death by audio: gods and dogs... what’s worth building and what isn’t?

[tabbycat]

death by audio: gods and dogs... what’s worth building and what isn’t?

thought it might be interesting to compare notes with other members who have built the various dba layouts on here, to get some sort of overview on what is interesting and what you can get away with skipping.

am proposing an optional ranking system to standardise subjectives a bit, though really it’s up to whoever wants to reply how they do it. just an idea.

scale of 1 to 10 (interpret the in-betweens as you please):
1 = novelty, meh.
5 = standard dba, big noise and worth boxing.
10 = full-on dba, must-have, evil noise machine.

i’m an amateur, have three finished dba to my name. with another built to be tested and one just started.

fuzzwar = 10. must have. apparently a muff with a mutant tonestack, huge and evil alawys on the board. don't deny yourself this.

harmonic transformer = 6/7. it’s sort of there. am getting around to replacing the switches with pots to see if i can get it to boxable. it’s not bad (high hfe 2n5089 essential or it gates bad), but as is it doesn’t do anything i can’t do better with a superfuzz and an ad50.

interstellar overdriver = 2. maybe i built mine wrong or used the wrong transistors but i just don’t get it. sounds like a broken budget brand overdrive from the 1980s. maybe it only means something as a stacker but it doesn’t do it for me.

will update on kill kill switch (still trying to get offboard wiring clear in my head) and reverb machine (prepping now) as and when, but those are my votes so far.

so what have you got?

[Synsound]

Which layout did you use for the Fuzz War?

I've done the Harmonic Transformer and would give it a 3
I have also built the Robot. I had to put a BMP Tonstack /LPB1 after to get rid of the mud. I would give it a 5. It's boxed but falls into the novelty class for me.
The one that I've used a good deal is the Super Sonic FG. I replaced the switch with a pot and can get a good variety of evil out of it.  I'll give it a solid 8.

[Muadzin]

I've built both versions of the Fuzz War, the 4 tranny, which is basically the Supafuzz Muff clone, and the 7 tranny. The trick in building the 7 transistor version is in getting the right transistors. The original used reversed 2N5089's, but finding the ones that work like that is hard. Lubdar on the Madbean forum has been analyzing the Fuzz War and its transistors and had only success with 2N5089 transistors from Mammoth, which were from National Semiconductors. Any other manufacturer would not produce the right results. MPSA05 and MPSA06's on the other hand produce more consistent results. I made mine with MPSA06's.

Since many DBA designs use flipped 2N5089's and have been notoriously hard to be made to work I suggest trying them with other transistors instead. I'm waiting for more MPSA06's to see if my Supersonic FG can be finally made to work right. Currently it has some 2N5089's in them and it sounds like shit. And not like the shitty fuzz sounds we've come to expect from DBA.

[KT]

I built the fuzz war (I think the 7-tran JohnK modd) and the interstellar overdrive. I like both of them a lot. I'm gonna box them together (guitar --> F-WAR --> Interstellar --> amp). F-WAR is awesome because of the filter. My Interstellar doesn't sound broken to me at all, it can be a really clean boost also. It's also not a nice drive offcourse but I can produce a really big massive boost sound.
F-war: 9, Interstellar: 8
I'mworking on octave clang and I'm gonna built all of them I think :) (reverb, filters, fuzzezz)

[Beaker]

I've only ever built the Supersonic Fuzz Gun. A useful alternative to the Fuzz Factory - does some things better, some things not as good. A lot more bass end than the Fuzz Factory though.

[Marbles]

I've built the Sound Saw and the Supersonic Fuzz Gun.

Wired the Sound saw a bit wrong, one channel seems to be responding through controls of the other, but nevertheless, awesome filter. Low boost, or high and very loud. Very nice to get a Place to bury strangers wall of thick or earpiercing volumeboost.

Supersonic Fuzzgun I built as a gift. In the time I still had it, it was like said before: In the same ballpark as the Fuzz Factory. A lot of sounds in it. I find the oscillation hard to work with, but that goes for the FuzzFactory as well. Different, but certainly not worse.


I understand where you're coming from. I love A Place to Bury Strangers (did not know yet he was a builder), but am not sure what to build... The reverberation looks awesome, and the Evil filter too. My initial reaction was: F*ck yeah! I'm building this! But after listening to some more demos, I thought: Meh.. Not convinced entirely. Would I really play with a dirty reverb, or are there better ones out there?

So thanks for this thread... I'm keeping an eye on this one too :)

[Drey]

DBA Robot: 0 (-100)

This pedal is just unusable. It gives you random noise. Some of the settings might sound alright but again you just can't use that thing in a musical way. I finally sold that thing on ebay.  And the person who bought it for 50 bucks got a hell of a deal

That video says it all

[Muadzin]

Drey wrote

DBA Robot: 0 (-100)

This pedal is just unusable. It gives you random noise. Some of the settings might sound alright but again you just can't use that thing in a musical way. I finally sold that thing on ebay.  And the person who bought it for 50 bucks got a hell of a deal

That video says it all

Isn't noise basically what DBA is all about?

I'm not saying the Robot will be unusable. But it will most likely be a one trick pony in your setup. It's one of those pedals that everybody will want to have if some famous guitarist picked it up, like how all Edge wannabes want the SSFG after he used it for that siren sound in Vertigo. But which nobody else can use because then forever everybody will say, yeah, that's that sound from that song.

