Your fuzz, fuzz and tell

[clockman]

Silver blues, greetings
 I've noticed a few bassists around here and y'all seem to enjoy fuzzes and dirt on your signal. Nice! I wish I knew some like minded bassists in my area. FF's do sound a bit weak on a clean channel. Are you a Tube amp  or solid state player?
 
and you're right, this place is great.

[rocket88]

As another one of the few bassists here, I've got to say hands down one of my favorite classic bass fuzz sound has to be the russian green muff, v7 1994 layout. I built mine with a few changes to values to match the schematic, I also used russian kt3102e transistors, and kd521v diodes. Every time I turn it on I just go off on some rediculous riff. Don't get me wrong, there are so many other fuzzes I love on bass, including what beaker and travis have already mentioned, but I just have some connection to that russian muff. It's a must build, IMHO for bassists.

[clockman]

that was the first muff I bought when I was younger and knew nothing about them. It had that cool wooden box and had an odd plastic silver dome footswich... which malfunctioned shortly after purchase and I brought it back to get a ??? instead. But Damn it was a cool thing while it worked. So many cool pieces of gear have passed through our hands... uh oh. I smell a "one that got away" thread.

Hey.. aren't you the Emperor of that Ge deathstar thingy guy? glad to meet you. I
may call upon your knowledge of transistors/diodes. You've spoken highly of A Bulgarian vendor. I'll re read this posts
 

[clockman]

OK Shin ei companion done!
First, thanks to all who've said hello, shared ideas and experiences and given suggestions and links.

 WOW! y'all weren't kidding about lower output level. luckily I have boosters-a-plenty and yes, even a spare Utility LPB-1 board lying around (I know I said I wasn't keen on them but they do work and they are tiny)

first pass was on a clean channel, it's definitely got an "overloading" sound quality.My ears enjoyed it through a slightly distorted channel more. notes in Power chords grate against each other. I dig that. lead sounds are  a bit thin for my taste. but always good to have a different texture on hand.

  now some tech stuff...glad I socketed the 100n cap. tried 47n and 220n just to hear roughly half and double values and prefer the treblier of the two (the 220n). but the real interesting thing happened when I left the socket open. it is whole new texture of fuzz. almost on the brink of sputtering out an octave up overtone and a more percussive attack in general with less sustain. Is it right or correct to do so? probably not. but why not try? I like a good mangle. maybe you will too.
 not sure if I'll box it yet. I have so many more to try.

[Beaker]

It's a common feature with many of the old school fuzzes that they don't have a lot of volume on tap, many don't even reach unity gain with the volume turned all the way up. The LPB-1 is ideal as a boost for these - it may not be the cleanest of boosters, but hell, you are putting it in with a gnarly arsed fuzz pedal, so...

FYI the Os Mutantes and the Blue Box will certainly need a LPB-1 to get the volume up past unity.

I do love the Companion fuzz, but personally consider it a far better rythmn guitar fuzz than a lead or solo fuzz. Think The Jesus And Mary Chain or Pavement.

[Silver Blues]

I'm a solid-state player, I have a fairly modest setup with an Ampeg Micro VR and a 2x10. Amp sounds fantastic though and I got it for a steal ($400 for both pieces!).

[rocket88]

yea i am the emperor of the Ge Deathstar. Beaker helps out and makes us all tea .

[tabbycat]

not been mentioned yet but a useful addition to any fuzz kitchen, rogue housewives' favourites the ampeg scrambler and the fender blender...

[Travis]

I forgot what I am, but I play with the lasers mostly

[rocket88]

I think i'm going to have to make an official job list of the Ge Deathstar, people are forgetting what they are....

[motterpaul]

I am new to the fuzz world - just started getting my feet wet with Germaniums, but I certainly can hear the difference they make vs. silicon.

Yesterday I ran into a new family of fuzzes for me: it started with the Prescription Electronics Yardbox and then I saw that it was derived from the Tonebender, where the basic idea is a Darlington pair feeding a germanium. The Darlington pair can (and I think should be) germanium as well, but they say you can use silicon. Only the third transistor is for fuzz.

FYI: I built mine with an ICL7660-based power inverter and it works just fine. I used 10uf and 47uf.

For the Ge trannies I used AC128s (lower hFEs work best) and this thing not only has solid gain (Jimmy Page LZ I and II) but it also has a tone control which gives you a ton of variety. I have not yet tried with any other trannies, but I think it will also work great with a lot of models. You can get that perfect "Heartbreaker" sound with this one (the write-up says this was the only pedal used on the first two Led Zep albums)

The first pair should be lower leakage (although my leaky AC128s were all right), the third Ge gives you the fuzz, so you can try a lot of things there. Also interesting is that this circuit depends on a Ge diode to stabilize the transistor. It adds tone and stops it from farting or gating.

NOTE: edits above

[Silver Blues]

The diode, from what I understand, is to prevent temperature-based bias drift. That diode is there in a variety of circuits actually. My best guess for how it works is by exploiting the temperature-based change in forward voltage in a germanium diode to offset similar changes in the transistor. Apparently different diodes can actually change the tone, which surprised me a little bit at first but then when I thought about it the reason it happens is due to the varicap effect - the property that a reverse-biased PN junction acts as a voltage-variable capacitor. Since the diode cum varicap is connected reverse-biased from the base of a transistor to ground, there is capacitance present there and the amount of capacitance inherently present in different types of diodes will affect the tone by acting as a filter; think Miller capacitance inside a tube. (This is my theory, anyway.)

All of what's been said in your post and mine are things I'm experimenting with in the circuit design I'm currently testing. I hadn't realized how Tonebender-ish it is, thanks for making me realize that  maybe I can use some of the applicable tone-tweaking tips myself.

(I'd like to call on Induction to tell me if I'm crazy or if what I said is actually right )

[motterpaul]

That is exactly what that diode is for. I need to study up on which aspect of that diode is most important. I tried subbing a few different Ge types and got some softer clipping (not necessarily better).

Also, the input cap (240pF) can be eliminated or changed - it is just for bass response. I would not go much higher or you lose fullness.

I bookmarked a bunch of these pages yesterday - all related:

The Sola Sound Tonebender 3 (with  tone knob also) is also very similar.

Revolution Deux has a version where all of the transistor legs are in the contiguous order so you don't have to bend any. I am going to build this because bending those legs is making me crazy.

[Travis]

Paul, I posted a layout for the Yardbox (without bent legs) in the contributions section. It would be very easy to tweak it to MKIII specs if you want

[motterpaul]

Travis - very cool - I was in the comments for Marshall Supa Fuzz trying to figure out the suggestion you made for moving the E on Q3.  It makes sense but I think you need an extra row for the cut.

Anyway - the Yardbox seems to be a perfectly good build for me (anyway), close enough to the Mark III. I have it sounding really good with the right Ge Ts, diode & caps right now. So your new design for it will be super - helpful. Thanks a bunch!