DR-103) and 200W (DR-201) amps which gained huge popularity.

First users of the HiWatts - The Who

The HiWatt golden age began when Pete Townshend (and bassist Entwistle), responsible for promoting the Marshall 100W Superlead (created for him in 1965 in order to get a Fender sound with higher power), started using Sound City amps around 1967 because they were cleaner and sounded better. Reeves modified the Sound City amps under his own brand called Hylight and the Hiwatt line was born. By 1970 leading guitarists like Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Martin Barre (Jethro Tull), Robert Fripp and Townshend himself redefined the British sound by moving to HiWatt amplifiers. Even Hendrix added a Hiwatt stack next to his sacred Marshall stack to get bigger sound. Many others were spotted using HiWatt amps like Steve Hackett of Genesis (1971), Manfred Mann's Mick Vickers, Peter Banks (Yes, Flash) and the list is probably much longer.

The Classic Custom HiWatt 100W head, similar to the DR-103

My Favorite HiWatter - Mr. Fripp

When it came to the sound everybody had their own noise box hooked up and a booster of some sort (Echoplex, Rangemaster, etc.). Pete hooked up his HiWatt with a Univox Superfuzz and got the most powerful tone in guitar history. Gilmour with a silicon Fuzz Face (after giving up on the germanium version) and later with a Big Muff ruled the scene with his melodic, smooth, compelling and irresistible force. Jimmy Page used a Tone Bender mkII and had the best riffs in town. Fripp allegedly used a Baldwain Burn Buzzaround re-invented prog metal and avantgarde prog. And then there's Hendrix....well with Hendrix there was no place left to walk on, and his sound was like a train and a jet colliding at full speed while an army of alien robots in the jungle are trying to destroy the galaxy. I think that's pretty close.

The legendary Crimson line-up. Even Wetton is using a HiWatt

The best Jethro Tull incarnation (1969) had Martin Barre and Glenn Cornick using HiWatts 

Gilmour and his HiWatt.
He had 6 in parallel

Page bowing away his Gibson on a pair of HiWatts

With an iconic piece of history like that you can't really rest your mind until you played one of these monsters. Well buying one is not an option and a software simulation is not really good for a live band situation. So I thought I would build an overdrive pedal which would get me near that sound. Turns out that Catalinbread had 2 pedals to get the job done. A modified Hiwatt version of the amp Page was using during the Royal Albert Hall concert in 1970 (RAH) and a classic HiWatt DR-103 version (WIIO). Aiming more for that classic DR-103 tone I started getting parts to build the WIIO circuit using a schematic I found on the freestompboxes.com forum and the great layouts by GuitarFX Layouts (http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com) and Mike Livesly's.

Hendrix using a Sound City stack next to his Marshall one

Catalinbread is a great boutique pedal company and they have some great designs for fuzz, overdrives, boosters and what not. Probably their most revered designs are the amp emulation pedals and the Dirty Little Secret (DLS) Marshall-in-a-box pedal is probably their best. When it comes to fuzz pedals I really enjoy getting close to the original designs. With amp-like pedals I really dig the Runoffgroove designs. It was in the HiWatt that I first realized that I had no where to go but Catalinbread.

Being such a big circuit I knew I didn't want to make mistakes and I spent hours reading and listening to demos before I decided to build the WIIO clone. I knew that Townshend's sound was not very interesting for me and was just plain loud. On the other hand, Robert Fripp and Martin Barre are exactly the sort of sound which I like. Barre for its great tone and Fripp for its complexity and dynamics. For me that was enough and I went ahead and got everything I needed.

Whenever special resistor values are in shortage I get two in parallel or series and get the desired value spot on. same goes for capacitors although I try to avoid ceramics for anything above 1nF and use mylar or polypropylene types. For the 9.1V Zener I used 1N4739A which are excellent and for the BS170 I just bought them from Mammoth. Although I don't like the vero-board designs I trusted the layout and used a regular pref-board and soldered the parts like it was a vero-board.

The WIIO board on the bottom (right) and on the top side (left).
The soldering is actually point to point and no connection.

