The Protoboard Chronicles - 2001: A Fuzz Odyssey/The Fuzz

Keep in mind that for every mod, thee will be something you lose about the fuzz you like. Some of the greatest minds in pedals have pondered such things and have come to the conclusion that "it is what it is." I tried the 6 knob does it all fuzz pedals and I spent so much time dialing things in that it takes the run out of playing. Impedance will always be a problem with transistor based fuzz, perhaps what you seek lies in something IC based.

Thank you for saying what needed to be said!

I often “dream big” on my initial ideas and then distill them down to the essentials. Definitely keep me honest!
 
After reviewing a number of schematics and doing a quick wish list, I decided on a modified Fuzz Aldrin. I have a bunch of handwritten edits to my printed schematic that I'll try to transfer over sometime this week.

Edit: This will be going on the breadboard this week.
 
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Most of yesterday and a bit of today I slowly became enamored with what @Chuck D. Bones refers to as the “Holy Trinity” of Skreddy: The Lunar Module, Screwdriver and Hybrid Fuzz Driver.

So, I’ve tamed my wild ambition at the outset of this thread and will be focusing on studying these three circuits, adding a few tweaks of my own, and coming out the other end with an amalgamation.

Working title is “2001: A Fuzz Odyssey”/“Ready Skreddy Go”.

I’ll be breadboarding this during the week and if it turns out well designing my own board to capture the tweaks and creative comforts I like.
 
Maybe you should play play the screwdriver first. 5 knobs is already a lot and you just crammed 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag. It's your pedal, but a lot of that seems unnecessary and dialing this in would give me anxiety. Before you start going crazy, remember with fuzz less is often more, and more knobs does not equate to better tone or feel.

Just to be clear: This has the same 5 knob set as the LM, SD and HFD. There's nothing on the outside that i would not have as a trim pot on my normal Vintage style fuzz builds. Color In is the Body/Sharpness/Tightness control and Color Out is the Presence/Brite/Brilliance control

For instance, I have internal trimmers for Q1, Q2 and Q3 bias on all my current builds. Also, I always put an output volume trimmer on the inside as well.

The cap selection is simply for the body and presence/brightness controls.

I get what you are saying 100% but I'm shooting for something that will get me a variety of tones without having to open the pedal up. This is just a mockup anyway. It has to go through the rounds on the breadboard first.
 
I'm gonna be boxing my screwdriver up this week, in all honesty its about as close to the perfect drive pedal as I can get, there isn't anything I would change about it.

I'll know better what is going to make it into the final pedal once breadboarding is complete. One thing I am curious about: Which guitars are you using with the Screwdriver?
 
I use single coil guitars with the occasional p90.

That might be why you've bonded with the Screwdriver. I believe @Chuck D. Bones posted a document here written by Marc Ahlfs outlining how he personally felt the Screwdriver sounded best with single coil guitars.

I'm a humbucker man myself. So it's always a little more difficult getting stuff to sound how I like it.
 
Breadboard is almost fully loaded. I've got a bunch of tweakable things that will probably go nowhere but will let me adjust things in real time and i tweak and tune.
 
This is what I was wanting to see more examples of. Graphics that are detailed and take up lots of the top. I have used Illustrator to create a few cool designs but I am worried that there are too many elements for the printer to create in detail.

You have to also create outlines around the text and a small path offset to cut a hole in the background graphic. (Can't have any overlying paths). I still don't know if Tayda expects you to delete the drill holes out of the image as well.
 
This is what I was wanting to see more examples of. Graphics that are detailed and take up lots of the top. I have used Illustrator to create a few cool designs but I am worried that there are too many elements for the printer to create in detail.

You have to also create outlines around the text and a small path offset to cut a hole in the background graphic. (Can't have any overlying paths). I still don't know if Tayda expects you to delete the drill holes out of the image as well.

I’m a graphics Luddite. I just move stuff around and tweak things until:

a.) My hardware layer hives with my Graphics

b.) Everything fits on the graphic layer.

Once it’s laid out I convert everything, including text to curves. I’ve been avoiding black enclosures and white text or graphics because it’s a pain in the buns with having the extra layer of RDG_White, etc.
 
I’m a graphics Luddite. I just move stuff around and tweak things until:

a.) My hardware layer hives with my Graphics

b.) Everything fits on the graphic layer.

Once it’s laid out I convert everything, including text to curves. I’ve been avoiding black enclosures and white text or graphics because it’s a pain in the buns with having the extra layer of RDG_White, etc.
The text to curves is one step but you also need to create an offset defect from the graphic so there is space for the text. I am sure you will sort it out. I am still finding it to be a headache to delete the drill holes in the graphic using AI. It probably doesn't matter if they print first and then drill.

I was more commenting on the design being more complicated and interesting. I would like to see something like this printed by Tayda and what the original design looked like. I don't think there are any examples in the big Tayda print thread where the graphic takes up the entire top of the pedal. I will be interested in how this ends up.

With the Illustrator image trace feature, you can go in the advanced settings and crank up the # of paths and corner details. So you can end up with a vector image that is pretty detailed while technically not having any overlying parts. I just kind of wonder what the limit is for the printer in terms of detail.
 
The text to curves is one step but you also need to create an offset defect from the graphic so there is space for the text. I am sure you will sort it out. I am still finding it to be a headache to delete the drill holes in the graphic using AI. It probably doesn't matter if they print first and then drill.

I was more commenting on the design being more complicated and interesting. I would like to see something like this printed by Tayda and what the original design looked like. I don't think there are any examples in the big Tayda print thread where the graphic takes up the entire top of the pedal. I will be interested in how this ends up.

With the Illustrator image trace feature, you can go in the advanced settings and crank up the # of paths and corner details. So you can end up with a vector image that is pretty detailed while technically not having any overlying parts. I just kind of wonder what the limit is for the printer in terms of detail.

You lost me! Sorry. I don’t speak the language of graphic design. I do t follow the text issue you are talking about.

I’m simply following the general rules I used for my Muffin graphics.

Definitely give me any advice you think is relevant though. I’m not well versed in graphics.
 
You can't have text just printed over top of a graphic. (Nothing can overlap). So you need to cut out a space in the graphic for your text. In Illustrator, you first need to create 0.5-1mm offset around your text and then use another tool to delete that space from the graphic. (Example below). @SYLV9ST9R helped me figure out how to use AI to do this. I am not sure what the equivalent tool would be in Corel. These graphics programs are far from intuitive! I have been wasting lots of time on it since I still don't have my PCBs.

orbiter 2.jpg
 
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You can't have text just printed over top of a graphic. (Nothing can overlap). So you need to cut out a space in the graphic for your text. In Illustrator, you first need to create 0.5-1mm offset around your text and then use another tool to delete that space from the graphic. (Example below)

View attachment 18675

What if before exporting you group the entire thing, text and graphic, then export?
 
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