Baldwin-Burns - Buzzaround  [schematic]

Discussion regarding early stompbox technology: 1960-1975 Please keep discussion focused and contribute what info you have...
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analogguru
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Post by analogguru »

If you really like to spend much money for a simple fuzzbox here is your chance:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Baldwin-Burns-Buz ... dZViewItem
Ultra-rare Baldwin-Burns fuzz box as used by Robert Fripp on the Bowie track 'Heroes'

This is definitely one of the rarest and hardest to track down items in Fuzz box history

It's the stuff that legends are made of, Google it and see for yourself.

I have been contacted many times about this Buzzaround from people all over the world and I have come to the conclusion that there are possibly three left that i know of....

Aside from the one you are looking at...Robert Fripp (of King Crimson fame) has one as does a very nice gent in the U.S who eventually managed to persuade the Burns Museum in London to sell theirs (complete madness). Up until that point, he had advertised worldwide and searched constantly over a period of two years and only found one...this one. He offered me £1000 GBP on a number occasions but at those times i did not wish to sell. The Burns Museum understandably sold theirs for an even greater sum.
:shock: Ooops...: £1000 GBP = ~ $2000,-- :shock:

This is a good reason to have a look inside:
b1.jpg
b1.jpg (18.62 KiB) Viewed 7523 times
https://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z12 ... eez/b1.jpg

Ohhh.... 3 Ge-transistors, some resistors, 2 Wima-capacitors 100n....

So we know it can only be produced between 1965 and 1968 cause in 1965 Baldwin bought Burns Guitars and in 1968 Baldwin dropped out from guitar business....

When we now look more exactly, we will find a lot of similarities to the 3-knob tonebender.... the first amplifier-stage is nearly identical excpt the bias divider here: 470k/100k and in the 3knob-tonebender 220k/47k...

Dice Works claims to have the schematic.....

Everybody who thought that at least the 3knob-TB is a Macaris-invention should rethink this idea.....

So if you should be the lucky winner, I really would be glad to see more and better guts of this unit... please don´t forget this.... :wink:

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Post by royaltoots »

...as you say, similar to the 3 knob Tonebender, with 3 x NKT213s.

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Post by frank.clarke »

I remember Fripp saying his fave fuzzbox was a Burns Buzz Box, but since it was so good, they stopped making it. I vaguely recall he didn't have it for Heroes, and he said he could get his sound with any fuzz box.
Balance and Treble would suggest something different from the other tonebenders, but who knows. Interesting, thanks.

Oh, here we go with the Fripp interview:
http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Inter ... yer_(1974)

OK copy and paste the link in. the (1974) confuses the autolink.



What type of volume pedal is it?

It's the cheapest one I found, and the only one I could afford at the time that seemed any good. I think it's a Farfisa [by C.M.I.] pedal. It's still the finest volume pedal I've found anywhere. It's the only one that goes off and still has a wide movement. It's quite incredible. On stage I use three pedals on a pedal board: A volume pedal, fuzz-tone, and wah-wah. The fuzz-tone and wah-wah are pretty rubbishy. I'm not sure what type of wah-wah it is. The best fuzz-box to use is a Burn's Buzz-around which they discontinued making in England about six years ago. I have two of them, but they're not at the moment attached to my pedal board. The more pedals you go through, the longer leads you need, and in turn the less volume you get. You lose gain along the way. To lessen that, the wah-wah and the fuzz are on the knock-off circuit. In other words, when I'm playing, all the time I'm going through the volume, but when I'm using either fuzz or wah-wah, I knock a different pedal which brings in a different circuit for the fuzz and the wah-wah. When I'm not using them I press a button and knock them out of the circuit so that the circuit shortens, and I keep up my gain. I also use a Watkins Kopy Kat echo unit. It's all right, but it's not particularly good. It suffices for what I want, which is not really a lot of echo effects but just a slight edge, because the sound on stage is very dead in a lot of halls I play in. It really doesn't matter what kind of fuzz box you use. It has more to do with the state of mind.

But if somebody wanted to obtain the same sound you got, wouldn't it be important to know what type of fuzz you were using?

