cobbled this together. no interest on the other forum, probably cuz it doesn't use biasing in a classic manner on the transistors.
sounds fucking great. i used this last nite live and it totally kicked ass at stage volumes, from clean to scream to pitched static it did it all right from my guitar. i didn't miss my pedalboard at all. surprised the fuck out of me.
this is a great way to use up leaky shitty low gain garbage germaniums. hfe of 10-60 tested, above that it starts to sound like shit.... tho high gain can give ya some octave fuzz stuff too if ya want.
anyways... this started as a reworking of my liberal komrade fuzz, i had added a boost to it but it didn't work right, so i set out to redesign something that would fit on the vero i'd fucked up. i discovered that removing the biasing resistors gave a cool fuzz... and one thing led to another.
anyways... there's a pcb-ish layout on aron's if anyone wants it. i gotta do a vero still, and video, tho there is video of the bias schmias fuzz that just preceeded it. (the thread at aron's is topic'd "bias schmiass".
if ya build this, and diggit, let me know.
the attack control does NOT have to be pegged... anything above about 10:00 on it will get fuzzier and fuzzier, kinda like a distortion + but with sustain like a big muff... right up to the point where it becomes for all intents pitched noise. if everything is pegged, and ya slam power chords, it kinda sags at ya then swells in.
super long liquidy sustain that almost seems to have a touch of envelope follower. mmm mmm. fuzzy goodness.
enjoy. peace.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Slava Ukraini!
Eagerly awaiting video. Looks insane, in a good way.
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...
it's got a neat feel... since the transistors are only "on" when signal is present, whatever level you put into it from your guitar gets amplified to full gain... so it feels weird at some settings, almost like a greenringer kinda thing.
i gotta wait til i can crank the amp up a little so i can do a proper demo.
this is my first 100% original (as in by myself) design that didn't start off as being based on something else, strictly from breadboard fuckaroundary.
the first stage alone (the input cap, transistor, trimmer and output cap) is what i call the Liberal Komrade Boost (or lkb1) and that was what this started as. when all was said and done, i had the rest breadboarded and tried the booster on the back end... not impressed. but on the front... WOW.
it has that germanium tone, cleans up like a good fuzz face, is inSANEly guitar attack dynamic and can go from crystaline and "clean" to overdriven to distorted to fuzz to almost tuned static.
stay tuned nocentelli!!
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Slava Ukraini!
pinkjimiphoton wrote:cobbled this together. no interest on the other forum, probably cuz it doesn't use biasing in a classic manner on the transistors.
sounds fucking great. i used this last nite live and it totally kicked ass at stage volumes, from clean to scream to pitched static it did it all right from my guitar. i didn't miss my pedalboard at all. surprised the fuck out of me.
this is a great way to use up leaky shitty low gain garbage germaniums. hfe of 10-60 tested, above that it starts to sound like shit.... tho high gain can give ya some octave fuzz stuff too if ya want.
anyways... this started as a reworking of my liberal komrade fuzz, i had added a boost to it but it didn't work right, so i set out to redesign something that would fit on the vero i'd fucked up. i discovered that removing the biasing resistors gave a cool fuzz... and one thing led to another.
anyways... there's a pcb-ish layout on aron's if anyone wants it. i gotta do a vero still, and video, tho there is video of the bias schmias fuzz that just preceeded it. (the thread at aron's is topic'd "bias schmiass".
the attack control does NOT have to be pegged... anything above about 10:00 on it will get fuzzier and fuzzier, kinda like a distortion + but with sustain like a big muff... right up to the point where it becomes for all intents pitched noise. if everything is pegged, and ya slam power chords, it kinda sags at ya then swells in.
super long liquidy sustain that almost seems to have a touch of envelope follower. mmm mmm. fuzzy goodness.
enjoy. peace.
Hi Pinkjimiphoton,
Please can you check again your circuit.
Diode 1N 400x reverse polarisation.
100uF "+" connect to the Gnd
2u2 -"+" connect to 15k resistor
1N34A I guess that also required to reverse.
BTW nice design.
Thank you,
Rgds,
box
pinkjimiphoton wrote:cobbled this together. no interest on the other forum, probably cuz it doesn't use biasing in a classic manner on the transistors.
sounds fucking great. i used this last nite live and it totally kicked ass at stage volumes, from clean to scream to pitched static it did it all right from my guitar. i didn't miss my pedalboard at all. surprised the fuck out of me.
this is a great way to use up leaky shitty low gain garbage germaniums. hfe of 10-60 tested, above that it starts to sound like shit.... tho high gain can give ya some octave fuzz stuff too if ya want.
anyways... this started as a reworking of my liberal komrade fuzz, i had added a boost to it but it didn't work right, so i set out to redesign something that would fit on the vero i'd fucked up. i discovered that removing the biasing resistors gave a cool fuzz... and one thing led to another.
anyways... there's a pcb-ish layout on aron's if anyone wants it. i gotta do a vero still, and video, tho there is video of the bias schmias fuzz that just preceeded it. (the thread at aron's is topic'd "bias schmiass".
the attack control does NOT have to be pegged... anything above about 10:00 on it will get fuzzier and fuzzier, kinda like a distortion + but with sustain like a big muff... right up to the point where it becomes for all intents pitched noise. if everything is pegged, and ya slam power chords, it kinda sags at ya then swells in.
super long liquidy sustain that almost seems to have a touch of envelope follower. mmm mmm. fuzzy goodness.
enjoy. peace.
