Fuzz opinions...and help.

[toolguy]

Hello.
I have been building for a few years now and have a few pedals under my belt. For some reason...every attempt to build a Muff or Muff variant has failed for me. I can usually get them to make sound but they always do something funny (ie. note fizzle out or octave all over the place in not a nice way). My most recient attempt was a Way Huge Pickle. It works...but sounds like poop. Checking the voltages and it's just not right. I posted on the proper section (noted under the Pickle vero thread)..so there is no need to spend too much time on why I cant build a proper Muff... I have what I would consider a few harder to build projects done. I guess a Muff is just not in the cards for me.

 What I would like to know is..
 Is there an easier build that will get me a creamy Gilmore type fuzz/O.drive?
I have built a Colorsound..and it's close but the one knob is a tad limiting.
Is there a colorsound type of build but with a volume pot and/or tone?
Thanks in advance.
JD

Here are some of my builds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvmtGAOrMXE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xez529chiK0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP0u8R9d7Wg    (no image but its from the vero layout from here)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfn2Dvh9A7E

[nocentelli]

I like the skreddy lunar module.

[Ciaran Haslett]

Check out the Pink/Purple Fuzz.

I put one together with an AC128 germ tranny and it sounds fantastic.  Put a delay and some verb after it and you're all over Gilmores Pulse tones.  I had a bit of bother with oscillation with the gain maxed but I've never gone past 1 o clock on the gain knob.

Plenty of volume and a decent Tone (Nature) control.  It sits in a band mix reasonably well, as well as a Muff can anyway...but I had nothing but compliments from musos in the crowd after every gig on how well my lead tones sound.

Its currently my go to solo sound and works great as a rhythm/rock foundation for many genres.

Ciaran

Edit: That should say AC127, not a pnp 128

[tjdracz]

Muff is really worth it and it's not that hard to build. Actually was my first build ever. Also, quite tolerant to various transistors and other tweaks.
I'd build a circuit probe and go through the circuit, stage after stage to try and see where it fails, easiest troubleshooting method. The results should be more than rewarding. My civil war muff is probably my number one pedal :)

[toolguy]

Built a pink/purple tonight.
It sounds pretty good but I don't have a ton of gain on tap.
The fuzz knob does not seem to do much at all (adds little +/- to the overall gain).
I subbed 4001s ...but that should give it more gain right?
I was only able to get a bc550b (lower gain) but I don't think that would effect the sweep of the fuzz at all.
Any subs for the bc550b I can try?

Will give it a look over this week..

[Muadzin]

tjdracz wrote

Muff is really worth it and it's not that hard to build. Actually was my first build ever. Also, quite tolerant to various transistors and other tweaks.
I'd build a circuit probe and go through the circuit, stage after stage to try and see where it fails, easiest troubleshooting method. The results should be more than rewarding. My civil war muff is probably my number one pedal :)

I learned how to troubleshoot pedals (of a sort) using a DMM and audio probe on Big Muffs. It's a very straight forward and relatively simple circuit as the signal goes quite linear. There are a lot of circuits (usually with opamps) where that ain't the case.

[Ciaran Haslett]

Is that a 470kOhm on the bottom left?  It should be a 470 ohm.  Its on the Fuzz 1 and Nature 2 tracks so could well explain your lack of Fuzz response.  It may be a good idea to double check all colour bands incase any others slipped past you.

Ciaran

[toolguy]

It sure is..... a full bag marked 470-O...with K's in them (china ebay parts).


Might make sense of my current failure rate on pedals...
Will go through it again...Thanks big time!

[toolguy]

Now I have a working fuzz pot!
Unfortunately I have some oscillation at higher gain settings...and mid sweep on the nature knob.
Will get it figured out.....Thanks for the help all.

[Heath]

Ciaran Haslett wrote

Is that a 470kOhm on the bottom left?  It should be a 470 ohm.  Its on the Fuzz 1 and Nature 2 tracks so could well explain your lack of Fuzz response.  It may be a good idea to double check all colour bands incase any others slipped past you.

Ciaran

Eagle eyes!!

[negativefx]

Yeah, I gotta say, that's one hell of a catch.

While we're talking resistors... any reason for using 5% resistors?  They don't seem significantly cheaper and the tolerance range seems like it would add a lot of unnecessary variance to projects.

[Ciaran Haslett]

Cheers fellas

I've limited space to work/store parts what with a small house and 2 kids running mad in the place so I store my resistors based on first and second band colours...ie..47r 470r 470k etc in one drawer.  That way the only thing thats different is the multiplier band which is pretty easy to spot.  So I've gotten pretty used to spotting the multiplier bands like above.

As for your question negative... I've been buying 1%ers ever since I started simply because marks layouts have the resistors coloured blue

Ive used a 5% once or twice early on for some of the weirder values we've seen.  14k79 for example.  But I've since caught on to how little the tolerance will affect a circuit in most positions so I'm happy to sub for closest value now.

Plus I think the blue ones just look better

But you're right.  To me, the marginal price difference just isn't worth it...on the off chance that the tolerance does matter.

Ciaran

[toolguy]

On the 5%... When I 1st started building...I bought one of those LARGE kits that had like 15x of every value from 1r to 8m. They get replaced with 1% but it's gonna take a long time before they are gone.
I just got done a pink flesh and I am SUPER happy with the results. Might build another with "good" parts.
 Thanks again all for all the help. Great to have some support on hand.