Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
This is the latest circuit to hit my breadboard. Bjorn Juhl is my favorite pedal designer. He has created some iconic designs, and tweaked some classics. The Folk Fuzz is a twist on the Fuzz Face. What BJ has done here sounds nothing like a Fuzz Face. It's better. Excellent tonal balance between the bottom and top end. Smooth note decay. Responsive to guitar volume and picking, particularly at high FUZZ settings. VR1 is the FUZZ control, C1M. VR2 is the TONE control, A50K. VR3 is VOLUME, A100K. The ON-OFF-ON toggle switch selects between a pair of transistor clipping diodes, a pair of red LEDs or two pairs of silicon diodes. At low drive levels the clipping is pretty symmetric for all three settings. At higher drive levels, they all become more and more asymmetric because T2 and R10 drive the clippers asymmetrically. You can use whatever you like for T3 & T4; high Vf diodes like BA482s or BA283s would also work. I stuck in some vintage 2N2219A & 2N2905A trannys I had in my stash. Nice tones, with the transistor clipper being the hottest and most compressed, the four diodes having a fatter sound and the LEDs more open sounding. I'm not always fond of LED clippers but they work well here. The TONE control has a good range, and gets pretty dark down around zero. T1 & T2 can be Ge or Si, I supposed you could even mix 'em up. I used a pair of Russian MП38As.
I started out with a stock build and ended up making two little changes: Lowered R2 to 10K to add some more gain at the top end of the FUZZ control range and lowered C7 to 15nF brighten up the TONE control a tad. If you're looking for something simple & fun to breadboard, give this a go!
I started out with a stock build and ended up making two little changes: Lowered R2 to 10K to add some more gain at the top end of the FUZZ control range and lowered C7 to 15nF brighten up the TONE control a tad. If you're looking for something simple & fun to breadboard, give this a go!