No. I can get that same sound with every kind of fuzz box I've ever used. It's not a question of equipment.
Last edited by frank.clarke on 20 Dec 2007, 02:13, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by analogguru »

frank.clarke wrote:I remember Fripp saying his fave fuzzbox was a Burns Buzz Box, but since it was so good, they stopped making it. I vaguely recall he didn't have it for Heroes, and he said he could get his sound with any fuzz box.
Balance and Treble would suggest something different from the other tonebenders, but who knows. Interesting, thanks.

Oh, here we go with the Fripp interview: http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Inter ... yer_(1974)
Hmmm:
(There is currently no text in this page)
:cry:

analogguru
Last edited by analogguru on 20 Dec 2007, 04:35, edited 1 time in total.
There´s a sucker born every minute - and too many of them end up in the bootweak pedal biz.

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Post by analogguru »

The seller added internal shots - sadly only with very poor quality.
Based on my newly acquired knowledge & the recommendation of serious collectors I am now willing to listen to offers over £1500 for this rare, hand-made item.
So is there someone ready to invest $ 3.000,-- :!: :shock: into a shitty fuzzbox ? This would be necessary to get better pictures:
I will take detailed pics as required once a firm price has been agreed.
Personally I would never deal with such a greedy guy:
I am prepared to listen to offers & will re-list the item with an agreed 'buy-it-now' price
But at least we know the pot-values for free:
The stamp on the 100K POTS APPEARS TO READ 277 203008 but i can't really make it out that well.
Hey..: The Colorsound Tonebender´s had the same value

Datas of the NKT 213: 32V/250mA/200mW ß>50/1mA fg>900kHz
a really shitty transistor.....

Maybe the Macaris-Brothers will invest the required $3.000,-- to hide the real roots of the 3knob-Tonebender ?

The questions which remain:
Who was the engineer/inventor of this unit and was it really built in Britain ? The case looks more US-like.... components are european...
cables look like in the Marshall Superfuzz....

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Post by the_pedal_nazi »

analogguru wrote:The seller added internal shots - sadly only with very poor quality.
Based on my newly acquired knowledge & the recommendation of serious collectors I am now willing to listen to offers over £1500 for this rare, hand-made item.
So is there someone ready to invest $ 3.000,-- :!: :shock: into a shitty fuzzbox ? This would be necessary to get better pictures:
I will take detailed pics as required once a firm price has been agreed.
Personally I would never deal with such a greedy guy:
I am prepared to listen to offers & will re-list the item with an agreed 'buy-it-now' price
But at least we know the pot-values for free:
The stamp on the 100K POTS APPEARS TO READ 277 203008 but i can't really make it out that well.
Hey..: The Colorsound Tonebender´s had the same value

Datas of the NKT 213: 32V/250mA/200mW ß>50/1mA fg>900kHz
a really shitty transistor.....

Maybe the Macaris-Brothers will invest the required $3.000,-- to hide the real roots of the 3knob-Tonebender ?

The questions which remain:
Who was the engineer/inventor of this unit and was it really built in Britain ? The case looks more US-like.... components are european...
cables look like in the Marshall Superfuzz....

analogguru
The same guy who invented the MKI and II Gary Hurst (not Dick Denney) did the Burns Buzz Around as well. It's basically a Supa Fuzz/MKII with a high pass filter and an extra ac coupled feedback. Q1 has a bias on emitter to ground and base to rail.
NKT213's are good, i have several hundred, they were used cuz you could get them off the shelf in the 60's (just like NKT275's) in hundreds at a time. Plentiful and cheap! They were sold as direct replacements for utility in old radios for networks and amplifiers. Not a whole lotta difference tween them and 275's in terms of tone, most are very low gain.

The reason the BBA is so expensive is cuz they were out sourced in England, handwired by a house and very few were produced from competition (rarity mostly). Then throw on the folklore/urban legend, historic players who rave on about their fave fuzz from when they were kids before their brains got fried on drugs/booze n women and wahlah! Super high prices.... You just don't see them for sale, when they broke back then, most people just chucked em in the trash and went and bought a new $20.00 fuzz. Remember, Arbiter Fuzz Faces were less than $25.00 in 1968...