Hi Pinkjimiphoton,
Please can you check again your circuit.
Diode 1N 400x reverse polarisation.
100uF "+" connect to the Gnd
2u2 -"+" connect to 15k resistor
1N34A I guess that also required to reverse.
BTW nice design.
Thank you,
Rgds,
box
box, its a pnp circuit, so the 1n400x and 100u are as they should be, cathode of diode would face the top if it were npn, and + of 100u is going to "ground"... in this case 9v+
if you reversed the diode, it will overheat as it trys to dissipate current to ground.
if you reverse the electros, they have the potential of exploding.
the 2.2 is oriented this way because dc is blocked from the second stage by the .047 preceeding it, and the positive side is towards voltage potential. the 15k resistor is also connected to b+, which in this case is ground.
the 1n34a is the proper polarity. you could use a pair as a diode clipper, but i found it robbed volume and sounded better clipping one side of the wave assymetrically. i forget which side of the wave it clips in that polarity, but it sounded better with that one in place and the other removed.
if you reverse those parts, you need to also reverse the power supply and use npn transistors, which also HAVE to be germanium, ot it won''t work. should be fine running it npn, tho i haven't yet tried it like that.
here's the beast live last nite:
you can hear this thing live in this video from last nite. guitar solo starts about 3:04
the ONLY effect i have on, was lazy. ancient prophet, two cords, guitar and amp. just turn the guitar up and down.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Slava Ukraini!
pinkjimiphoton wrote:cobbled this together. no interest on the other forum, probably cuz it doesn't use biasing in a classic manner on the transistors.
sounds fucking great. i used this last nite live and it totally kicked ass at stage volumes, from clean to scream to pitched static it did it all right from my guitar. i didn't miss my pedalboard at all. surprised the fuck out of me.
this is a great way to use up leaky shitty low gain garbage germaniums. hfe of 10-60 tested, above that it starts to sound like shit.... tho high gain can give ya some octave fuzz stuff too if ya want.
anyways... this started as a reworking of my liberal komrade fuzz, i had added a boost to it but it didn't work right, so i set out to redesign something that would fit on the vero i'd fucked up. i discovered that removing the biasing resistors gave a cool fuzz... and one thing led to another.
anyways... there's a pcb-ish layout on aron's if anyone wants it. i gotta do a vero still, and video, tho there is video of the bias schmias fuzz that just preceeded it. (the thread at aron's is topic'd "bias schmiass".
the attack control does NOT have to be pegged... anything above about 10:00 on it will get fuzzier and fuzzier, kinda like a distortion + but with sustain like a big muff... right up to the point where it becomes for all intents pitched noise. if everything is pegged, and ya slam power chords, it kinda sags at ya then swells in.
super long liquidy sustain that almost seems to have a touch of envelope follower. mmm mmm. fuzzy goodness.
enjoy. peace.
Hi Pinkjimiphoton,
Please can you check again your circuit.
Diode 1N 400x reverse polarisation.
100uF "+" connect to the Gnd
2u2 -"+" connect to 15k resistor
1N34A I guess that also required to reverse.
BTW nice design.
Thank you,
Rgds,
box
box, its a pnp circuit, so the 1n400x and 100u are as they should be, cathode of diode would face the top if it were npn, and + of 100u is going to "ground"... in this case 9v+
if you reversed the diode, it will overheat as it trys to dissipate current to ground.
if you reverse the electros, they have the potential of exploding.
the 2.2 is oriented this way because dc is blocked from the second stage by the .047 preceeding it, and the positive side is towards voltage potential. the 15k resistor is also connected to b+, which in this case is ground.
the 1n34a is the proper polarity. you could use a pair as a diode clipper, but i found it robbed volume and sounded better clipping one side of the wave assymetrically. i forget which side of the wave it clips in that polarity, but it sounded better with that one in place and the other removed.
if you reverse those parts, you need to also reverse the power supply and use npn transistors, which also HAVE to be germanium, ot it won''t work. should be fine running it npn, tho i haven't yet tried it like that.
here's the beast live last nite:
you can hear this thing live in this video from last nite. guitar solo starts about 3:04
the ONLY effect i have on, was lazy. ancient prophet, two cords, guitar and amp. just turn the guitar up and down.
