Fuzz Face Clone - Not enough Fuzz
Hey, I ordered a fuzz face clone PCB from fuzzdogs and succesfully assembled it today. I used 2n1306's for the trannies since I had them lying around and the build guide from fuzzdogs said to use NPN trannies I only had to switch the polarity of the elec's. The pedal itself seems to work fine, LED comes on, bypass is fine and volume of the pedal engaged is what I would expect.
My main disapointment seems to be the lack of fuzz, I have included a clip recorded into my mbox and guitar rig 5 (bypassed,vol full fuzz 0,vol full fuz full) so you can hear what i mean but I was really expecting a bit more grit and fuzz. One thing I have noticed is that I have wired the pots wrong but the only problem that seems to give me is that I have to rotate the pot the opposite direction to achieve the effect, do you think this is why I can't get the fuzzyness I require?
I build the values listed on the schematic for the 'hendrix' version; schematic - http://pedalparts.co.uk/docs/FuzzFace-OBP.pdf Images : https://imgur.com/a/zCl4k Clip: https://clyp.it/wqcecwag
Posted Oct 13, 2017, 1:28 PM UTC
Did you follow the biasing procedure described on page 4 of the pedalparts pdf? That is necessary to get the fuzz face to sound right.
Yeah, I tried biasing it to 4.5V then tried various other settings. Not a whole load of difference, louder on one end of the spectrum and quieter but fizzyer on the other.
Hard to say, then. I would double check the resistors going to the emitter and collector of the transistors to make sure they’re the right values. Or it could be the transistors are too high leakage or wrong gain to sound right. You could try ordering a matched pair optimized for Fuzz Faces from a place like Small Bear.
is there a chance I have put the trannies in reverse? Would I still get sound if that were the case?
It’s possible. Flipping them around to check won’t hurt anything.