I love when I hook up the pedal's pots and switches and it works on the first attempt with no audio quirkiness. The first chop with the GAIN cranked and I knew  this was it. That rich complexity and sharp grit. Really is different than any other pedal I ever played. None of that smooth Vox and Marshall and none of the Fender sagginess. Sheer raw power. Not easy to comprehend. Now, after a few hours of playing and trying all sort of nasty combinations, I am starting to get the hang of it. Playing it clean isn't all that interesting. With the GAIN high and TREBLE above noon you really start enjoying it. This is a definite keeper for me and highly recommended for any prog fanatic. Sounds better IMO with humbuckers than with single coils but once you fire up a fuzz in front - it really doesn't matter what pickups you play.

Enclosure covered in masking tape,
and sketched on

When boxing the unit I used my successful method of covering the enclosure with a paper masking tape which really facilitates the drilling process giving clean and smooth holes. I also draw some designs on the tape to decide what hole configuration I should use.

After that I mount the circuit with the knobs, jacks and switches and then I start thinking about the how it should really look. For this pedal I really didn't want to use the original WIIO name because I just think it's not a very good name and because I built this pedal thinking about Robert Fripp, David Gilmour and Martin Barre rather than Pete Townshend. I thought of 10 names until I decided to stick with KING WATT. Pretty good, I guess.

The finished pedal after painting and testing

So that's it. Hope you build it and enjoy it,

Get the schematics and layouts on:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6AdN3AaptdFzVlBs_UWXdjPIvtrSxNUkLcaNJRgYow8gYvCe2fd2aLdxm85jszzT8XoiES1uvUf_7mbKmB3i682oM5HLAs6tctT8XUa0Pn5MDs54eifWfXC3dTNZ7cLKCnvewjSd_SeI/s1600/wiio.gif
and
http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.il/2012/04/catalinbread-wiio.html

A nice video demo from Bobby Devito
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb5lUnvCUPQ
and the Gearmanndude WIIO demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoiE1JfIEgY

and my own clone with ES humbuggies and singies:

WIIO demo by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

WIIO clone demo with Humbuckers by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

Fuzzway '67: Revisited

Well it has been a long time since I last revisited the Original 1966 Arbiter PNP Germanium based Fuzz Face. I posted here a while back about my experience with the Fulltone '69 using AC128 trannies which is an enhanced PNP version of the original:

http://fuzzquest.blogspot.com/2012/04/once-i-had-few-germanium-tranny-lying.html

It was a short post and I didn't really use this pedal a lot, mostly because it didn't sit well with my band and because our lead guitarist (although a Hendrix fanatic) could not cope with the over-the-top nature of the pedal. On top of that he plays humbuckers and that made things even worse.

Next I explored the Silicon path and got into building several versions before settling on a slightly revised version of the Fulltone '70. While with the Germanium PNP version I only had a bag of AC128 which I tested for hfe and leakage, tweaking the Silicon NPN with many trannies was a lot of fun and easier due to the vast amount of options at hand. 

http://fuzzquest.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-pink-face.html

If you wanna understand the differences in sound between the Silicon and the Germanium versions try to think about the differences in sound between the early Hendrix Experience era (Ge) and the Gilmour '70s sound (Si), although using different amps and different playing style. Other comparisons are the Hendrix sound of the Experience vs. Band of Gypsys, or Gilmour's sound of '68 vs. '73. It's the rough, bloomy, creamy and deep fuzz of the Germanium trannys vs. the sharper, smoother and edgier sound of the Silicon. Both classic, fantastic and work well with single coil pups, wah pedals and British style cabinets.

Lately I felt that I have neglected the PNP version Fuzz Face and after tinkering with it a bit I decided that it was time to revisit the circuit and see what else could be done to really get that elusive sound and to achieve this critical milestone on my fuzz quest.

So as you know or heard before, the fuzz effect was first accidentally obtained during recording a country song in 1960 by Marty Robbins. Check out this outstanding page for some cool country fuzz recordings including the legendary 1960 bass fuzz using a fried pre-amp channel:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/11/country-fuzz-sp.html . In 1962 the first Maestro Fuzz Tone was sold to achieve all kinds of voicing effects for the guitar, but nobody really got the idea. Once the Rolling Stones released "Satisfaction", fuzz-mania hit the streets and everybody were buying fuzz pedals. Maestro Fuzz Tone (FZ-1, FZ-1A and FZ-1B), Mosrite Fuzzrite and Sam Ash Fuzz Box were the first commercial units on the west side of the atlantic while the Sola Sound (Gary Hurst) and Vox Tone Benders, The JHS Zonk Machine and the Baldwin Burns Buzzaround were the first to emerge on the British island. A year later, in 1966, Arbiter released the first Fuzz Face which was really a clone of the early 1966 Vox Tone Bender (MK1.5) and from all the units around, this was the simplest one. I think this was the first fuzz unit to use a double transistor feedback loop rather than multiple gain stages to achieve the saturated fuzz tone. The Fuzz Face's round shape was conceived by Arbiter while looking on the base of a microphone stand....ok....