Cool jam, sounds kind of like the Rolling Stones......
Genius is not all about 99% perspiration, and 1% inspiration - sometimes the solution is staring you right in the face.-Frequencycentral.
pinkjimiphoton wrote:cobbled this together. no interest on the other forum, probably cuz it doesn't use biasing in a classic manner on the transistors.
sounds fucking great. i used this last nite live and it totally kicked ass at stage volumes, from clean to scream to pitched static it did it all right from my guitar. i didn't miss my pedalboard at all. surprised the fuck out of me.
this is a great way to use up leaky shitty low gain garbage germaniums. hfe of 10-60 tested, above that it starts to sound like shit.... tho high gain can give ya some octave fuzz stuff too if ya want.
anyways... this started as a reworking of my liberal komrade fuzz, i had added a boost to it but it didn't work right, so i set out to redesign something that would fit on the vero i'd fucked up. i discovered that removing the biasing resistors gave a cool fuzz... and one thing led to another.
anyways... there's a pcb-ish layout on aron's if anyone wants it. i gotta do a vero still, and video, tho there is video of the bias schmias fuzz that just preceeded it. (the thread at aron's is topic'd "bias schmiass".
the attack control does NOT have to be pegged... anything above about 10:00 on it will get fuzzier and fuzzier, kinda like a distortion + but with sustain like a big muff... right up to the point where it becomes for all intents pitched noise. if everything is pegged, and ya slam power chords, it kinda sags at ya then swells in.
super long liquidy sustain that almost seems to have a touch of envelope follower. mmm mmm. fuzzy goodness.
enjoy. peace.
Hi Pinkjimiphoton,
Please can you check again your circuit.
Diode 1N 400x reverse polarisation.
100uF "+" connect to the Gnd
2u2 -"+" connect to 15k resistor
1N34A I guess that also required to reverse.
BTW nice design.
Thank you,
Rgds,
box
box, its a pnp circuit, so the 1n400x and 100u are as they should be, cathode of diode would face the top if it were npn, and + of 100u is going to "ground"... in this case 9v+
if you reversed the diode, it will overheat as it trys to dissipate current to ground.
if you reverse the electros, they have the potential of exploding.
the 2.2 is oriented this way because dc is blocked from the second stage by the .047 preceeding it, and the positive side is towards voltage potential. the 15k resistor is also connected to b+, which in this case is ground.
the 1n34a is the proper polarity. you could use a pair as a diode clipper, but i found it robbed volume and sounded better clipping one side of the wave assymetrically. i forget which side of the wave it clips in that polarity, but it sounded better with that one in place and the other removed.
if you reverse those parts, you need to also reverse the power supply and use npn transistors, which also HAVE to be germanium, ot it won''t work. should be fine running it npn, tho i haven't yet tried it like that.
here's the beast live last nite:
you can hear this thing live in this video from last nite. guitar solo starts about 3:04
the ONLY effect i have on, was lazy. ancient prophet, two cords, guitar and amp. just turn the guitar up and down.
Hello,
I guess that you make a mistake with diode protection.This can be confusion for others.
Here is a sample.
box
box, look at the doc you just sent me. it too shows the cathode/banded end going to the voltage potential. if it were an npn pedal, the cathode would go to +.
in an npn, it has to go the other way, as in this case positive 9v is ground potential, not voltage potential. to put the diode in the other orientation will drop the voltage thru the diode, overheating it at best. i tried it both ways on the breadboard, the schematic i posted is right in terms of orientation.
here's veroboard layout for the beast
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Slava Ukraini!
I really dig the phasey envelope effect. It sounds really good on the neck pickup in your demo. Over the top barely controlled mayhem is my sound. Good one, Jimi.
"Contemplate it - on the tree of woe." :Thulsa Doom
I agree with box, if that really is a 1N400x then it will conduct all the time and rapidly flatten your battery. Passing a current limited by the 100R resistor and the internal resistance of the battery in series.
A 10v (or higher) zener would be correct but serve little purpose over a 1N400x (the other way round) for battery use.
The way I always explained it to my apprentices (software not EE) is that current will only flow in the direction of the arrow and only when the voltage is higher (more positive) on the triangle base end than the end with the bar on it. Anode and cathode just confused the issue. In EE terms the diode will conduct when the anode (plain end) is more positive than the cathode (bar end).
For a shunt protection diode the cathode (bar end) needs to go to the battery +ve otherwise the diode will conduct for normal operation. It doesn't matter if it is powering an NPN or PNP circuit.
Politics is the art of so plucking the goose as to obtain the most feathers with the least squawking. - R.G. 2011
Jeez, she's an ugly bastard, she makes my socks hurt. I hope it's no ones missus here. - Ice-9 2012
I agree with box, if that really is a 1N400x then it will conduct all the time and rapidly flatten your battery. Passing a current limited by the 100R resistor and the internal resistance of the battery in series.
