Fuzz Face. Too bright when rolling back the guitar vol pot

[nonost]

Ey! I've been building a Fuzz Face with bias pot and I wonder if there's any way to prevent the tone to go that bright when you back off the volume pot of the guitar. With a strat and log vol pot, with the vol around 5 the signal is thinner than the bypassed one. It's a lovely sound and totally useful, but a little bit piercing.

I've used a 250k pot for volume and a 1uf input cap. Those are the Sunface values. Honestly, the difference between 2.2uf(Fuzz Face) and 1uf is quite small, so maybe the vol pot value has something to do about it. However the Sunface doesn't appear to have that issue.

Maybe it's just my setup, I don't know...The fuzz sounds really great and woollie but it would be perfect if I could get a little more bass when I roll off the vol pot of the guitar.

BTW, the Q1 80hfe & Q2 110hfe is f*ucking bullshit. I think someone had to say it. I've tried lots of transistor from different places and there's nothing magic at all about that statement.

Cheers!

[Travis]

IMO that’s pretty normal with the Fuzz Face.

I’ve said many times that RG Keens hfe recommendations should not be interpreted as the “correct” way to do things. In fact original fuzz faces that I’ve seen examined have transistors somewhat matched in the 60hfe range. The ones that I’ve built like this have sounded really good

At any rate, I always test the transistors by ear before soldering them in. Sometimes the numbers make you happy but not the sound. The circuit is so simple, it really pays to set it up on the breadboard to select transistors while you listen with an instrument and amp

[induction]

Does your guitar have a treble bleed setup? Fuzz Face + treble bleed rolls back very thin and trebly, just like you described. Sounds cool as an effect, but most folks avoid that combination for exactly this reason.

[nonost]

That's it. I've socketed mine so I could try transistors for hours. Around 60hfe? That's interesting. What transistors did you find inside?

I've experimented that the difference between a couple in the 60hfe range and another couple in the 160hfe is not that huge in terms of gain as someone could expect by the readings. Even more, you set a couple 60hfe transistors and then swap q2 for a (supposedly) high gain 160hfe. Any difference? Yes...but not too much.

What I can say is that a low leakage for q1 is great. That allows you to bias the circuit even with a leakage one in q2 without too much trouble.

[nonost]

Wow...I don't have a treble bleed...but my strat has the 50's wiring. Well, they call it that way. You know, the tone control at the output. The effect is pretty much the same as the treble bleed.

I build a Les Lius the other day and now I remember that I've experimented almost the same as with the fuzz.

You are the man induction.

Any tweak that could help?

[induction]

I use 50's wiring too, I like a little brightness when I roll off, Fuzz Face or not. It's not nearly as drastically trebly and brittle with 50s as with a treble bleed, but if you want to be sure, you can try switching to modern wiring and see if it makes a difference. If I recall correctly, it's a pretty minor adjustment and easily reversible.

Other than that, I can only suggest rolling off your tone knob at the same time as you roll off your volume.

Most strats don't have a tone control for the bridge pickup, so if that's the case here and you're specifically discussing the bridge pickup, then none of this applies (No such thing as 50s or modern wiring with no tone control). In that case, I'd consider connecting the bridge pickup to one of the existing tone controls.

[nonost]

It's a HSS strat. It has two volumes (one for neck & middle and the other one for bridge) and a master tone. Actually, the bridge volume is a push pull. It's a pretty well balanced set of pickups and I like to set the first volume to around 5 for overdrivy sounds and set the bridge to max so with just changing the switch I go from overdrive or crunchy to full bass fuzz madness. I know I can do almost the same playing with the volume pot, but I also like the switch thing :)

Mmmm...when I have rolled back the tone pot it didn't seem to do much, but it was with the vol at max. Maybe the tone is more effective when the vol pot is rolled back. I will try that. It would be great.

Thanks!