- Build Rating
This was a build for a friend of mine who wanted a germanium fuzz and said I should surprise him. His only other specification was that it should cater to his affinity for stoner/desert rock, possibly tying into his musical influences (Fu Manchu, Kyuss, etc.).
I had a set of three Mullard GET113s leftover from some previous Tone Bender adventures and they worked out great. I was a little on the fence about what value to use for R1: the Aion build docs suggest either a 10k or 100k depending on Q1 leakage. So I decided to socket R1, plug in a 100k trimpot, and run through some tests. I found there was a range at the very low end where the pedal barely worked, then a small range in which it seemed "normal", and then a fairly large range where the background noise was unbearable. So I dialed it back to the middle of the "normal" zone and measured it at ~5.6k. Seemed odd that it was below the lower recommended value, but I wasn't going to argue with my ears, and decided to stick in a 5.6k resistor.
The artwork is from a Fu Manchu graphic that I found, cropped, and cleaned up. The Tayda UV printing turned out well except that the matte clear coat was a bit more textured/grainy than I thought it would be. I'm pretty sure I've gotten a smoother matte clear from Tayda in the past, so maybe their matte texture is a little inconsistent?
Overall, a very fun build even though GE fuzz isn't really my go-to. Made my friend really happy though!
I had a set of three Mullard GET113s leftover from some previous Tone Bender adventures and they worked out great. I was a little on the fence about what value to use for R1: the Aion build docs suggest either a 10k or 100k depending on Q1 leakage. So I decided to socket R1, plug in a 100k trimpot, and run through some tests. I found there was a range at the very low end where the pedal barely worked, then a small range in which it seemed "normal", and then a fairly large range where the background noise was unbearable. So I dialed it back to the middle of the "normal" zone and measured it at ~5.6k. Seemed odd that it was below the lower recommended value, but I wasn't going to argue with my ears, and decided to stick in a 5.6k resistor.
The artwork is from a Fu Manchu graphic that I found, cropped, and cleaned up. The Tayda UV printing turned out well except that the matte clear coat was a bit more textured/grainy than I thought it would be. I'm pretty sure I've gotten a smoother matte clear from Tayda in the past, so maybe their matte texture is a little inconsistent?
Overall, a very fun build even though GE fuzz isn't really my go-to. Made my friend really happy though!
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