A 10v (or higher) zener would be correct but serve little purpose over a 1N400x (the other way round) for battery use.
The way I always explained it to my apprentices (software not EE) is that current will only flow in the direction of the arrow and only when the voltage is higher (more positive) on the triangle base end than the end with the bar on it. Anode and cathode just confused the issue. In EE terms the diode will conduct when the anode (plain end) is more positive than the cathode (bar end).
For a shunt protection diode the cathode (bar end) needs to go to the battery +ve otherwise the diode will conduct for normal operation. It doesn't matter if it is powering an NPN or PNP circuit.
Hello deltafred,
thank you for supporting me in this small topic.
From my side no more comments.
Rgds,
box
remember too this isn't a crank the gain to 10 and leave it there pedal for most peeps. :icon_mrgreen:
if ya test it with everything full, expect it to sound bloody horrible in a kinda cool way.
i'd start with the attack all the way down.. it will still overdrive like that cuzza the small resistor between pin 3 and ground.
start with the tone about 1/2 way up. i'd changed it, so it really only seems to do anything thru the first half of the sweep (you can make it a contour control, add a 1n cap to ground from pin 1 of the pot if ya want a little more tweakability, but it puts max treble near the center of the pot rotation, which i liked but found counter intuitive.
with your amp cranked up to a normal playing level... maybe not stadium volume, but at a volume you'd actually use it at ... turn it on and turn the volume up.
you should hear the effect come up immediately. crank it up to unity gain. or go past unity gain if ya want. the higher you go, the more distortion you'll get, it's fairly interactive with the attack pot.
now start bringing up the attack until ya get a decent fuzztone. you should be able to twiddle from fuzz to cleanish from your guitar smoothly... at least thats my way to do it.
that'll probably be, if you were looking at a clock around 10:00 on the attack, 1:00 on the tone and maybe 12-1:00 on the volume. should give you a decent useable range with a bit of a boost to it.
into a cleanish amp it sounds to me when the fuzz is cranked almost a univox kinda sounding fuzztone, and you can get that tuned static thing going fairly well. it's more jagged and harsh with the guitar up, but sweetens up when ya turn the guitar down.
into a cranked up edge-of-breakup kinda amp, it's smoother and darker and it makes the cream come out of it.
in the live video, you can also hear what it sounds like into a hyper distorted amp (if ya notice something clam me up, and reaching for the guitar knobs that's why... the sax player had brushed my amp's patch selector knob, and changed me from my normal princeton to a boogie-ish patch.).
objectionable hiss may or may not be an issue depending on individual transistors. i found i could dial in "sweet spots" that would be less hissy and still produce decent tones over a range of transistors... as long as the gain is really low they all seemed to work. you may need to examine your pinouts. i've found that often with these transistors, i just try them socketed in normal or reverse beta, and use whichever polarity sounds best. sometimes they have more-- or less--- gain that way. sometimes one normal and one reversed also seemed to help with the noise some, wondering if it was via phase cancellation.
you can also put a smallish cap from signal to ground on the output pot to help tame hiss. this is no worse than any marshalls i ever owned (ie: when you stop playing, you WILL hear some ocean, but it's masked when you're playing. even the crummy noise gate on my cybers can deal with it)
things to play with.
i never ever used to do it until just like LAST WEEK even tho i've had it for years, but i would advise using a breadboard and trying this before committing to a build.
that way you can play with cap values etc.
something to ponder... most people seem to so far like a bigger cap for the input. you WILL get a LOT more fuzz that way.
but as you add stages, it will get unstable and motorboat possibly, leaving you with weird voltages and an aching bwain. and farty, gated, nasty, buzzsaw kinda fuzz.
however, if you go SMALL... 1-10n max on the input, and imho the smaller the better (but not below .001u) the sweeter the entire beast becomes. you get more guitar signal thru the crucial
first stages with less waste in bass frequencies you don't even have.. and then as it comes out of stage 2, the big-ass 470n cap lets enough of the subs generated by the first two stages of distortion and it starts to phatten up again. after the final stage, it phattens up more... and you lose most of the farty buzzy stuff. (good, imho) and it starts sounding almost muffish with a sweet sustain and weird almost envelope follower effect.
you can effectively tune the overall gain of the circuit by how much bass you wanna let thru.
while you ARE dispensing with it going in, as you fuzz the signal, you add harmonics and sub harmonics..so you're replacing some of the original frequencies with for all intents electronically synthesized ones, which i think may be part of why it sounds the way it does.
lean in, and it cracks. back off, it smooths down. whack it and it overloads (at some settings) and swells in.
there's more going on than i am even on the dawn of comprehension of.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Slava Ukraini!
