Re: Germanium Transistors, Noise and Leakage

Posted by Travis on Aug 03, 2016; 12:59pm
URL: http://guitar-fx-layouts.238.s1.nabble.com/Germanium-Transistors-Noise-and-Leakage-tp32320p32330.html

Sometimes noise is just a side effect of having so much gain.. When you amplify your guitar a lot, you are amplifying any existing noise as well. So if you have a noisy guitar or amp that will make it harder to test.

You can make effects using germanium that don't have noise issues. It helps to have a variety of transistors to work with sometimes. It's all about selecting the hfe, leakage, and transistor type to do what you want. You can experiment with these different factors to try and get the best sound

Different transistor types tend to break up differently, have different frequency responses, etc in addition to varying hfe and leakage. Some transistors are darker sounding, some are brighter, some are cleaner, some break up sooner. You can use this to shape not only the noise level but also the fuzz character. In the case of too much noise, you may want to select a darker sounding transistor. Too muddy? Try something brighter, etc

If you're not testing the transistors and just popping them in, it's very possible you're not hearing the best that transistor type has to offer. You don't need to stick to RG Keen's hfe rules, but it helps to have an idea what you're putting in