EarthQuaker Devices - Hoof Fuzz

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Post by JVanDe7 »

To elaborate, I'm looking for that lower gain Muff sound. The Hoof seems to have less gain and a noticeable "splatteryness" to it, probably from the Ge transistors? So I'm just curious which of the transistors should be swapped for Ge? And what kind of hFe are we talkin' for these NPN Ge transistors? Collector voltage readings, anyone? Please and thank you.
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Post by JVanDe7 »

Figured out the "Shift" knob. At least I think so. Same basic idea anyways...

http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/Bi ... neControl/

The indomitable Jack Orman (http://www.muzique.com) has researched the Big Muff Tone control and suggested various improvements. One of these improvements is to add a Body pot that provides more control over the response of the circuit. This version uses a 3.3k ohm resistor in place of the stock 22k value, and adds a 25k pot to ground. This provide you with a tone control that can handle both flat and "scooped" frequency response.
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Post by JVanDe7 »

Well I found some NPN germanium transistors with hFe 120-190. I'm going to use them for Q2 and Q3. Also ordered 4 white 3mm LED's and those will be used for the diode clipping (Q2, Q3).

I checked the voltages on the 2N5088 Si trannies I have in there (Q2 and Q3) now and they're both showing the same readings of 0.12 volts on the emitter and 4.5 volts collector. So should I just bias the Ge transistors around the same?

I'm hoping these mods plus the "Shift" (Body) pot I've added will get me into Hoof territory. I've owned two Hoofs over the years and I don't want to drop the coin on another if I can get pretty close on my own.
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Post by SpencerPedals »

Sounds like a good plan overall. This is on my never-ending to-do list. I believe those LEDs are red water-clear in the new ones. The older models had straight-up red diodes, so I would assume they kept with something with a similar forward voltage when they went to water-clear. I'm not sure if that's ever been confirmed.

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Post by JVanDe7 »

Right on. I ordered some red LED's too. It would be great if someone with a Hoof could take some voltage readings on the trannies and confirm the LED color. The LED's light up when you're playing through the pedal. Someone would just have to open the back and strum a bit with the pedal switched on...
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Post by SpencerPedals »

Here's a pic of one of the early boards to confirm:

Also, I don't own one, but rather just saved a bunch of pics a while ago because I'm a fan of the Muff circuit.
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Earthquaker - Hoof Fuzz Gut Shot 3.jpg
Earthquaker - Hoof Fuzz Gut Shot 3.jpg (22.96 KiB) Viewed 3932 times

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Post by JVanDe7 »

Cool thanks. I don't know a WHOLE lot about LED's but I do see that the older version used the red colored LED's, and now they use water clear LED's of an unknown color...

And it was mentioned above that they probably use water clear high brightness led's that light up Red because they would want to stick with the same forward voltage... but how do those older style red LED's work exactly? Seems like it might be a plain white light inside of a red plastic shell with would mean that the led itself is technically a white colored led (for forward voltage purposes), no?
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Post by JVanDe7 »

CORRECTION: I know NOTHING about LED's... haha


The colour of an LED is determined by the semiconductor material, not by the colouring of the 'package' (the plastic body). LEDs of all colours are available in uncoloured packages which may be diffused (milky) or clear (often described as 'water clear'). The coloured packages are also available as diffused (the standard type) or transparent.
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Post by mictester »

azrael wrote: The transistors themselves are not doing any clipping, so making them germanium seemed useless.
It is - unless you're a mojo-soused boutique boob!

It just goes to show how little these boobs actually know - they will just squander money on old components in the vain hope that it'll improve the sound of their pedals....
"Why is it humming?" "Because it doesn't know the words!"

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Post by JVanDe7 »

I'm definitely a know-nothing "boob", but I don't think Jamie at Earthquaker is at all. His pedals are flying off the shelves, his business is doing well. I think it would take more than a boob to pull that off. And he's been in business for years now, so it's not some flash in the pan operation. Just my opinion of course... but I do have to wonder how you know so much about his books? How much money did he squander exactly? (just curious. if you're at liberty to say)

PS- boobs are great. I love them. I'm not so sure that's an insult?
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Post by SpencerPedals »

He gets a little cranky from time to time when boutique pedal builders put out a decent sounding product that people actually use and shows up in photographic evidence.

