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That occurred to me, but wouldn't fix the issues with the brighter tone and lack of distortion.

So I tried the BMP approach, and while some iterations sounded decent, none of them sounded like a Mk II. The distortion sounded too synthy, with sub-octave notes, and it cleaned up too quickly with the volume knob. It actually reminded me a lot of a Harmonic Percolator. I used a 100Ω emitter...

Yep. I'm just not sure how to implement a control loop around the emitter of Q1 in a Mk II, as it's so primitive—just a collector resistor, a base-ground resistor, and a grounded emitter.

I was thinking temperature stabilized. Q1 is leakage biased, so the bias drifts as the temperature changes. I've toyed with the idea of doing a Benson-style "temperature controlled" Mk II circuit (there's an unused half of the dual op amp in that circuit, so the potential is there), but...

Sure, I can breadboard that and report back. I'll admit that a big part of what interests me is the cool factor, for lack of a better term, of having a temperature stabilized, all Germanium Tone Bender Mk. II, as opposed to having a hybrid circuit that is less temperature-sensitive, even if the...

Thanks, I bought the set in January 2020, which I think predates the ownership change. I didn't bother putting in a ticket at the time because I had chalked the issue up to user error—after all, germaniums are finicky, I had used sockets, and it was only my fourth or fifth build. It wasn't until...

I’m not sure what @jwin615 was referring to, but the one time I purchased a set of measured transistors from Small Bear (for a fuzz face), I received transistors with gain and leakage values that were nowhere close to being in spec for a Fuzz Face. I tried them in a PedalPCB Twin Face and the...

It would be useful for Q1 in a Tone Bender Mk II, though? That stage is leakage-biased and gets finicky when the temperature changes.

Try some MP35 or MP38 transistors. They’re reasonably priced and sound great in that circuit if you get ones with an hFE around 50.

They offer leaded HASL, lead-free HASL, and ENIG. Leaded is the least expensive, and as I don’t eat my PCBs, that’s what I go with for all of my orders.

This is also a good use for the stripped insulation left over from the hookup wire.

Threads like this really need pictures.

Man, this looks really good. I really don't need a GEQ pedal, but this is making me want to build one anyway. Awesome work!

What a great insight! Ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about an electron that is trapped in a cheap 100uF electrolytic capacitor.

I’d focus less on part numbers and more on leakage/gain. Germanium transistor part numbers are only useful insofar as they can serve as a proxy for leakage/gain, and to a lesser extent noise/bandwidth. Have you measured the leakage and gain for the transistors that you have?

The EQD Terminal/PPCB Depot Fuzz is basically what you described, a Companion Fuzz with a BJT gain recovery stage. To my ears, adding a BJT gain recovery stage colors the tone somewhat, so that’s something to keep in mind. I tried the BJT gain recovery stage on my Companion Fuzz build, but ended...

It's alive! The green board on the left in the first picture is the modified Vox V847 that I had in the pedal before I swapped out the board. The new PCB has exactly the same circuit with the same values—except for the new inductor. That one change made a big difference. It sounded good before...

Those are PNP transistors.

This. If it sounds right, then you probably traced it correctly. I also take advantage of the derivative nature of guitar pedals and compare the schematic to whatever schematic was the origin of the circuit. So when I traced the Rotobone, I cross-checked the schematic with the Bosstone and Mini...

Sure, but from what I can tell, the vast majority of builds that I see on here that use germanium diodes use them as hard clippers, e.g. Klon, Parentheses, Super Fuzz, Distortion+, or use them in designs that work best (IMO) with a leaky diode, such as the Tone Bender Mk. III/IV, Buzzaround...