freestompboxes.org

was dicking around with " a fuzzbox for swingers" by herb friedman outta electronics illustrated from july of 68,
and well, one thing led to another, and this happened...

i didn't have the original transistors, 3391 and 3392 which had an ecb pinout, so i laid it out for common ebc transistors. i tried about 100 npn's of various gains, and what sounded best to my ear in the end was a pair of 5089's, a first... i've never dug higher gain silicon transistors in any fuzz i've built, but in here, it's hip... real nice phat warm overdrive to fuzzy golden sustain. i'm happy with it.

there's a half wave rectifier diode clipper that's always on, and a footswitchable secondary clipper that has a nice balance. asymetrical clipping, the second clipper is a super brite blue 5mm led, and a bat47 shotke.

anyways, a handful of parts, added trimmers to the collectors for both transistors so you can dial in quite a few transistors and get a decent sound. the vero is built and running and verified, works great.

i found the trimmers at the stated gains could be dimed with good result.

it cleans up some when ya turn it down, but it never gets super clean. has a nice long sustain with a pronounced buzzy almost synthy edge..seems to "swell" in a little, possibly cuz it's "overdriving the base" of q2.

anyways.... pictures or it didn't happen...

here's the schematic:
here's a verified vero layout:
please let me know if ya try this and like it...

stupid pedal trick soon

peace out

Interesting! Do you have a link to the original schematic?

gotta scan it

here ya go... the first pic is sized to fit one of them radio shack boxes i like..

whole article. my box is a bit different, the stock is probably more of a fuzz bomb.









i believe this may be the first time this one's been posted on the net.

That guy dresses like Barney Kessel.


Another win, Jimi.

i'm working on trying to improve it a little, but it sounds pretty good!!
will try to get video over the next couple days.

i put the guy in the graphic on the box. it looks pretty cool.

ok, here ya go, stupid pedal trick...

this is before the modifications to the e of q1 i'm gonna try. i have enough room on the vero to pull it off.

i really like the sound of this thing, especially with the les paul. very thick and creamy.

one minor f'up on the vero, forgot the track cut at e3... as shown, input is to the b+ of q1 c. oooops...



fixed, sorry for any inconvenience!!

hey kids, now i'm "pj luxfar" of facebook cuz that cretinous reptilian fuck zucked my account into oblivion in may....
update notes....
pins 1 and three are backwards on the pots
wire the input pot as a variable resistor, and bump it up to 100k and it will work better. if ya ground the pot it can get scratchy cuz it changes the bias a bit.
i'd advise a smaller input cap. 100n may be too fuzzy. the next version is gonna use a "blend" control to pan between a 4.7n and 100n with a b250k pot and replace the input cap with that. i find this kinda control works fairly well on these kinds of fuzzes, tho its not the "approved" way of doing shit.
we'll see. once i get the whole thing redone and updated, i'll post it here before the guy from MLA sucks it up as another project to present commercially like always seems to happen lol.

for the bold

next incarnation unbuilt yet. lets ya roll out some bass to make it sit better.

the updated swingerbox. i decided to go a little different.
1 meg resistor to output dropped to 100k, ditched the 22k series resistor on the audio input
pregain control knocked up to 100k
pre-bass cut added with 2.2n cap and b50k pot ... standard hi pass filter, located at input to input cap.
my very own tone control added.... i figured out years ago, that you can use a "fake variable cap" in place of a "snubber cap" on one of the transistors
to get a treble cut that doesn't lose volume, and doesn't fuck with the midrange. use a 47p cap on one side of a b250k pot and a 2.2n on the other side. join the free ends of the caps together. input to the pot is one side, junction of the two caps is the other. wire between b and c of q2.
boom. instant treble cut that don't suck. i've tried other tone controls over the years, and to me, this plain works better.
q's are 5088 in this case, only cuz i was out of 5089's.
so now there's pre, post, bass and treble. boom. sounds great, and more versatile than the original.
trimmers probably will sound best just about pegged. just turn 'em til they sound good.
higher gain transistors seem to sound better.
i'll update the schematic and a vero layout when i get to it.
have fun
PjP

Yeah!
It sounds great indeed, sweet warm tone, great work, i like it.
Can you sketch the current circuit?

hi manfred, sure. it will be a little bit before i get a chance, but here's a vero i knocked up for it

qnd schem

Thanks Jimi
What are the values of the set collector voltages?

no idea. didn't even check. just turn the trimmers til it sounds good. i used bc549c's on the most recent ones, gain around 600 is what ya wanna shoot for. the trimmers will likely be nearly pegged. that's fine.

make the bass pot b100k instead of 50 works better that way.

if ya build this, ditch the output resistor. it's simply not necessary. by modern standards, anyways.
you'll get more balls, and THAT means you can use the trimmers to dial it in a bit. first trimmer will sound best about full blast. this thing works by q1 being driven hard and overdriving q2.
q2 can be biased wherever sounds good. full up is the loudest. half way down sounds ok if ya like a more tame aminal to mess with.
i tend to set it up so that there's less of a drastic change when ya kick the diode switch on and off.
like everything, there's sweet spots.
if you already built this, just bridge that 100k resistor with a piece of wire. done.
sounds virtually the same, tho it DOES drive the diodes just a little bit harder.
you could also just replace the resistor with a smaller value...
as paul and mark noted, the 1m resistor stock to the original circuit is just about unity gain.
ditching it makes the pedal a lot louder, so you can overdrive your amp with it easier.
still sounds best to my ear into a breaking up amp, but now it can drive a cleanish amp into a nice sustain.
not super dirty... more tickles your tone than anihilating it.
anywho... onwards n' upwards...

Thanks for your detailed setup instructions and modding hints.
I have not built it yet, that is a project for the hard winter days that will come soon.