Which fuzz pedals are easy?

Having come up as a player in the '70s and '80s, I kinda missed the whole fuzz box thing. Now, it's time to see what they're all about, DIY style.

I already have a NYC Big Muff that I bought off a TDPRI brother. No use building Big Muffs, they're easy to find used, and I'm not going to split hairs among current models and the myriad vintage ones, for now.

Same kinda goes for Fuzz Faces, so I'm thinking my build ought to be something a bit less common. The Tone Bender comes to mind, but I get the idea it's hard to build "right". Doesn't the Tone Bender require some knowledge of the beastie, and some abilty to dial it in?

What about the Mosrite Fuzzrite? Is that circuit any less fussy than a Tone Bender?

As a fuzz noob, I'm looking for circuits that I can build off a schematic, plug in, and be in the ballpark without a lot of hassle, so I can say, Oh, so THAT'S what a {insert pedal name here} sounds like".

Axis Fuzz...http://www.tdpri.com/forum/burnt-fingers-diy-effects/290945-axis-fuzz.html

Common Silicon transistors. A lot of the difficulties people have with fuzzes is dealing with Germanium transistors. The Axis is really easy to build and make sound good, but it does sound similar to any Fuzz Face clone.

Fuzz Central (http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/schematics.php) has a lot of schematics and info, including Silicon versions of many of the old fuzzes.

As a fuzz noob, I'm looking for circuits that I can build off a schematic, plug in, and be in the ballpark without a lot of hassle, so I can say, Oh, so THAT'S what a {insert pedal name here} sounds like".

id say the fuzzrite and the colorsound one knob fuzz meet those criteria.
also the shin ei fy-2 and the bass fuzz.

theres got to be loads more, but i havent built them yet.

the axis fuzz, or one of the other silicon fuzz face types might be good candidates- but i havent tried one yet.
my only fuzz face type build was a germanium one, and it took a lot of experimentation and head scratching to get it right.
not that it was truly difficult, just more work than simply slapping the components on some perf and plugging it in.

IMHO you should consider yourself lucky!There are plenty of distortion pedals that were made in the seventies and later that sound much much better than the fuzzes.The great guitarists used them because they were the only distortion pedals that existed. Of course some of them continued to use them for a while since they had learned how to get a good sound out of the oldies.This is of course only my personal opinion after I have struggled with fuzzes since `68 when I built my first one and by all means,build one and form your own opinion.As has been said,germanium transistors are not easy to deal with.

Go to freestompboxes .org and surf for a month or two... ANY transistor fuzz, germanium or silicon is doable, if you have the bias right. Usually a trimpot in place of a collector resistor will let you tune it, by ear or by voltmeter... use a breadboard, build it on your bench, and when it gets the sound you want measure the trimpots resistance and replace with an equivalent resistor. Box it up and you have a pedal YOU built. I built the AXIS as my first build years ago... still like it.

The one knob fuzz (on veroboard) was the first pedal I ever built. Oddly enough, I get more questions/complements on that pedal than anything else when it makes it's way onto the board...