Bone Toss Fuzz? (Tortured Jordan Bosstone)

[Ratimus]

Hey, I came up with this fuzz that's like a decaying exoskeleton around the beating heart of a Jordan Bosstone. I've added:
- a switchable input boost with a gain of ~15 dB
- a BMP style tone stack with buffered output
- asymmetrical hard clipping via mosfet
- switchable option to run the emitter from what would be Q2 in the original circuit through an LED (for added harmonics) or a 2.2 uF cap (which makes the fuzz gated) or a blend of the two. Lots of harmonic possibilities.
- A voltage starve pot, with the option to starve the just second transistor from the original circuit (changes the sound but doesn't get splatty or disappear) or both transistors (gets weird- may oscillate, octave-down, add an "envelope follower phaser," etc.)
- You can lift Q2 emitter altogether, using the transistor like it's a half-wave rectifier.

It's fun to play around with. My schematic shows a tone bypass but I ended up not using it. I also used a couple different transistors (2n551 for Q1, 2n5401 for Q3).

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Quite the Mod! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Danbieranowski]

Let’s hear it!

 

[Nostradoomus]

Super cool! That’s the opposite I did with the bosstone (made it 1 knob)

 

[Ratimus]

Alright, I slapped together a demo of some of the sounds this can make. I apologize in advance about my playing. Still a total noob in that department. Also, I didn't really capture the overdrive sounds this thing can do, since my cigar box guitar craves fuzz and doesn't really play nice with anybody else. I can get a full range from the ubiquitous "farting sag-xophone in the sky" all the way to a dirty EQ/boost on my Epi Les Paul. Hope the video inspires some builds!

 

[Danbieranowski]

Alright, I slapped together a demo of some of the sounds this can make. I apologize in advance about my playing. Still a total noob in that department. Also, I didn't really capture the overdrive sounds this thing can do, since my cigar box guitar craves fuzz and doesn't really play nice with anybody else. I can get a full range from the ubiquitous "farting sag-xophone in the sky" all the way to a dirty EQ/boost on my Epi Les Paul. Hope the video inspires some builds!

I love it.

 

[Ginsly]

Found this in my exploration of all things Bosstone, want to eventually give it a spin... I can't make out the cut-off bottom labels on the perf layout though! Doesn't look like @Ratimus has been around lately, can anybody help with this? He posted the schematic too, and although I think I know what they are I want to be sure. Thanks! Layout:

 

[jwin615]

Found this in my exploration of all things Bosstone, want to eventually give it a spin... I can't make out the cut-off bottom labels on the perf layout though! Doesn't look like @Ratimus has been around lately, can anybody help with this? He posted the schematic too, and although I think I know what they are I want to be sure. Thanks! Layout:
View attachment 76839

Everyone has "their" classic fuzz. Talking pre-BMP here. The JBT is definitely mine. I can't help with this layout but I can recommend checking the DAM forums for JBT and DAM mods. The meathead is a fantastic variant, IMO.
Edit: meant Fuzzly Bear

 

[PedalBuilder]

Everyone has "their" classic fuzz. Talking pre-BMP here. The JBT is definitely mine. I can't help with this layout but I can recommend checking the DAM forums for JBT and DAM mods. The meathead is a fantastic variant, IMO.

I thought that the Meathead was a modified silicon fuzz face, not a Boss Tone? Regardless, the Boss Tone is an awesome circuit and might be my favorite pre-BMP fuzz, too. @Ginsly, if you want some modern and versatile spins on the Boss Tone, give the Teddy Rupture (KMA Audio Machines Fuzzly Bear) or Trumpeter (Paul Trombetta Mini Bone) a try. Both of them are easy builds and very fun pedals.

 

[Ginsly]

I thought that the Meathead was a modified silicon fuzz face, not a Boss Tone? Regardless, the Boss Tone is an awesome circuit and might be my favorite pre-BMP fuzz, too. @Ginsly, if you want some modern and versatile spins on the Boss Tone, give the Teddy Rupture (KMA Audio Machines Fuzzly Bear) or Trumpeter (Paul Trombetta Mini Bone) a try. Both of them are easy builds and very fun pedals.

I have a couple extra-special pcbs to tackle first (), but I do actually have a Trumpeter pcb. I LOVE what the Mini-Bone, Fuzzly Bear, WTF, etc do with a global voltage starve, but I’d love to see if a transistor bias control is possible without adding a gain stage.

As an aside… how similar ARE all of those “starved Bosstones”? Mythos Hephaestus is another one. I remember something about the Mini-Bone and Fuzzly Bear’s starve being set up differently in some sort of vital way - I have to look at both schematics.

With the Bosstone, it seems tough to get the kind of pinched, gated sounds that are easy to get out of a Fuzz Face or Tonebender via transistor bias control. I feel like I’ve changed every resistor on my BT breadboard with a pot, and none of them seems to mis-bias a transistor in any sort of gated, pinched way. Wild variations like the Baron Samedi & BSRI Impossible Colors do add a gain stage to help achieve that, and it looks like this “tortured bt“ layout might do something similar. I played a BA Texsur last year, and the Starve knob surprisingly had an abrupt “velcro”, gated setting at the very top of the dial…

@jwin615 I’ll check out the DAM forums too, thx!

 

[jwin615]

I thought that the Meathead was a modified silicon fuzz face, not a Boss Tone?

Sorry. Having a couple last night(after driving from Tampa - Nashville)and the wires crossed. Was thinking of the fuzzly bear.
Edited my OP for history sake.