Now, it's a simple circuit and because of that each element is critical. Every value makes a difference. 2 coupled transistors working in a voltage feedback biasing mode. Only 3 caps: in, out and the third on the feedback loop. 4 resistors: 2 for biasing the trannies, 1 for the feedback and 1 for the output and biasing together. The basic 2 pots controlling FUZZ and VOLUME are further enhanced by 2 more giving some extra functionality like BIAS which is a pre-gain control and a CONTOUR which controls the body of the output signal.

  

If you wanna read about the various Fuzz Face designs:

http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/fuzzface.php

If you wanna read about the cicuitry of the Fuzz Face you should really check this link: 

http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/fuzzface/fffram.htm

More about the history of Fuzz pedals:

http://www.kitrae.net/music/Fuzz_Big_Muff_Timeline.html

For the circuit I used and tweaked here's the best schematic out there:

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_ff5_sc_b69.pdf?phpMyAdmin=78482479fd7e7fc3768044a841b3e85a

A great verified and compact layout is given by mark and mirosol at:

http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.il/2013/01/fulltone-69.html

My Psych '67 Fuzz Face clone

I played around with a lot of the values on this one and ended up using the basic Fulltone design as shown on the GGG website. I really enjoy the overwhelming possibilities given by the addition of the BIAS and CONTOUR controls. While the FUZZ pot sounds best at it's max, the true versatility of the sound comes from these extra controls. The BIAS is similar to rolling down your guitar volume which is the most elusive and sweetest spot of the Fuzz Face. It is what Hendrix sounds like when you think he's playing clean but it's so sparkly and biting that you know it ain't clean. The CONTOUR is like a tone or a body control which gives you more control over the spectral envelope of the sound. I like to keep it low so that the fuzz doesn't get too boomy.

What really got me going again with this pedal was changing trannies and re-biasing the 10k pot which had a huge impact on the sound. Low leakage trannies with Q1-70 hfe and Q2-110 hfe gave me the best results which in my opinion is a milder and smoother tone (far away as possible from a muff sound). The 10k pot was tweaked to get about 5.5V at Q2's collector-to-drain with the CONTOUR knob at halfway. 

Other options for tweaking were using a PNP 2N3906 Silicon tranny at Q1 which really gave me surprisingly good sound, lowering the VOLUME pot to 250k which sounded brighter, adding 33pF caps from collector to base on Q2 as suggested by R.G. Keen, and lowering the 100k feedback resistor to get milder effect. None of these options lasted on my build but they are good and are working. I would, however, add a STARVE pot for a dying battery emulation effect and a BRIGHT switch to change the input cap. Maybe later this year....  

Among the many myths around the Fuzz Face some are true, namely, single coil pickups do seem to work best with this circuit. Also, Marshalls, Vox and HiWatt amps sound better than Fenders as far as I can judge. I also found that the Fuzz Face stacks rather well with overdrive pedals behind it and, surprisingly, sounds even better and tighter when I used a treble booster in front of it, although driving it too hard will change the fuzz character. I always thought it was a no no thing, but, it really adds focus and crunch that the original pedal lacks. It made me think of the Keeley Fuzz Head which looks like a Fuzz Face with an added treble booster stage pumping it.

So that's that. Listen to it and build it if you still haven't. It's the real deal. The classic combination 

of Single coils-Fuzz Face-Marshall sounds even better when using a Marshall overdrive pedal like the Runoffgroove Thor. The cabinet emulation is a HiWatt 100W which is really the most transparent classic rock cabinet out there. I tried to cover all bases with the knobs at various positions and playing around with neck and bridge pickups and various volume levels on the guitar. You'll get the idea.

