TUTORIAL Ionizer 2 - Devi Ever Hyperion 2 Fuzz

[BuddytheReow]

Hey folks,

The Ionizer 2 is based on the Devi Ever Hyperion 2. IMO this is one of the nastiest, gnarliest octave-sounding fuzzes out there and shines with a detuned guitar! Although the circuit itself is small from a components standpoint it is rather quirky (as most Devi Ever circuits are) in its layout. Looking at many of the Devi circuits out there, common components definitely occur: 100n caps, MPSA18 transistors, and a handful of common resistors.

Why am I starting with version 2 and not the original? Well, the Ionizer and Ionizer 2 circuits are virtually identical with one exception: the oscillation control which is merely putting a 100k pot before ground for most connections.

Anyways, here is the schematic and my final build. Like last tutorial I will be putting this out there in stages.

 

[BuddytheReow]

Alright. The power section and the OSCILLATION control. I'm doing this step together since they both relate to power (duh).

You'll need to use both sets of power rails for this one. In my bottom rails I have 9v and ground hooked up and a jumper for 9v to the other power rail (top). C100 can go into the bottom power rails for filtering.

The difference here is wiring up the oscillation control. I put a trimmer rather than a pot to make the pictures cleaner, but you're more than welcome to put a pot in. I have a jumper from the bottom GND rail into pin 2 of my trimmer. Pin 1 then goes to the top power rails (ground). If you love your gnarly, noise making circuits then put this in there. If it's not for you then bypass this trimmer and simply jumper the grounds together.

 

[Betty Wont]

Devi designed most of her circuits by cascading the same basic building block boosts in different combinations. The Hyperion is a bass boost into a fuzzy boost. That accounts for the similar components in all the designs. They are the same circuit snippets being remixed. I'm curious how you achieved an octave up out of it. Reversing q3? That's how to make the Soda Meiser into an octave fuzz.

 

[BuddytheReow]

Devi designed most of her circuits by cascading the same basic building block boosts in different combinations. The Hyperion is a bass boost into a fuzzy boost. That accounts for the similar components in all the designs. They are the same circuit snippets being remixed. I'm curious how you achieved an octave up out of it. Reversing q3? That's how to make the Soda Meiser into an octave fuzz.

Let me rephrase...it SOUNDS like an octave up fuzz. I am scratching my head how the octave sound is achieved.

 

[dawson]

Reversing q3? That's how to make the Soda Meiser into an octave fuzz.

Alchemy!

 

[BuddytheReow]

Let's go to the input section.

Input goes to pin 2 of your input pot (trimmer). R1 (1k) goes from pin 1 to your oscillation-powered ground rail (I'll call it the top rail from now on). Pin 3 has C1 (100n) to the next section.

 

[BuddytheReow]

Now we get to the 1st booster section.

R3 (10k) comes from 9v to the collector of our MPSA18. R2 (2.2m) goes from collector to base, the emitter goes to our top ground rail, and I installed a jumper from C1 to Base of Q1. Seems simple enough, right?

As a side note, if you were to add a 100n cap after the collector and hook up your output wire this would be a standalone circuit and work just fine. It is a simple booster.

 

[Betty Wont]

Let me rephrase...it SOUNDS like an octave up fuzz. I am scratching my head how the octave sound is achieved.

Interesting. We've never heard an octave in it. Also the original kept the extra decoupling cap from the first stage in the circuit, thus making the effective capacitance 50nf between the stages. I use a 47nf there in place of the 100nf when building the 'dwarfcraft version" because I like this one with less bass like the OG. The original also had no power filtering or reverse polarity protection. This one is a great candidate for voltage starving, not sure if the additional power features would impact that.

 

[BuddytheReow]

Here's where things get quirky. I will go through the schematic from C2 through R5.

After the collector I added a small jumper to show what I'm doing. 2 caps go here: C2 (100n) goes to top ground rail [this clips off a lot of highs] and C3 (100n) acts as a decoupling cap to link to our next set of transistors.

A few things happen right after C3. I put in 2 jumpers from C3 to the Base pins of each transistor (mind the pinouts). Also from C3 we install R4 (2.2m) going to a bare column and from here, 2 jumpers go to the collector pins of each transistor. The emitters of both get jumpered to the top ground rail. Make sense? I hope tracing the schematic to my picture does it justice. If this section doesn't make sense let me know below and I'll adjust accordingly.

