Buddy's Breadboard and Circuit Design Notes

[BuddytheReow]

Alright. Here's version 3 of the Spooky Dookie.

R3 changed to 68k. Diodes swapped out to 1n4148 (standard). BITE control changed to a C20k (100k was too much and I didn't have a 50) and acting as a voltage divider which can dial out the clipping. Once you dial the diodes out the volume goes up quite a bit, but that can be tamed. VOLUME upped to A250k. Thanks for looking out @Chuck D. Bones

I think this may be called done since I don't think there's much more I can do unless someone wants a go at it. It gets loud (booster), a bass and treble control, and clipping control for just a 1 transistor circuit. It's been sitting on my breadboard for a week, but I haven't had much time playing though it (maybe 10-15 min). This was a cool little project to put together some little circuit Legos. Maybe someone will make a PCB for this some day. I may commit this to vero or I may not. I've got a lot of house projects right now, so this is on the back burner for a bit.

 

[Feral Feline]

In the end of the circuit when everything is gettin' kinda dirty
I dial you up and ask you for more gain to see if it gets gritty
First, you're not SHO, LPB-1 with clipping diodes and "BITE"
and then there's "CUT" that keeps things tight

Boost is kinda crazy with a Spooky little Dookie like you

 

[BuddytheReow]

Another breadboard project finished up here. I've had this one on the side while working on the Spooky Dookie.

I posted a Fuzz Face tutorial recently. It's a pure breadboarding tutorial rather than circuit analysis. For such a simple circuit, it is deceptively complex in how everything works together. The good news is that pretty much everything on a FF is tweakable. If you want to see that here's the link.

TUTORIAL - Fuzz Face and a Request From All of You

The Fuzz Face. One of the first and most iconic fuzz circuits around. It is debatable whether there are more iterations of this classic circuit or the Big Muff Pi out there, so I'll let you be the judge. For any breadboarder or pedal creator out there, the Fuzz Face is almost a rite of passage...

forum.pedalpcb.com

Anyways, what I put on the breadboard is the DAM Meathead dark version. It's dark because there are 2 filter caps in Q1 and Q2 that get rid of the highs. The stock version works pretty well on bass. On guitar not so much simply because too many highs are taken off. So, what I wanted to was reach a happy medium where it COULD work on both. I think I've found it.

Ho hum. YAFF (yet another fuzz face). TL/DR. Thank you, next.

But wait! There's more!

I have a pedal I already cooked up that I needed to replace one of the circuits with. 2 one knob fuzzes in one box. One of them has my NUT FUZZ. The other one is a Phantom Octave fuzz which uses a LM386 and found the stipboard layout via Tagboard. I wasn't 100% thrilled with the latter and this has been sitting on my bench for nearly a year.

The Ritual

Update: See post #2 with cleaned up gut shot and other circuit inside. Here's another BtR original. These are 2 one knob fuzzes that I made switchable in a single enclosure: a NUT FUZZ (my design) and Phantom Octave Fuzz. Both are stripboard builds. Both of these builds use a LED: one a red and...

forum.pedalpcb.com

So, I've got a tweaked fuzz face to my liking, but I want it to have the "magic eye" where a LED lights up only when I play to complete this build. Our local circuit wizard Mr. @Chuck D. Bones was kind enough to point me in the right direction. To do this you'll need another transistor and a few parts. The unlabelled bjt would be Q2 in a FF. R2 below sets the maximum brightness. R3 sets the minimum brightness. If you change the bias of a "stock" FF, you'll need to tweak R2 and R3 accordingly. For Q1 below I just threw in a BC549c and she works!!!



So, the full schematic would look like this. C2 and C6 here are optional and not true to the original FF. It may make more sense to up the volume pot value, but this will work.


Here's the stripboard layout with the "magic eye." I haven't built it yet, but it looks ok to me. With my tweaked cap values and magic eye, I felt that this is no longer a "true" DAM Meathead. As an homage, I've felt the need to christen this circuit the "Butthead Fuzz".

Edit: This layout has been verified and works perfectly!

 

[BuddytheReow]

Sometimes when you go down a rabbit hole things can escalate really fast. I've been having some shower thoughts recently and decided to start acting on them.

EQ Before and After a Circuit?

I had a shower thought and wanted to bounce it off you guys if it's even worth pursuing. Regardless I'll breadboard something to find out for my own. Take a one knob fuzz for example (i.e Two Sticks of Derm) and build it stock. Putting a boost in front of it will produce a different sound...

forum.pedalpcb.com

A decent EQ as recommended by our local circuit wizard Chuck is the TC Integrated Preamp (PPCB Integral Preamp). Breadboarding this was a bit of a pain since the charge pump itself took up almost half my breadboard! But, the good news is that the charge pump provides plenty of headroom for the overall circuit (I measured 32V on mine). I didn't have any PCB C-Taper pots so I had to solder some spare wire on it. No biggie.

Edit: I removed Q1 and all it's components. If you search around this forum you'll see that it serves no purpose and was residual in the design phase. Compare this one to the Isosceles Boost and you'll see what I mean. Is it possible Q1 and it's components do something? Sure, but I don't have a simulation to confirm anything.

My overall impression of the Integrated Preamp is positive. With a Treble, Bass, and Volume control it can get a lot done in terms of tone shaping. Is it perfect? No. A 6 Band EQ could do a better tone shaping job for fine tuning. This is pretty good though from a broad strokes perspective. I do want to try some 1 knobbers in front of this before committing to a bigger project and enclosure.

My last project was still sitting on my Buddyboard: Chuck's version of my SHO 'Yo Muff and was a good candidate to confirm the EQ was working correctly.

Breadboarding can get veeeeeeerrry messy very quickly. If you're making a stock circuit, no problem. But, if you're a tweaker you may get tripped up which part to swap out.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Nice job, Sandy. VarioBoost as another good EQ to try. Because you still have plenty of board space left and MORE KNOBS!

 

[BuddytheReow]

I do like the Varioboost and have one on my pedalboard at the moment. Also an excellent tone shaper, but works different. Same number of knobs, though. The project I have in mind is to select a 1-knob circuit then have that go through a tone shaper. So far I'm not against the Integrated Preamp.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

You could use both. Then there is the question of tone shaping before or after distortion. Each have their advantages.

 

[BuddytheReow]

I could. The full idea that I have is a booster (treble or bass) into a 1 knobber (possibly 2 knobber like a Dist+ or OD) [4 selectable circuits] into another tone shaper. The boost and tone shaper would be selectable with a stomp switch. This would all go most likely into a 1590D