If you wanna turn your Fuzz Face '67 to an AnalogMan Sun Face just use the GGG Boutique '60s Fuzz Face schematic with the following 7 changes:
1. Replace 2u2 input cap with a 1uF one.
2. Replace the 100nF output cap with a 10nF one.
3. Replace 500kA VOLUME pot with a 250kA pot.
4. take the Q2 bias trimmer outside to an external knob for the Sun Dial. Use a 5k pot in series with a fixed 2k2 instead of the 1k fixed with the 10k trimmer.
5. You can leave the 50k input pot or use a trimmer internally like the one in the Sun Face.
6. You can leave the Contour pot or replace it with a fixed 470R instead of the 220R in series with the 1k pot.
7. Try to find the NKT275 germs instead of the AC128 which I normally use.

Tele-(Treble Booster)-Fuzz Face '67-Thor-HiWatt 1 by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

The Peachy Fuzz

The Peach Fuzz clone

This one is a little off my main path (or the king's highway) towards the ultimate fuzz. The PeachFuzz is one of those new boutique, over-the-top fuzz boxes which you see by the hundreds. Actually, some of the best pedals you can get today are made by little boutique companies which have an enormous amount of pedals or at least update their catalog quite often. Because a lot of them are hand made or partly hand made they can change their designs quite fast and have a new pedal on the market every month, be it a modern clone of a classic fuzz, a newly designed fuzz, vintage overdrives, delays, you name it. To pay some tribute to these great manufacturers, here's a short and partial list of boutique pedal brands:

D*A*M , Analog.Man, Keeley Electronics, El Nano, Frantone, Skreddy Pedals, Wampler, Catalinbread, Devi Ever, ZVex, Fulltone, Love Pedals, Way Huge and the list goes on and on.

All these boutique brands sell top quality, great sounding pedals and they all have some unique designs which make them stand out. Some focus on their own designs while others focus on getting that vintage tone of the great legends of the past. Luckily you can't start a pedal company without having a killer fuzz box on the shelf, so the number of fuzz circuits and variants grew over the past few years from dozens to hundreds, hence...the fuzz explosion, or as I call it, fuzz-plosion.

One company that had some great designs but went out of business is Frantone and for a long time I have been looking at their offerings and always wanted to build a "Cream Puff" clone which sounded very interesting to me. As my want-to-build list just got longer I forgot about it for a while until I stumbled upon an article which ranked the best 50 distortion, overdrive and fuzz pedals of all times. Needless to say, every pedal I have ever built or wanted to build was there: Big Muff Pi, Tube Screamer, Fuzz Face, Tone Bender, Klon Centaur, Maestro Fuzz Tone, Pro-Co Rat, Range Master, Tycobrahe Octavia, Hot Cake, Fuzz Factory, Boss BD2, you name it. Wow....what a list....you should really check it out, I have building noise boxes for a while now and I can safely say that the most important pedals in rock history are definitely there:

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/50-of-the-best-overdrive-distortion-and-fuzz-pedals-398998/1

Going over the list it turns out that the Frantone PeachFuzz, which I've never heard of before, reached number 47! very nice. Had to listen to it a few times on Youtube before I set my mind on building one. I figured it's kinda like a Big Muff style of sound, but the Schematic looked different and I thought I maybe I can learn something new. Took me a long time to get around to it, and decide on the layout and version to choose from.

The Frantone Peach Fuzz. Entered the top 50! all-time distortion pedals 

Well, for the good things: It's a fuzz, it's tight and focused and it sounds like a good mid gain BMP clone...but......, it's just not that much of a fun-to-play with pedal. It has limited versatility with it's best with the FUZZ knob over half, and working the TONE knob can get you some Big Muff Pi op-amp style from the 70's. Not bad. But that's it. I figured it might be good to get some wicked sounds putting the fuzz in front of a real Muff or an overdrive so I decided to keep it and box it. After pairing it with some amp-like overdrive pedals I can say that I finally got it to sound good, focused and interesting.

Blue knobs, blue LED, blue texts and peachy gradients

Yellow faced and Blue "fonted" as on the original, Blue "knobed", blue LEDed and turned vertically for smaller rig footprint. I used the original circuit so there was no real way to change the name of the pedal. I just had to add some "peachy" texture so I painted the enclosure to give it more peach gradients.