That one for auction is actually a very early model, hand wired on tag board and bent wedge housing... Later they went to the cheap/ultra shitty British PC board and sand cast aluminum housing (like Marshall Supa Fuzz). Competition was so high with Sola, Arbiter, Rotosound, EKO, Maestro and so on building fuzzes, I doubt Burns could make any money and prolly stopped making them... Just an educated guess, but I bet I'm close.

I've had three buzz arounds... I think they are so shitty n cool, really a piece of guitar history much like Sola Sound IMHO.

The three knob Tone Bender is a mess, whoever invented that needs to be slapped cuz he doesn't know bias and audio wave forms sonically. the bias is messed up on first and third stages, it drives both inverted and non-inverted outs of Q1 into Q2 causing the current to shut off Q2 (makes the shitty spitty fizzy fuzztone sound) if it has too much gain, stupid fuzz control too and Q3 has one Ge diode clipping one side with a shitty tone stack and no output stage...

I have my own version of that circuit called the MKIV coming out. I fixed all the problems with bias, each stages turns the next on perfectly making it sing muscially, fixed the tone stack and added a Ge output buffer. Very smooth, clips even order harmonics very well, tons of smooth musical fuzz and cleans up like a good ole Fuzz Face does.

Enuff of my blather, sorry for being a fuzz nerd and rambling on...

Toodles
Scotty

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Post by royaltoots »

You have hundreds of NKT213s??? I think they're pretty cool too...

Wanna sell me a few? 8)

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Post by analogguru »

The Buzzaround is back for sale:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Baldwin-Burns-Buz ... dZViewItem

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Post by royaltoots »

another guts pic -
Image

i was trying to puzzle out the layout by looking at this and the previous pic, but there's not enough info for me at least - sort of frustrating!

I'm taking a break from building anything at the moment, but I would make an exception for this one

see also http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=5btusj&s=3

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Post by graemey »

Anyone wanting to hear a Buzzaround can check my video on Youtube


Enjoy!

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Post by MoreCowbell »

graemey wrote:Anyone wanting to hear a Buzzaround can check my video on Youtube


Enjoy!

What we could DEFINITELY use are some detailed internal pictures ! :D

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Post by Solidhex »

YES



--Brad

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Post by Alex Frias »

Mr. Graemay, now you get the power to change lives at the palm of your hand, or at at the end of your guitar cables.

Ah, and your videos at utub are really excelent and helpfull in my humilp opinion. Thanx

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Post by graemey »

Well...
I did take some pics and send them to a guy via his email not so long ago.
The photos, if Im honest, didn't turn out all that good. They were clear but I don't think anyone could trace the circuit from them.
Im VERY nervous about pulling the pedal to bits to get detailed shots.
However, I have no problems sharing them with users of this forum.
How do I post them?
Tell me how to post and I will try my best to display them here.
Graemey

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Post by analogguru »

graemey wrote:However, I have no problems sharing them with users of this forum.
How do I post them?
Tell me how to post and I will try my best to display them here.
Graemey
This is very easy:
As far as I can see you should be familiar with how to post a message. If you scroll down now, you will find buttons "Preview", "Submit", "Save" and "Cancel".

Below this buttons is written "Upload attachements".
then there is written filename and on the right side a button "search" If you press this button you can do a search on your (local) harddisk to find the file you want to upload. If you have found it, the path and filename can be displayed in the line.

Below the search button is a button "Add the file". once you have entered the correct path and filename you can press this button. there will be a pop-up-window that your file will be uploaded. this can take some time.

You can add more pictures this way. After you have completed the upload you can press the "Submit" button and voila the pictures are in the message as attachements.

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Post by graemey »

Okay here we go,
Hope this works...
Attachments
Buzz5.JPG
Buzz4.JPG
Buzz3.JPG
Buzz2.JPG
Buzz1.JPG

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Post by seniorLoco »

Hey graemey ... thanks.
Your video on YTube was cool and i believe this pedal just sounded good through your amp....nice VOX you got there buddy.
"Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it saved the mice, who ate the cheese."

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Post by 9 volt »

Cool stuff! Any idea of the values of the two silver capacitors? 5uf? Thanks

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