Recent content by PedalBuilder

Where do I sign up?

I’m game.

Do you try removing the 1044 and see if that stopped the whine? The NPN side doesn’t need the 1044.

Correct. You want to change the clipping caps (the ones between the diodes and the collector), not the coupling capacitors. I don’t have a standard order of making the changes, though.

Try 47n clipping caps, 430pF filter caps, and 1N400x/1N4150/KD521V clipping diodes. Adjust the transistor/collector resistors so that you get the collector voltage a little below half of VCC, e.g. 4.2-4.3v when VCC is 9v. Should get you some massive low end.

Germanium is much more temperature sensitive, so you can take advantage of that to figure out whether they are germanium or silicon. First, put the diode in the tester, and wait a minute for the heat of your fingers to dissipate and the diode to return to ambient temperature. Test the diode and...

Nice build! It’s one of my favorite fuzzes. Have you tried flipping Q2 (emitter to ground, collector to Mood)?

In no particular order— Terraform (Latent Lemon Hurts-style Harmonic Percolator) Sungrazer (Monolith Oracle) Trumpet Fuzz (Paul Trombetta Rotobone) Monolith (Mountainking Megalith ) Fuzz Standard (Ibanez Standard Fuzz)

The MP39B should work, at least on paper. I prefer transistors with an hFE in the 30-50 range (as measured on a DCA55) and as low leakage as possible for Q1 in the Harmonic Percolator.

I've build several Tone Bender Mk. III x Big Muff circuits, and this one might be my favorite. You should build one if you haven't already—grab a Scythe and get started. Compared with the Yellow Hybrid Tone Bender and the Colorsound Supa Tone Bender, the Tone Reaper has more Tone Bender Mk. III...

You could also have a switch that connects/disconnects Q5's connector from the rest of the circuit. One of the contemporary Super Fuzz clones uses that approach, but I don't remember off the top of my head which one. I think Q6 had an hFE around 130. I tried some lower and higher gain ones, but...

You should check out the diode comparison that @thomasbe86 put together. Suffice to say, the difference between the 1S1588/1N4148/1N914 probably won't be noticeable:

So I've done both. I used the pot between the notch filter and ground (a la your modified schematic) on my Ibanez Standard Fuzz build, but that has a much larger effect on the output volume than using a 50k pot to pan between the notch filter and voltage divider (a la your original schematic)...

Yet another awesome circuit from the Boneyard. Thanks, @Chuck D. Bones! I built mine with a BC549C (hFE 550) for Q1, a pair of MP35 germanium transistors (hFE ~50, leakage ~100) for Q2 and Q3, and a 2N7000 for Q4. Here are the gerber, BOM, and a Tayda drill template for anyone who wants to...

The Harmonic Percolator is a really fun little circuit. If you still have it on your breadboard, try playing with different values of R1. You can get some cool sub-octave undertones with large values (2.2M-5M). Replacing R3 or R4 with potentiometers is also a cool mod (try a B250k and a 62k...