A Pair of Nugget Fuzz Builds - With a Steggo Approved Name and Enclosure!

Fingolfen

Well-known member
I was talking to a couple of the great employees at my favorite local guitar shop, Five Star Guitars, and they mentioned a pedal they wanted to try out, but as it was a Cornish pedal, the NG-2, it was rare and expensive. Ever the enterprising DIY builder, I managed to track down a clone of it to see if I could replicate it on a mere mortal's budget. Clones of this particular pedal aren't extremely common, but PedalPCB offers the Nugget Fuzz which is a clone of the original Cornish pedal. Unlike AionFX Cornish clones which come with the Cornish buffer by default, the PedalPCB board in stock configuration is true bypass. They do, however, offer the C-buffer which can be purchased separately to add the active buffer to the pedal. As is more common these days, I figured I'd build a couple of them - one to keep and one to share. I also decided to try one with true bypass and one with the C-bypass to see how much of a difference it makes which is an approach I've used on my P-2 clones which I have versions both with and without the Cornish bypass.

Nugget Fuzz - 01.jpg

The builds themselves are relatively straightforward with a reasonably low component count - at least for a Cornish pedal! What is not unusual for a Cornish pedal is the cornucopia of different resistance values to contend with, but only two diodes. I ended up using some of my nicer 1N34A diodes with a low-ish leakage current from the batch I tested when I was working through the bugs in my G-2 builds. It also uses BC549 transistors like the original as I'd picked up a hefty stock of them from Pedalhacker. There is one trimmer resistor which lets you set the internal bias (between Q4 and Q5).

Nugget Fuzz - 02.jpg

As I wanted to go with something close to "copyright free" from the outset, I decided to go ahead and create a dinosaur themed name for these pedals. The name of the original pedal, NG-2, didn't give me a lot to work with. The PedalPCB name, "Nugget Fuzz" when combined with dinosaurs really led me quickly back to "Dino Nuggets" - which my son used to consume mass quantities of when he was younger. So, I went in search of a dinosaur with a name that prominently featured an "N" and a "G" - and oddly enough, I actually found one! The Ngexisaurus is a fairly rare beast with only one specimen having been found to date, but it was a carnivore that lived in the Middle Jurassic. There were a couple of drawings around that I slightly modified. If I end up making more than a few of these, I'll team up with my wife to create a new drawing of the dinosaur itself.

Nugget Fuzz - 03.jpg

The wiring with the Cornish Buffer is a bit more complicated with separate ground and +9V lines running from both the board and the buffer itself. As with the EL buffer, all of the components face the top of the enclosure (as there wouldn't be enough room for electrolytic capacitors to face the bottom). I was probably a little more generous than I needed to be with my wiring allowances for this build, but I wanted to make sure I didn't stress any of the connections.

Nugget Fuzz - 05.jpg

The enclosures are exactly the same at this point, and I'll probably only make one version of this going forward. At this point I've biased both pedals by ear, but I can't tell a huge difference between the two. I think I like the one with the buffer a tiny bit better, and as this is a Cornish clone, I think I'll likely focus on those with buffers going forward. I may even move my P-2 clones to this buffer rather than the hand etched one.

Nugget Fuzz - 06.jpg

A little more at the blog: https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2022/06/a-cornish-fuzz-clone-with-fun-dinosaur.html
 
I just happened to finish a build this morning using the C-Buffer. So far I like it! It’s definitely helpful if I’m running modulation effects into the front of the amp (or amp model via software)
 
Is the buffer always on or only on when the effect is bypassed? I can’t tell from the build doc.
 
Is the buffer always on or only on when the effect is bypassed? I can’t tell from the build doc.
Hmmm interesting question, I assumed it was always on when I built mine. The only other two Cornish pedals I've build are from Aion that includes a TrueByPass selector.
 
Trying to wrap my brain around this switching.

It looks to me like the buffer is before the effect (but it would indeed make the most sense to have it after, IMO, so you could add a Buffer after a temperamental fuzz for example).

My reasoning that the buffer comes before the effect is as follows:
In the lower right corner of the schematic, the circle that says "OUT" goes to the jack (coming off C2 goin' north), is my interpretation.
C3 with the triangle "OUT" is when the effect is bypassed.
C1 "PCB OUT" goes straight to C2 heading for the jack.

A1 "OUT" triangle is coming from the buffer and going to A2 "PCB IN" seems to support my interpretation.
 
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