One last item for this section (R5). It is a 10k resistor from 9v to one of the collector pins. Since both collectors are already linked, both transistors get powered here.

 

[BuddytheReow]

Interesting. We've never heard an octave in it. Also the original kept the extra decoupling cap from the first stage in the circuit, thus making the effective capacitance 50nf between the stages. I use a 47nf there in place of the 100nf when building the 'dwarfcraft version" because I like this one with less bass like the OG. The original also had no power filtering or reverse polarity protection. This one is a great candidate for voltage starving, not sure if the additional power features would impact that.

Octave up would be a misnomer here. I had to do a quick youtube search and the sound this reminds me of is a FZ-2.

As for power features, this would be an excellent mod idea!

 

[BuddytheReow]

OK. The last section we need to do is the output.

We need to add a 100n cap after this section as a decoupler. From here it's a simple volume pot to ground with pin 2 being the output, pin 1 goes to actual ground (bottom rail), and pin 3 is the main signal.

 

[Coda]

I have noticed that, sometimes, specific transistors can result in a phantom octave effect in fuzz pedals…

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

I have noticed that, sometimes, specific transistors can result in a phantom octave effect in fuzz pedals…

Phantom of the Ottava

 

[BuddytheReow]

I tried a couple of mods on this gnarly circuit yesterday. Some worked and some didn't.

-Removing C2 or even lowering the value brings a lot of noise into the overall sound. My suggestion is to keep it. It's purpose is to cut a lot of the highs out, but it also takes out the hiss/noise.

-C1, C3, and C5 I changed to 1u in an attempt to make it more bass friendly. The good news is that doing that brings a lot of low end into the mix which is what I wanted and does work well on bass. The bad news is that the OSCILLATION control gets adjusted and becomes almost nonexistent unless you barely move it. These mods lower the oscillation frequency so anything after, say, 1/8 of a turn gets no change and a lot of the signal gets lost.

-The INTENSE control you can up it to 250k or 500k in lieu of tweaking your volume knob on the guitar.

-As @Betty Wont suggested, I tried a voltage sag control. I hooked up a 100k trimmer similar to the oscillation control, but put it to the top + rail. The effect is that the sound gets "pinched" and the volume drops.

-For the transistors I tried swapping the MSPA18 for something with less hfe. FIrst I tried a 2n5088, then a 2n3904, then a 2n2222. I didn't notice much difference sonically, so perhaps this was a bit of a dud.

-I'm not sure how a tone stack on this circuit will fare since I didn't try it. I like this circuit for its phantom highs and searing lows. From an EQ perspective I think this circuit is a one-trick pony, but if you'd like you're more than welcome to throw on a BMP or shelf EQ control (think RAT here).

If anyone has any other mods they want to share feel free to comment below. Or don't and keep all the glory for yourself

 

[Betty Wont]

If you omit Q3 and put another 100nf from the collector of Q2 to pin one of the volume pot you'll have the Ruiner. A really doomy bass fuzz and one of my favorites from the era. We did a passive BMP style tone stack on the Soda Meiser, called it the Cherry Pop. It didn't do well and sounded like crap really. These circuits don't like to be impeded by anything. IMO They sound the best all alone in front of a PA or clean bass amp.

 

[zgrav]

If you omit Q3 and put another 100nf from the collector of Q2 to pin one of the volume pot you'll have the Ruiner. A really doomy bass fuzz and one of my favorites from the era. We did a passive BMP style tone stack on the Soda Meiser, called it the Cherry Pop. It didn't do well and sounded like crap really. These circuits don't like to be impeded by anything. IMO They sound the best all alone in front of a PA or clean bass amp.

nice naming convention with the Cherry Pop. too bad it petered out....

 

[cdwillis]

Buddy, you've built a bunch of these Devi circuits on your breadboard. Have you ever tried wiring the input pot more conventionally (input to lug 3, lug 2 to the circuit input, lug 1 to ground)? One of the first fuzz pedals I built on vero was a Soda Meiser and it sounded awesome, but that input pot behaved kinda funky. I wouldn't call it completely useless, just sort of. I need to see if I still have that Soda Meiser stashed away so I can play around with it again.

 

[BuddytheReow]

I should probably try that, now that you mention it. My thought process is both methods get the same result: dump unwanted signal to ground. This is definitely worth the extra 2 min to fiddle around with. Great catch!