Feindly Fire Fuzz - No Unity Gain

[Cybercow]

Anyone else find the "Friendly Fire Fuzz" to fall short of unity gain?

This is a great sounding fuzz circuit, but it does not even achieve unity gain. I tried a few different BJTs, (MJE340, KT315B, & BC184L), with no volume increase. However, the different BJTs do provide some different timbres. I recommend adding a simple one BJT boost circuit to this build. That’s what I’m going to do because the fuzz tone is quite elegant.

 

[Ginsly]

Is that the FY-2? They always need a tweak/boost. https://www.pedalpcb.com/product/pcb633/

 

[PedalBuilder]

Anyone else find the "Friendly Fire Fuzz" to fall short of unity gain?

This is a great sounding fuzz circuit, but it does not even achieve unity gain. I tried a few different BJTs, (MJE340, KT315B, & BC184L), with no volume increase. However, the different BJTs do provide some different timbres. I recommend adding a simple one BJT boost circuit to this build. That’s what I’m going to do because the fuzz tone is quite elegant.

The EQD Terminal/PPCB Depot Fuzz is basically what you described, a Companion Fuzz with a BJT gain recovery stage. To my ears, adding a BJT gain recovery stage colors the tone somewhat, so that’s something to keep in mind. I tried the BJT gain recovery stage on my Companion Fuzz build, but ended up pulling it out and replacing it with RG Keen’s MOSFET boost, which increased the output level without changing the character of the fuzz.