Over the past few years I have tried a lot of circuits which didn't get boxed and remained naked in a drawer. This one got boxed because it's just a good sounding fuzz. It behaves well in a band setup and it gives great chords and solos.

So, the verified layout can be found on the Tagboardeffects blog:

http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.il/2012/03/frantone-peachfuzz.html

The schematic I used is given here: http://i50.tinypic.com/1zc1eg4.jpg

The fact that this pedal is extinct by now makes it a better collector's DIY item and I think that recently I have grown more and more fond of its thunder.

FuzzBoxGirl's youtube video was removed for some reason so I added this video as there aren't many other PeachFuzz videos on the web anymore: 

And if you can handle the power of this pedal, just listen below. I played a single coils tele through the PeachFuzz clone on a HiWatt 70's emulation amp. Listen to the various settings and then with a ROG Thor just behind the fuzz. Some of the riffs are also played with a treble booster in front of the PeachFuzz. This baby really roars. Take care, rock on!

PeachFuzz demo by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

The Rites of Fuzz - The Ritefuzz: revisited and enhanced

The Green Spirit FuzzRite clone

Ever since I started this blog I had this sound in my mind which I knew I just have to understand. I was always attracted to those elusive grainy buzz stutters of the early fuzzes. The problem with early fuzzes is that no one really knows what really happened in those studios back then.

Even after devouring every piece of information on the web, there are some unsolved mysteries regarding who used what and how and exactly when. The combinations are endless with the amount of differences the guitars, pedals and amps had back then. Transistors and components changed a lot and a lot of the stuff was customized.

As an example, think of the "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum which played a modified Tele with a fuzz circuit build inside the guitar, or the sound of Davie Allen and the Arrows which used parked wah in front of his Fuzz like Mick Ronson during the Spiders era. If you really want to understand those sounds, you have to start buying or building stuff.

Well, some of the best fuzz sounds ever recorded were never really confirmed as to how the sound was created. When I started building stuff, one of my first fuzz builds was the Orpheum Fuzz which was a simple silicon version which I decided to box. The sound was so far out and I really got to hear my guitar play Sky Saxon's incredible fuzz sound which was so sax-like. I was in heaven. Today I can really verify that the Orpheum Si fuzz played with a tele, volume knob a bit low, and through a VOX AC30 amp or sim cab, can be amazingly close to the sound I was after. I guarantee anyone who loves those ripped mid 60's garage sound will love this combination. It beats the Jordan Bosstone by a 1000 miles.

Yet, the Orpheum is so far out, that it won't give you the end of the scale which is Ennio Morricone's classic spaghetti western fuzz. For that you probably need a Mosrite Fuzzrite or a Maestro Fuzz Tone, and yes, you still need a tele and a Vox cab.

So I built the RFNR Green Bomb which was great but in 2 years of having it, I never really played it live a lot and I always ended up using the mighty Orpheum. After revisiting the circuit for the 20th time I finally ran into the John Kallas modded version which implemented some enhanced features. Now, the Fuzzrite is such a simple circuit that it would be really hard to achieve all those sounds in my head without some additions which would only do the circuit justice.

So, the simple circuit, shown below, just goes to show how closely related all these garage fuzz schemes. A few value changes can have a strong effect with such a small part count Although very close to the Fuzzrite design, the Orpheum is a much stronger design with many similarities in sound to the Shinei Fuzz Companion FY-2. If you ever run into Psycho Candy by Jesus and the Mary Chain, you'll notice right at the first chord the FY-2. If you like the Ventures, Dick Dale, The seeds, The Stooges and Garage Psych in general, 80% of these bands, I guess played a Fuzzrite at some point between 1966-1969.

Variations on the basic Fuzzrite design from the Aronnelson gallery

I ended up ripping the guts out of my Green Spirit (RFNR Green Bomb) and replacing it with a true Fuzzrite and then added the mods recommended by John Kallas. These are basically

1. 22k resistor from 2n2 tone cap to ground.
2. An extra TONE pot with a 100n cap to control the highs (seems that I like this pot cranked most of the time).
3. An added J201 gain stage to bring the volume back up at the end of the circuit so you easily get unity volume.
4. A higher cap value on a switch so that the DEPTH/FUZZ pot can yield fuller and fatter sound.
5. An extra pot for PREGAIN which helps getting the sound of a lowered guitar volume knob.

