spi
Well-known member
This is the Madbean BCFUZZ (stands for "business card", but in this case it's for birthday). The theme is birthday cake and sprinkles.
This pcb was freebie that bean gave with some order a while ago. I never built it because I didn't need another Fuzz Face. But when I heard my friend is turning 60, I realized I could turn it into a gift. He primarly plays acoustic, but recently he built a Strat, so I figured he'd like a pedal now to go along with it. (He built his strat from wood blanks, not from premade parts--I thought it was pretty impressive).
As mentioned, the pedal is a fuzz face circuit, but it has a "squish" control which makes it more gated--as you turn it up it goes from zippery to sputtery to erratic stuttering. Below 12 it's got a good range of tone, but above that I don't find it musical--I'm not sure how people use that effect. Turned all the way down it's a stock fuzz face tone.
The name Fuzz '65 is a tribute to his birthyear, but I read that the Fuzz Face actually came out in '66. Well I can take some liberty, it was probably in the works by '65 (or at least that's what I'm sticking to).
I auditioned a few transistors., and ended up with a 2n3904 (180 hfe) in Q1 and BC549B (200 hfe) in Q2. Originally I intended to use a lower gain in Q1, but it was too gated with the squish control up. Boosting the gain seemed to give the squish better range. Also, reminder: check the pinouts--I wasted some time troubleshooting because I put the first transistor backwards.
One last picture, I wasn't sure he has a pedal power supply so I added a battery, using Tayda pink bubbles to keep it secure. I put just enough wire to route them around a battery.
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