Sergeant Fuzz: Added a little Pepper to it

[jeffwhitfield]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

Been a while since I did a build report. Figured I'd post this one on account of a couple changes made to the build.

Starting off, it's a fantastic sounding pedal. Kind of surprised me really. Has a nice classy fuzz quality about it. The Sustain works really well across the range. What's interesting is that turning down the Sustain tends to curb off the brightness. So lower Sustain equates to a more mellower fuzz tone...which is quite interesting. Add to that the Midrange and you have a really nice range of tones you can get out of it.

Since I couldn't find a BC319 transistor, I substituted it with a BC549C which appears to work just fine.

Along with that, I opted to mount a pot on the front for the Gate instead of an internal trim control. I found that a B1K wasn't enough for the Gate. Just not enough of a noticeable effect. So I switched it out with a B10K which gave it a more usable range. I would imagine going up a bit more might give it some more gated effects but the B10K is enough.

 

[Cvoxdog]

Thanks for giving me the idea for an external gate knob. I just started populating mine.

 

[pacealot]

Nice build! It would be terrific to see the schematic to this one, as I'm very curious as to how close it comes to the first stages of the 7-series amps the Lonely Heart was evidently derived from, and the build docs still haven't shown up on its page. I've been trying to piece together resistor stripes from the build pic, but my old eyes can't always tell brown from black from grey anymore.

 

[HamishR]

I think this will be my next build. I've been looking for a fuzz which will do that Sgt Pepper (the intro song) kind of fuzz. It's unlike most fuzzes. And yes I know it's probably as much to do with how they recorded it as it is the fuzz they used, but I can hope!

Apparently the BC319 is/was available in A, B and C variants which obviously denoted gain. Do we know which version was used in the original pedal? I do have plenty of BC549Cs and BC550Cs so if you reckon the BC549C works just fine that's what I'll use. I do have some BC549Bs too.

I might just put the Gate knob on the box too.

 

[HamishR]

Been a while since I did a build report. Figured I'd post this one on account of a couple changes made to the build.

Starting off, it's a fantastic sounding pedal. Kind of surprised me really. Has a nice classy fuzz quality about it. The Sustain works really well across the range. What's interesting is that turning down the Sustain tends to curb off the brightness. So lower Sustain equates to a more mellower fuzz tone...which is quite interesting. Add to that the Midrange and you have a really nice range of tones you can get out of it.

Since I couldn't find a BC319 transistor, I substituted it with a BC549C which appears to work just fine.

Along with that, I opted to mount a pot on the front for the Gate instead of an internal trim control. I found that a B1K wasn't enough for the Gate. Just not enough of a noticeable effect. So I switched it out with a B10K which gave it a more usable range. I would imagine going up a bit more might give it some more gated effects but the B10K is enough.

View attachment 41387
View attachment 41388

I'm building this pedal right now and using a 2N2222A metal can transistor as you appear to have done too. But in checking the pinout of the PN2222A it seems that the emitter is on the left and you have it on the right. The P2N2222A is the opposite, so now I'm confused!

 

[HamishR]

Ok I have built mine with a metal can 2N2222A and a BC549C. It sounds great! It's the fuzz sound I have been chasing for quite some time now.

But I'm still confused because I oriented both transistors in mine at 180 degrees from yours and it works perfectly! And a B1K worked fine for Gate on mine.

 

[pacealot]

For those who'd like to see the schematic, I finally ordered one and did a trace for the moment until Robert gets caught up (I'm 99.9% sure it's correct, but feel free to correct me if I've made any errors). As hoped, it's almost exactly the 7120 preamp with the distortion circuit hardwired on, but with asymmetrical clipping (three diodes instead of two), extra controls at Q2E (Gate and Sustain) and missing a resistor to ground parallel with C11 to allow it have a more stompbox-suitable output level:

(edited a couple of times to fix a couple of wrong cap and resistor numbers )

Also, regarding the pinout issue, I confirmed that Q1 is CBE (from left to right when reading the board) and Q2 is EBC from the same vantage point...