Show your pedal guts!

[dbat69]

Zach, very nice build bud - the new cave is certainly giving you inspiration, very tidy ... I wonder what you come up with next

Geiri - very nice - looks awsome

[bogey]

This is my 1st attempt in a 1590a. My 9yr old son got a mini electric guitar and amp for xmas and wanted a mini pedal to go with it. He said "I don't care what it is as long as it's got a skull with fangs on it and it's eyes light up". So here is his Coloursound One Knob Fuzz..Sounds so nice I'm gonna build another for myself.

[M. Spencer]

Here's my fifth attempt at building a pedal, please excuse the mess. This forum and site have been an incredible resource, thanks folks.
 

[dbat69]

That is one dinky little pedal - nice build bud

[Chris60601]

This is the Aoen Drive featuring PCB's from GuitarPCB.

Enclosure makeup is stone texture.
Several clipping options (a set of 1N34A Germanium diodes and a set of 1N5817's)

I still struggle with creating a neat job on the inside. It's pretty much hit or miss. In time I suppose.

Cheers
Chris

[Travis]

Great looking builds everyone. Love the finish on yours Chris. Is it PPP?

I built this silicon fuzz face for my buddy that did some recording for me. I made it with BC108B trannies and it sounds awesome!




Edit: now that I'm back from work here's a pic in the daylight

[Chris60601]

Nicely done! How do you like the jacks and how do they compare the the open frame type?

[Travis]

They're not as durable as neutrik open frame jacks but they're nice. Space-wise they're definitely bulkier than open frame jacks

One other thing to keep in mind is these enclosed jacks are usually insulated from the aluminum enclosure so you'll need to ground the enclosure

[Travis]

Is it even worth posting yesterday's build? It's basically identical to my last posted build but this one does have one tiny alteration to my layout

[Chris60601]

Man that is clean! Are you using solid core in places lie the ground on the power and between the pots?
Ah, come to think of it, yes! I can see that off the input jack to the stomp.

Well done, I like it!

Cheers
Chris

[Travis]

Thanks dude! The black and white wires are solid core. I'm running out of the stranded wire

I hate to admit it but I think I may prefer these Si fuzz faces over the Ge. After all that Ge hoarding..

[rocket88]

 BLASPHEMY!!! DESTROY THE NON-BELIEVER!!! Lol

So here's my last two builds.

First up, we got the greasebox. Only mod I did was changes the output cap to make if a little more bass friendly, and a voltage inverter. Wouldn't have built it as soon as I did if it wasn't for Travis's suggestion. Sounds creaking awesome. Had to make it the opposite combination as Travis's.  




Second up, we have the D*A*M FR-69. It's supper picky with transistor gain to get it sounding right, but when you find the right pair you're rewarded with a wall of amazing fuzz that has a slight octave it it. Only mod was the power inverter.

[Silver Blues]

rocket88 wrote

Sounds creaking awesome.

Lol.



Is it just me, or does the electro to the right of your voltage inverter look bent in a way no capacitor should ever be?

[Travis]

Great job rocket! If possible I'd love if you could bring a couple of your favorite builds along when you come over. I need to hear some of that fuzz!

And don't worry bud. I couldn't stop obsessing over germanium if I tried.

Silver- I think that's just the black wire looking like part of the cap and then a reflection on the side blends in with the enclosure. Looks pretty trippy

[Silver Blues]

Travis wrote

Silver- I think that's just the black wire looking like part of the cap and then a reflection on the side blends in with the enclosure. Looks pretty trippy

Oh my god you're right. I had a good laugh about that when I looked really closely and saw it

[rocket88]

Travis wrote

Great job rocket! If possible I'd love if you could bring a couple of your favorite builds along when you come over. I need to hear some of that fuzz!

And don't worry bud. I couldn't stop obsessing over germanium if I tried.

thanks man, they're not as neat as my usual builds, as i accidentally made the leads too long for the inverter, but once it was soldered, i just figured "eh, it doesn't ground out, so no biggy."

don't worry, i have a few things i'm thinking of bringing, but now i've got a slight issue with making it out to you. im still planning on going, just my buddy can make it, so trying to find someone to join for the trip.

[Travis]

I finally finished this Big Cheese build. It's a versatile fuzz, the rotary switch is really cool!

[Chris60601]

Very nice! Super clean, well done! Hows it sound?

Cheers
Chris

[Travis]

Thanks dude. It's kindof like a gnarly fuzz face but with a tone control and the rotary switch makes it really versatile. The rotary has different midrange notches and a gated setting which are all really cool.

[Travis]

Ok Chris, now I've had some more time to play with this pedal and I can explain it better.

First of all, I'm really glad I built this.. This fuzz rocks. You should build it.

The rotary switch has four modes; tone bypass, mid-scooped, normal, and gated.

Tone bypass sounds pretty similar to the normal setting but less peaky I guess.

Mid scooped is kinda more scooped than your average Muff. Sounds a lot like my old Univox Superfuzz in the scooped setting but minus the octave

The normal setting is great. The tone control retains the highs well throughout most of it's range so it's easy to get a full, balanced sound with the tone control below noon. It seems to sit  very nicely in a "live mix" (aka 3 friends and I playing pretty loud). It's obvious to me that I'll use this mode the most. It feels and sounds great and it's worth the "price of admission" on it's own

The gated mode is awesome of course. It does the Nintendo guitar thing.. Put it in the loop of the Meatball for optimal synthiness. The trimpot adjusts the intensity of the gated mode. Interesting thing; turning the fuzz control down in the gated mode seems to stop it from gating.



So with that tonal shaping this pedal is pretty versatile. Especially when the fuzz control actually cleans up a lot at min (bright and thrashy overdrive/fuzz) and wools up as you increase. I could totally use an expression control for the fuzz knob or maybe even a stomp to select two different pot settings

As for the sound of the clipping itself, to me it's somewhere between the raw power of the Muff and the squish of an FZ-1A when you dig in hard. It is a beautiful beautiful sound..

Sorry for the long post. As you can maybe tell I'm excited about this fuzz. Hope you build it and enjoy it as much as I have so far!