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11 Gauge
July 14th, 2009, 08:46 PM
So many Fuzz Face variants are floating around out there that it's easy (for me anyways) to just pass on them altogether, especially since so many are so similar, and seem to have very subjective twists on them.
...To compound matters, if you're going to build one with germanium trannies, you have to contend with sorting and testing for gain and leakage.
I've always preferred the cutting power and authority of silicon, personally, anyways. If you use the right silicon devices (i.e. mosfets, jfets), you can even approximate much of the germanium effect, IMO.
For years folks have offered up YAFF projects, but the Multi Face (http://runoffgroove.com/multiface.html) at runoffgroove.com has to be one of the better ones, IMO. It's a very simple circuit that you can throw together on perfboard in about 45 minutes, maybe longer if you're new to the DIY thing. The best part is that once it's built, you can sub in just about any type of transistors that you want, and rebias. The project also suggests socketing the input and output caps so that you can tweak those around the different transistor types, as well.
...Needless to say, the project is a blast. I've already put about 30 different pairs of transistors in mine. For now, I've settled on a BC237B in the first slot, and 2N3904 in the second. But a pair of 2N7000 mosfets proved to be pretty cool as well, with tons of harmonics, and really interesting oscillations and gating as I intentionally misbiased the circuit.
Yet another great aspect of the project is that it's fantastic for the beginner. The Fuzz Face is a stupidly simple circuit, and by building the Multi you get to play around with transistors and biasing, and hear the different affect that it has, in realtime. For anyone who's trying to come up with their own personalized flavor of this classic circuit, this a great way to approach it.
...To compound matters, if you're going to build one with germanium trannies, you have to contend with sorting and testing for gain and leakage.
I've always preferred the cutting power and authority of silicon, personally, anyways. If you use the right silicon devices (i.e. mosfets, jfets), you can even approximate much of the germanium effect, IMO.
For years folks have offered up YAFF projects, but the Multi Face (http://runoffgroove.com/multiface.html) at runoffgroove.com has to be one of the better ones, IMO. It's a very simple circuit that you can throw together on perfboard in about 45 minutes, maybe longer if you're new to the DIY thing. The best part is that once it's built, you can sub in just about any type of transistors that you want, and rebias. The project also suggests socketing the input and output caps so that you can tweak those around the different transistor types, as well.
...Needless to say, the project is a blast. I've already put about 30 different pairs of transistors in mine. For now, I've settled on a BC237B in the first slot, and 2N3904 in the second. But a pair of 2N7000 mosfets proved to be pretty cool as well, with tons of harmonics, and really interesting oscillations and gating as I intentionally misbiased the circuit.
Yet another great aspect of the project is that it's fantastic for the beginner. The Fuzz Face is a stupidly simple circuit, and by building the Multi you get to play around with transistors and biasing, and hear the different affect that it has, in realtime. For anyone who's trying to come up with their own personalized flavor of this classic circuit, this a great way to approach it.