There's nothing wrong with your plan to try germs and LEDs. The Muff circuit has tweakability that could last you a lifetime. While you're at it, I'd recommend checking out the mods RnFR did with the bias and a few other aspects of the 'Muff circuit recently.

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Post by azrael »

He's just agreeing with my sentiment that is was unnecessary to use Germanium transistors to duplicate the sound.

Fact is, Germanium DOES cost most than silicon for our purposes. AND using it in a pedal can often influence a person's decision on whether o not to buy something. I think that's something we can agree on.
I don't think he's doubting the success of EQD or the Hoof.

Not saying that The Hoof isn't a good sounding pedal, mind you. I think it sounds great. :)

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Post by JVanDe7 »

The red LED's for both sets of clipping diodes helped tremendously. It sounds much more Hoof like now.

I'm just messing with that "Body" mod. I added it because I was trying to duplicate that "Shift" knob on the Hoof, but I don't know if I like it. I did it just like this...
Image

But changing C10 from .0039 to .012 seems to have added so much mids that the tone control seems much less useful. So I disconnected the body/presence pot and made R18 a 22K again (shown as 3k3 on the above schematic). R19 is still 39K.

I may experiment with C10 and R18/R19 to set the mids where I want them, and get the tone control to be more useful again. I feel like the scooped mids sound of the big muff is what makes the tone control go from extremely woofy/bassy CCW, to shrill treble bite CW.

Thoughts? Advice? Trying to get a wide range of tones from the tone knob.
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Post by JVanDe7 »

CORRECTION: value of R19 is 20k on my muff, not 39k as mentioned/shown above. I built the GGG green russian.
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Post by azrael »

Have you tried version 2 of the Orman Presence control here?
http://www.muzique.com/lab/tone3.htm

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Post by JVanDe7 »

No I haven't. It's a bit more involved. I went with Ver 1 since it was just a quick easy change, just a couple parts.

Next I'm going to remove Q2 and Q3 and socket them so I can try the 2N1306 Ge trannies that I just bought. Then if those don't do anything, I may just stick the 2N5088's back in the sockets. I'm hoping they'll lower the gain a bit but I guess they won't do much according to the guys who just posted a few posts up?

*The 4 red LED's instead of diodes really made a difference. I like the sound so much more now. It's seems lower gain than before and more splattery and sputtery.
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Post by SpencerPedals »

You'll notice a difference with your GE trannies from gain difference alone; those will be ~ 1/4 to 1/3 of those 5088's you're using. The case being made was that germs were not worth the cash because you can also get low gain silicon for much cheaper. It wasn't stated that clearly, but that's usually the case being made. If you have the parts, experiment. The hardest part of this circuit is learning when to stop experimenting and get some sleep/food.

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Post by Nocentelli »

SpencerPedals wrote: The hardest part of this circuit is learning when to stop experimenting and get some sleep/food.
+100
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 JVanDe7 »

Haha well I don't exactly "have the cash" but life's short so I don't mind blowing a little dough on shit I don't need. And yeah, that assessment seems spot on (time to stop fussing with this thing already haha!)

Just to recap, here's where I'm at and I'm really pleased with the results...

Everything is stock GGG "Green Russian Muff" values except...
D1-D4 = 3mm Red water clear LED
R19 (low pass resistor) = 33k (instead of 20k, this is to remove some treble at low tone settings)
C10 (high pass cap) = .0033uF Sprague orange drop film instead of .0039uF ceramic disc (I also tried .01uF disc here but didn't like the results, I only used the Sprague film cap here because I damaged the original .0039 ceramic during removal and the Sprague is the closest thing I had, really not much of a mod at all but thought I should mention it)

It sounds real nice right now. Just about perfect for my taste. And it really isn't much different than the original project/clone (especially since I went back to the normal tone control and ditched the extra body/presence pot). I'm just going to socket Q2 and Q3 and change the emitter resistors to 500 ohm trimpots. The "stock" bias readings on Q2/Q3 are .12v emitter and 4.5v collector so I'll just tweak the trims until I get those same readings with the Ge trannies. If I dig it, cool. If not, I'll put the 2N5088 trannies back in and call it a day.
Last edited by JVanDe7 on 08 Jan 2012, 14:48, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by JVanDe7 »

PS - this is by far the most helpful page I've found on modifying the BMP. It tells which components do what and which way to tweak them if you want _______.

http://www.kitrae.net/music/big_muff_guts.html
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