The John Kallas version can be found here:

http://johnkvintageguitars.homestead.com/Effects/Fuzz-ODs/Mosrite/01-Fuzzrite_with_mods.png

And, of course, it is always worth to visit the great layouts by Mark and Mirosol on TagboardFX blog: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.il/2010/07/mosrite-fuzzrite.html

That's what I really love about building fuzz circuits. Getting the best possible design is part of the fun. So now I have a new Green Spirit, named after Greenbaum and his Spirit in the Sky guitar tone. I could have easily found 10 different names for that pedal based on the words Hoodoo, Seeds, Ventures, Misirlou, Spaghetti Westerns, Devil's Rumble and the list goes on.

In the demo below I simply played around with the knobs to get some of the tones I was looking for. 2 2N222A trannies were used because the original 2N2926 NPN trannies haven't arrived yet and I couldn't wait. A tele and a VOX AC30 cab sim at both ends of this wonderful beast with some added fender '63 style spring reverb. 

Don't miss out on this one. If you have to build one fuzz to rule them all, one fuzz for all your crazy 60's aspirations, one fuzz - grainy and harsh, buzzy and saxy, zippy and gnarly then this is IT !!! Even the "Satisfaction" riff sounds amazing with this pedal. Don't believe me? check out the demo and skip to 14:36.

Green Spirit - Fuzzrite (Tele+AC30) by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

Fuzzquest shares Joe Gore's Fuzz detective video

Wow....I just have to share this video as this guy is on a true fuzz quest for 60s Germanium mayham. Take 12 pedals and play the same chain and same riffs, chords, whatever so that you can actually understand the different attitude of each one. I love the extra stuff he puts as what each fuzz was famous for and some of the famous riffs recorded with it.

Check out his blog and his other related videos. Great job!

Silicon Tone Bender mkII: Revisited

The Led Bender

This is the first time I am revisiting a pedal and rebuilding it all over again. As you probably already know, the Tone Bender is one of the most elusive and tricky fuzz pedals around. The Germanium versions are hard to bias and you have to order specially selected transistors. This is not all that difficult once you understand how to measure hfe (gain) and leakage. Nevertheless, I have never built a true vintage Germanium Tone Bender and when I do, it will probably be a Prescription Electronics Yard Box or a true MK I version.

Anyway, I let the first Led Bender go and now it is happily crushing stages around the Zurich area with a really great band called Rivercash. I couldn't live without it so I had to build another one, and again, I tried starting out with the regular silicon versions which are running around the web. What can I say? another flop. No version sounded good and I couldn't understand why. The next thing I did was go back to the Hot Silicon version which sounded so well with my first Led Bender build. Voila...like magic. Wonderful buzz fuzz duzz muzz nuzz.

http://fuzzquest.blogspot.co.il/2012/11/bending-your-tone-for-page.html

I re-checked some of the biasing issues and ended up going closer to the Yard Box version with the 3.3k resistor attached to the Fuzz pot. All other biasing resistors seemed OK. Next, I changed the input capacitor on the FAT switch from 10uF to 100nF to get the Yard Box input cap. Transistors, as before Q1 and Q4 low gain 2N2369. Q2 2N3904 or some other medium gain tranny. Q3 BC108 or other medium gain tranny. I also tried 2N222A at Q3 and it was equally great. The tone knob was reversed so that cranking it would enable a fuller tone and CCW would make it thin and nasty.

The real magic with this pedal is on the lower settings of the Fuzz/Attack pot. Between 0 and 4 (on a 1 to 10 scale), the fuzz has some really great sounding crunch with the TONE knob crancked for full body. Lowering the guitar volume knob a little gives you some great unheard overdrives.

Here are some gut shots:

And about the artwork: I started with the Gold Glitter BB1590 from Mammoth and started painting using the same concept of the Zoso sign from Jimmy Page and added the other Zeppelin symbols around the sides, and of course, my ZUS logo which really complements the Page Zoso.

So, don't let this one go unbuilt. It's silicon, so it's guaranteed to deliver. And you know the best thing? When I hooked it up in front of a silicon Fuzz Face? AAAAmmmmaaazzziiing tone. You can really dial those Stoner Rock, Doom, Garage, Noise Grunge, Psychedelic Heavy Rock sound.

Probably one of my top 5 fuzz combinations!

Fuzz On.