[tabbycat]

Synsound wrote

Which layout did you use for the Fuzz War?

i built mine using the fuzzdog pcb, but i'm pretty certain it's the same fsb schematic that was used my mark to post the vero layout here, so all roads should lead to rome. i used 4x 2n5088 @400-450hfe and a pair of 1n34a for clipping.

Muadzin wrote

I've built both versions of the Fuzz War, the 4 tranny, which is basically the Supafuzz Muff clone, and the 7 tranny. The trick in building the 7 transistor version is in getting the right transistors. The original used reversed 2N5089's, but finding the ones that work like that is hard. Lubdar on the Madbean forum has been analyzing the Fuzz War and its transistors and had only success with 2N5089 transistors from Mammoth, which were from National Semiconductors. Any other manufacturer would not produce the right results. MPSA05 and MPSA06's on the other hand produce more consistent results. I made mine with MPSA06's.

i wonder what the hfe was for the original. shall have to track that down either at fsb or bean. my harmonic transformer sounded shitty-gate-times with 2n5088 @450. like a broken fy2. only became box-worthy when i got some bad-ass 2n5089 (hfe 800-900 i think). they are unbranded, just say 2n5089 c34 on front. came from bitsbox.
do your mpsa06 gate? and do you have a rough idea for hfe?

Marbles wrote

I understand where you're coming from. I love A Place to Bury Strangers (did not know yet he was a builder), but am not sure what to build... The reverberation looks awesome, and the Evil filter too. My initial reaction was: F*ck yeah! I'm building this! But after listening to some more demos, I thought: Meh.. Not convinced entirely. Would I really play with a dirty reverb, or are there better ones out there?

i've had a week with the reverb machine on my desk but unable to move, let alone solder. paralysing migraine. but hopefully i'll get it wired up and tested this weekend and be able to feedback about how shite it is or isn't. the demos i''ve heard of it make it sound superb to my ears, so am optimistic. but it wasn't too painful a build (thank you alex for the classy layout) so i won't be crushed if it is just ok. if it doesn't go then i will use the brick for a chasm reverb instead.

as to the filter, i admire the efforts of all concerned to get an unreleased dba out before the company could. so it's a coup whatever. i salute the guys. but it doesn't inspire me to build it from what i've heard of it so far. sounds like a starved one-knob fuzz through a cheap wah. maybe were missing an important part of the jigsaw re spec. maybe dba have lost the plot with this one.
but then some really like it, so it's all subjective. like the fuzzfactory, some love it, i can't do anything with it.

if you build the filter and it's stunning definitely report back.

[Muadzin]

tabbycat wrote

i wonder what the hfe was for the original. shall have to track that down either at fsb or bean. my harmonic transformer sounded shitty-gate-times with 2n5088 @450. like a broken fy2. only became box-worthy when i got some bad-ass 2n5089 (hfe 800-900 i think). they are unbranded, just say 2n5089 c34 on front. came from bitsbox.
do your mpsa06 gate? and do you have a rough idea for hfe?

There is some gating going on when the tone knob goes past 10:00. I don't think this is due to the MPSA06's, as I used an audio probe and noticed that there is a significant volume drop on Tone 3. Seems to be related to the 120n and 20n caps as when I lifted them there was no volume drop. So as the tone knob goes clockswise it would seem that the circuit gets starved from signal, henceforth it starts to gate. I don't know if this is inherit to the design or a mistake in the layout (I used JohnK's smaller modded layout with the mods reverse engineered back to original specs), or a mistake on my part. Without access to an original I can't really compare. I do know with the tone knob at 9:00 there is no volume drop in the circuit and the MPSA06's don't gate. And it sounds fine to me.

[traktop]

[tabbycat]

these two were the ones i was planning on trying first.

http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabble.com/file/n7151/7transistorfuzzwar-vero-modded-20x13.png

http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabble.com/file/n18650/fuzzwar.png

thread here http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabble.com/Death-By-Audio-Fuzz-War-td2760i20.html

they seem to be 'fairly verified' but apply some mods to capture the tone in the videos.

the 7 tranny war seems to be notoriously difficult to nail down consistently. i wonder if even dba get the same results every time.

[traktop]

If you finally go for it, please post your results

[Muadzin]

tabbycat wrote

the 7 tranny war seems to be notoriously difficult to nail down consistently. i wonder if even dba get the same results every time.

Considering that they said in a video that only 60% of their builds fire up as they should first time around and that they changed the 7 tranny Fuzz War to a 4 tranny Big Muff clone I'd say probably not.

[fuzzdog]

i've had a pcb sitting around for the 7 can fuzz war for a few years now. initially i couldn't get it to work. revisited it a couple of months back and got it running with some 2n5089 from mouser (i think! could have been bitsbox). still not the crushing wall of fuzz you'd expect, and i haven't had time to go back to it since. i will though, and shall report on the findings.

love the 4-can version - it was me that traced it on FSB. one of the few original pedals i've bothered to keep.

[fuzzdog]

love the supersonic, but i've gone back and swapped out the original cans on my three for the MPSA06 and BC517 suggested on the thread here. much better.

[Chris60601]

THE Fuzzdog? If so, welcome!

[fuzzdog]

well shucks - thanks bud

[Beaker]

Fuzzdog as in Poodle?

Big time welcome from a big fan of your PCBs.

The Supersonic Fuzz Gun I built was on one of your boards.