Bellum MkII - does this sound about right?

[HamishR]

I haven't been able to find a demo of a Fuzz War II or Bellum MkII. I built one though and I'm not sure if it's sounding as it should, but maybe it's supposed to sound like this??

I assumed it wouldn't be super fuzzy because it only uses a pair of diodes on one gain stage, and mostly it's not. The only place I veered away from stock was by using BAT41s instead of the Ge diodes. The sound is tight, well defined and a bit hard on the ears. Underneath the main sound is a kind of fuzz which seems unrelated to the core tone; it's quieter and a bit random. So it kinda sounds like I did something wrong but I don't know if that's intentional or not!

Has anyone else built one of these?

 

[jesuscrisp]

I built one on vero and it's the worst Big Muff I heard that isn't the JPTR FX Warlow.

It's probably best played on a dirty amp, but otherwise I think version 1 is the superior one.

 

[micmac]

I built one for a friend of mine (bass player). Incidentally the Ge Diodes disintegrated in my hands when bending the leads, so I put BAT41s in it, too

It has this sound signature where there seem to be two different sources of clipping, one more fuzzy and one more distortion-like in the back. I think the latter is from the diodes. So I think what you describe is normal.

I'm not a Fuzz user, it's not my thing. But my friend wrote to me after trying it out saying he thinks it "is epic". So there you have it. All I needed to hear

 

[HamishR]

That sounds exactly like mine. Well, now I know that I officially don't like it. You have to try these things...

 

[Fama]

I guess that's a pretty decent description - I do like it a lot though. Sadly mine is still without an enclosure, but I dug it out of the closet for a brief demo (clean first, just a touch of spring and room reverbs, Friedman BE100 amp model). Level is dimed so the amp probably has a big hand in the sound.

Musikding kit, I don't remember what diodes I used. Looks like they could be germanium, but I'm no expert.

Edit: I'd guess that your feelings towards doom metal might correlate with how you feel about this pedal? Or at least to me it feels great for that purpose.

https://soundcloud.com/user-913671490%2Ffuzz-war-snippet%2Fs-Xprsc4PPx7d

 

[micmac]

Sounds about it right. And when you turn down the "Fuzz" knob you hear the diode distortion in the background. That's how I remember it.

 

[HamishR]

Aha! It's not the pedal, it's me! It wants to have doom metal played through it (and why shouldn't it?). I have no strong feelings about doom metal either way - I'm sure there is some of it I would like, some I wouldn't. But it turns out that a doom metal pedal reacts badly to having blues wanker licks played through it.

Fama you make it sound a lot better than I can, although I suspect I did something wrong with mine because it doesn't sound as good as that.