Fuzz Factory clone

[giovanni]

Build Rating

3.00 star(s)

Man this took me a long time to finally finish! Work+kids have been keeping me really busy. I soldered the last few wires and put the transistors in their sockets tonight. Sounds like a charm or, well, like a FF. The board is from GPCB. I started these a very very long time ago, purchased the transistors years ago on eBay and the boards shortly after. This is my third build of this pedal and I have one more after this. Interestingly enough, I found the transistors to be incredibly consistent and I didn't have to try different ones to chase a good tone, they all sound pretty similar (maybe the circuit is very well designed). The 1590B enclosures are extremely tight for this and all the wires make it even more difficult, it barely fits!
My patience with off-board pots has come to an end, so this has got to be the last one! Moving on with my PPCB projects after that.




(I promise that LED ended up in its bezel!)

 

[Harry Klippton]

Nice. What transistors did you use?

 

[giovanni]

I wish I could remember! It was so many years ago and eBay doesn’t keep history past 2 years of purchases. I simply looked up equivalent models for the ones required by the circuit and found some Russian ones with high hfe.

 

[zgrav]

one reason the fuzz factory might be more tolerant of different transistors is that the the pots interact with one another, much like how trim pots are used in some vintage pedals to tweak the desired response.

 

[giovanni]

Finished and tested the last one of these (can’t turn the photo from my phone). Now off to my next projects!