Fairfield Circuitry - The Unpleasant Surprise

General documentation, gut shot, schematic links, ongoing circuit tracing, deep thoughts ... all about boutique stompboxes.
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DWBH
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Post by DWBH »

http://www.fairfieldcircuitry.com/US.html


Image

Holy smokes. I bet there's an untraceable 4 layer board inside, just like the Four Eyes, but still...
I'm not usually interested in noise boxes - well, I think they're cool and all but I wouldn't certainly buy one. But this... oh my, I could see me buy one of these.

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greigoroth
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Post by greigoroth »

DWBH wrote:http://www.fairfieldcircuitry.com/US.html

Holy smokes. I bet there's an untraceable 4 layer board inside, just like the Four Eyes, but still...
I'm not usually interested in noise boxes - well, I think they're cool and all but I wouldn't certainly buy one. But this... oh my, I could see me buy one of these.
Yep! I'm broke till Christmas otherwise I'd preorder - never wanted a "noise" pedal before, but this thing's something else. If nothing else I'd buy it for the controls - with the exception of "volume" I have no idea what any of them do :D
On the other hand, volume could be some sort of trickery...

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earthtonesaudio
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Post by earthtonesaudio »

Digging the sound samples very much on this one.

Gotta disagree on the "untraceable" four-layer board comment though. If it's analog, it's traceable.
rocklander wrote:hairsplitting and semantics aren't exactly the same thing though.. we may need two contests for that.

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DWBH
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Post by DWBH »

earthtonesaudio wrote:Digging the sound samples very much on this one.

Gotta disagree on the "untraceable" four-layer board comment though. If it's analog, it's traceable.
It was just a joke regarding the pcb that's on their other fuzz pedal :P

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diagrammatiks
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Post by diagrammatiks »

love fairfield.

only builder I know who discontinued a pedal because it was too complicated and too much of a clusterfuck to build.

respect.

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Post by dlab »

Isn't that what happened to the Foxrox TZF too? Too complicated to keep in production?

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Post by Whoismarykelly »

earthtonesaudio wrote:Digging the sound samples very much on this one.

Gotta disagree on the "untraceable" four-layer board comment though. If it's analog, it's traceable.
A better way to say it would be "not tracable by posting pictures of the circuit board on a web forum for knowledgable folks to guess at."

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Post by earthtonesaudio »

Quite right. The knowledgeable person, the pedal in question, and some tools must all be in the same place at the same time.

In this day and age that's actually pretty good security!
rocklander wrote:hairsplitting and semantics aren't exactly the same thing though.. we may need two contests for that.

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diagrammatiks
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Post by diagrammatiks »

earthtonesaudio wrote:Quite right. The knowledgeable person, the pedal in question, and some tools must all be in the same place at the same time.

In this day and age that's actually pretty good security!
i think the caveat is non-destructive tracing.

anybody could trace anything by dismantling it.

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Post by amnesiac »

Looks to be smd as well. He posted the board on fb.

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DWBH
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Post by DWBH »

amnesiac wrote:Looks to be smd as well. He posted the board on fb.
Indeed
Image

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Post by Whoismarykelly »

Dude designs gorgeous PCBs. That actually doesn't look like anything more than maybe a double sided board based on the traces in sight. I'm looking forward to the one of these I have coming in the mail :)

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Post by Gila_Crisis »

any more infos about what's inside this pedal?
Zwischen Ordnung und Chaos fangt die Musik an

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Post by Nocentelli »

My guess:

Input goes to a state variable filter (3 opamps or a dual OTA), LP output goes to low fuzz circuit, BP goes to Mid fuzz circuit, HP goes to Hi fuzz circuit. Some sort of dualgang pot controls the crossover frequency, simple switch to adjust feedback resistor for variable resonance, Lo/Mid/Hi controls are gain controls for each independant circuit, simple blend to mix the three outputs.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by Gila_Crisis »

I think you are guessing about the Four Eye fuzz.....

the Unpleasant Surprise is this one:


here a pair of gut shots I found ohnline, but nothing to start with...
Attachments
unpleasantsurprise4.jpg
unpleasantsurprise4.jpg (55.54 KiB) Viewed 4936 times
fc_unsup-5.jpg
Zwischen Ordnung und Chaos fangt die Musik an

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Post by Nocentelli »

Gila_Crisis wrote:I think you are guessing about the Four Eye fuzz.....
doh.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by allesz »

It's an interesting pedal, the second pic is really good, but it's impossible to read the values.
I find strange that the only non smd parts are the two transistors....

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Post by winkelschleifer »

Any new clues on this pedal? :horsey:

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Addy Bart
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Post by Addy Bart »

diagrammatiks wrote:love fairfield.

only builder I know who discontinued a pedal because it was too complicated and too much of a clusterfuck to build.

respect.
Ha, which pedal was that then?

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Post by Nocentelli »

Come on, Bugg, get the schematic up
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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