Sola Sound - Supa Tonebender: four transistor version

JJ Gabor · Post by **JJ Gabor** » 19 Jan 2009, 11:01

Hi

I have been lurking around this forum for too long without contributing. Thought I would post gutshots and part refs for my mid 70s tonebender. I haven't seen any schems of this version using 4 x BC184 transistors so hopefully it is of use to someone. Much thicker 'brickwall' style fuzz than the 3 transistor version, rakes of volume also.

All metal box caps say '250/u1' (u is backwards like mf

), there is one metal box near the bottom left that is smaller and this says '400/10n' on it.

All cylindrical foil caps say '470pf'. The one Mylar green cap says '472'. The large electrolytic is 22uf. Volume and gain pots at the top are 100kB, and tone (Bottom middle) says 100KA.

All Transistors are BC184.

EDIT: Diodes are unmarked, but look like generic silicon 1418s etc

Trace side:

Enjoy!

JJ Gabor

analogguru · Post by **analogguru** » 19 Jan 2009, 11:19

Thanks for the pictures !!!
First time that I see the track side....

It seems that it matches with this work:
http://eu11.stripper.jp/pulcino/blog/ar ... ender.html

scroll down for schematic.

analogguru

JJ Gabor · Post by **JJ Gabor** » 19 Jan 2009, 11:59

Cool, there is already a schem. I was hoping that I could clone this and sell it on as they sell for fairly stupid prices.

I posted gutshots of an efffector 13 TBD in the boutique section, but i just found the disaster fuzz shots so it might be redundant.

I have the following that i could shoot if anyone was interested:

EH Microsynth
Moogerfooger lowpass filter, phasor and Ring mod (don't know how easy it would be to get at the trace side)

alteredsounds · Post by **alteredsounds** » 19 Jan 2009, 21:35

Just cracked open 6 Colorsound TB's to have a transistor count, out of the 6, all fairly different looking, one has 4 transistors:

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 21 Jan 2009, 00:39

Oh wow, it's a Big Muff!

PurplePeopleEater · Post by **PurplePeopleEater** » 21 Jan 2009, 01:27

soulsonic wrote:Oh wow, it's a Big Muff!

<minus one set of diodes> shhhh.....

Alex Frias · Post by **Alex Frias** » 21 Jan 2009, 11:29

A Not-So-Big Muff?

alteredsounds · Post by **alteredsounds** » 21 Jan 2009, 11:44

Sure is basically a muff, wonder why most are 3 transistor, the variance between parts used, not especially values is huge, whatever was in the parts bins that week i would guess.

PurplePeopleEater · Post by **PurplePeopleEater** » 21 Jan 2009, 12:43

alteredsounds wrote:wonder why most are 3 transistor

Most Jumbo Tonebenders are a Big Muff minus the final recovery stage. That's why 3 transistors instead of 4.

alteredsounds · Post by **alteredsounds** » 21 Jan 2009, 13:44

PurplePeopleEater wrote:
alteredsounds wrote:wonder why most are 3 transistor
Most Jumbo Tonebenders are a Big Muff minus the final recovery stage. That's why 3 transistors instead of 4.

Makes sense now u say that, not really a fan of muff circuits so not looked at them b4

sonicvi · Post by **sonicvi** » 21 Jan 2009, 15:55

The Jumbo TB lives up to its name and sounds much better with bass than guitar imo. It almost sounds like it has clean signal mixed in.

lohstah · Post by **lohstah** » 21 Jan 2009, 17:04

It almost sounds like it has clean signal mixed in

yeah, that´s really peculiar and i love it with bass guitar.

and works perfectly ok with active basses.

cheers,
lohstah

peps1 · Post by **peps1** » 12 Nov 2010, 21:10

Anyone got another solder-side shot of the Sola Sound - Supa Tonebender (four transistor version)

Its hard to see what is going on at this small section next to the clipping didoes

mattpas · Post by **mattpas** » 17 Nov 2010, 18:07

analogguru wrote:Thanks for the pictures !!!
First time that I see the track side....

It seems that it matches with this work:
http://eu11.stripper.jp/pulcino/blog/ar ... ender.html

scroll down for schematic.

analogguru

The board doesn't match the schematic on that site

pakalolo · Post by **pakalolo** » 22 Nov 2010, 15:18

If you look at the first pics posted, R8 (from Q2 base to ground) is missing.
It is present in alteredsounds version though.

Otherwise, I don't see any differences between the pics and the schem.

mattpas · Post by **mattpas** » 22 Nov 2010, 16:36

pakalolo wrote:If you look at the first pics posted, R8 (from Q2 base to ground) is missing.
It is present in alteredsounds version though.

Otherwise, I don't see any differences between the pics and the schem.

some resistor values are different

pakalolo · Post by **pakalolo** » 22 Nov 2010, 21:00

You're right.

R4 and R15 should be 15k and R6 maybe 820 ?

SGJarrod · Post by **SGJarrod** » 01 Sep 2011, 23:32

lohstah wrote:
It almost sounds like it has clean signal mixed in
yeah, that´s really peculiar and i love it with bass guitar.

and works perfectly ok with active basses.

cheers,
lohstah

this comes from not having clipping diodes on the first gain stage (Q2).... when u remove these diodes there is obviously no clipping and it really ads to the lowend of the tone.... some like to put a 1m pot wired to the diodes on Q2 of muffs to control the amount of clipping to get anything from the Supa to a Muff tone

Cub · Post by **Cub** » 18 Sep 2011, 19:19

SGJarrod wrote:
lohstah wrote:
It almost sounds like it has clean signal mixed in
yeah, that´s really peculiar and i love it with bass guitar.
this comes from not having clipping diodes on the first gain stage (Q2).... some like to put a 1m pot wired to the diodes on Q2 of muffs to control the amount of clipping to get anything from the Supa to a Muff tone

That's what also makes it a fantastic Fuzz for humbuckers. Rick "Frequency Central" Holt put the 1M pot Jarrod is talking about on his perf layout. (click here for the thread about it)
It's on my to do list to build a Steve Hackett sounding Fuzz pedal that's capable of a little something more if I want it to.

fuzz_germanium · Post by **fuzz_germanium** » 29 Sep 2014, 04:59

Hi guys, I'm making a replica of Supa fuzz, but Steve Hackett edition, anyone know the values that change or type of transistors used, or is it just the original with a sticker?

Thanks guys!