univox shinei superfuzz using CA3046 IC. or any IC that might result in good-badness.

[tabbycat]

this post by mictester @ fsb caught my eye this morning.

re the univox superfuzz schematic thread:

http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&p=254415#p254406

"I built two of these last week using the "Fuzz IC" - the CA3046. Each board has two 3046s (or 3086s) and two 2N3906 transistors as part of the bistable relay switching. The transistor that has to have the emitter grounded (the "substrate" pin) is used for the other transistor in the bistable relay circuit.

The transistors with the common emitters are used for the long-tailed pair - the frequency doubler stage, and because they're identical, the trimmer in that stage can be eliminated as long as the resistors are reasonably well matched. It makes for quite a small PCB, and the fairly low gain transistors in the transistor array ICs are not too different from the original 2SC828B which were quite low Hfe parts. It's one of my favourite sounding Fuzzes and with some slight tweaks to the tone stages (as suggested in other parts of this thread) it can be tweaked to work well with almost any rig."

which made me wonder if anyone here has tried doing such a thing? though it's not the same circuit, there is an eh ic equivalent to the classic transistor muff, which is held in high regard by those who like key aspects of the muff sound but want something harsher and more metallic in the distortion.

(update edit: induction has clarified that the CD3046 is a 'transistor array' not an opamp. i have to admit i had assumed it was an opamp ic before he drew my attention to it, but realise now. so comparisons with the transistor muff and the ic muff not entirely analogous. thanks induction).

so this made me wonder what an opamp superfuzz might sound like, and whether this is an area that hasn't really been investigated as much as the obvious direct tranny/diode substitutions for this circuit.



datasheet: http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheet/intersil/fn341.pdf

this may be something for the requests section if a schematic is posted by mictester, or attempted by someone else (i shall give it some thought but i think it is just outside my competence zone, so may be a while before i have anything to show).
but the idea piqued my curiousity enough to want to post in the gossip pages for now anyway, just to see what univox-shinei people here (we are legion) think about it.

[Frank_NH]

This is not unlike the WH Swollen Pickle, which uses the MPQ3904 transistor array.  I definitely want to build something like this...

[Frank_NH]

Also...

(I haven't come across a CA3046 version of the Univox Superfuzz yet...perhaps something for Requests?)