DEMO Fuzz Hysteria - Aion FX Polaris [Human Gear Animato]

[UtilityBeltFX]

Build Rating

3.00 star(s)

So here is the brother build to my Russian Big Muff w/clean blend. This is the Aion FX Polaris which is a trace of the Human Gear Animato. For those not in the know, the Animato is an obscure Japanese distortion pedal that Chris Wolstenholme (bass player of Muse) discovered early in his career and quickly adopted as his signature sound. For a great example of this, check out his bassline in the song Hyper Music.

The irony I discovered after building my Russian Muff is that the famous bassline Hysteria is most likely his Big Muff blended with a synth, NOT his Animato (which I named this pedal after.) Oh well, maybe I'll swap enclosures one day.

As I noted in my Big Muff thread, this circuit is the most difficulty building a pcb I have ever encountered. To the point that I could not diagnose the problem and started over from scratch. I ordered a new PCB and even used Aion's Mouser order sheet to really make sure everything was the correct value/power etc. Honestly to my memory it didn't work when I rebuilt it either. But I think my germanium transistors were mis-socketed or something. Oh, did I mention you need to get your hands on NTE 102/103 transistors? The Animato is basically a germanium treble booster running into a big muff.

Compared to my Russian Big Muff, the Animato is more distorted and twangy, and the Big Muff is more snythy and fuzzy. I think I'm going to do a comparison video soon of the two of them. They run into eachother really nicely as well! Makes sense why Chris Wolstenholme would blend them. For an example of that, check out this isolated bassline in the song Resistance. The twangy drivey bit is his Animato, and then he kicks in his Big Muff for the big driving chorus.

Anyway. This pcb was very difficult to get working, but does sound great once it does. Once again I used GuitarPCBs Buff n Blend because PedalPCB STILL doesn't sell a clean blend!!! I guess I'll just keep giving them my money even though I would love to give you guys my money instead here take it please I'm begging you!!!

In the demo I used it on the guitars as well with the blend all the way up, full distortion circuit. Bass was probably 50/50.

3/5 stars. Build on a deserted island away from friends and family.

 

[VanWhy]

Gut shot? What did you find most challenging? Sourcing components? Or components just not jivving with the board?

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Sounds cool! As someone who isn’t particularly big into muse or big muffs, I was never interested in this circuit when I’d see it on FuzzDog and Aion, but that demo has me thinking it could be a worthwhile build, especially with the blend control! Awesome build, and great demo, mate!

 

[Nic]

Right now, that board is my worst nightmare !!!! Hahaha !!! Super noisy, I thought I busted a transistor, then after multiple reflows, I sometimes get it to almost work, then noise gets more and more present until I can hear nothing else. Glad you had it working, might have to order a new board and not try to wire everything externally !

Great job! I too am looking for Wolstenholme sound.

 

[steviejr92]

Your playing kicks ass dude! I love watching your demos! Great build man!

 

[UtilityBeltFX]

Gut shot? What did you find most challenging? Sourcing components? Or components just not jivving with the board?

I think I remember why I didn't take a gut shot of this one!!! I was so tired of wiring it up and taking it apart once it didn't work that I stopped bothering with my usual attempt at tidiness.

When it finally worked I just slapped the back on it and called it a victory.

I'm not sure what to call the most challenging part of this build because it was no different than pretty much any other. It's just that it DIDNT. WORK. I built an audio probe and it seemed like everything worked, but no signal would pass through. And then the next day signal would pass through but it wouldn't distort. Then the next day it would be feeding back like crazy. So it was challenging not to give up and feel like a failure. I had built this pedal once before months ago and it worked perfectly the first time. So I just couldn't understand what had gone wrong.

My fiances father was in town and he's an electronics savant. We probed the thing together and he was stumped! (Ironically it was a real bonding moment between us)



My gut tells me it has something to do with those super thin NTE transistor legs not seating properly. I'll definitely crimp the hell out of them next time.

 

[UtilityBeltFX]

Your playing kicks ass dude! I love watching your demos! Great build man!

That's very nice, thanks so much!!!

 

[UtilityBeltFX]

I need you all to know that when I opened this pedal up to snap that photo, the clean blend no longer works now and is stuck on 100% wet.

This pedal is cursed I hate it.

 

[Nic]

This pedal is cursed I hate it.

I feel you. Mime is also full of surprises Put sockets for my ge transistors and jumpered the audio path over those... no noise at all, I guess I'll need to order again, I may try to use a single mpsa13.

Hope you find the problem !

 

[UtilityBeltFX]

Update:
I rewired the pedal from scratch and built a new Buff N Blend for the hell of it. The pedal now works!!! I've gotten so much better and more meticulous about my wiring just in the last few months so this is obviously a huge improvement visually let alone electronically. I've also bought a heat gun and am heat shrinking my LED wire runs now in an instance like this. Just constantly working on shrinking my spots for error/failure.

The boards are both a hair crooked, but so am I so that's how they're gonna live. My OCD may never recover...

 

[Nic]

What are your thoughts about the buff n blend, does it affect the overall volume of the pedal. Would you say that both signals are at unity ?

I'll need to get my hand on an original nte103, the ecg103 I got seems to be out of spec. So much gain it almost does the job alone in the circuit, when I add the nte102 with it, I just get white noise. Both on their own seems fine.

 

[UtilityBeltFX]

What are your thoughts about the buff n blend, does it affect the overall volume of the pedal. Would you say that both signals are at unity ?

I would say if you have the blend at 50/50, and turn the level all the way up, the clean blend and the distortion are at unity.

 

[szukalski]

You can always make your own blender, I have used these as a starting point and it's turned out well:

Unreleased circuits collection, part I

Dry Blender. I like to do bespoke dry blends for each circuit, based on impedances, phase inversion and existing elements. These are general examples that work well in most cases and can be adapted in others. I've collected a bunch of circuits like these

www.freestompboxes.org

I need to redo it in SMD to make it smaller (and maybe make a phase switch), but you get the point:

 

[UtilityBeltFX]

You can always make your own blender, I have used these as a starting point and it's turned out well:

Unreleased circuits collection, part I

Dry Blender. I like to do bespoke dry blends for each circuit, based on impedances, phase inversion and existing elements. These are general examples that work well in most cases and can be adapted in others. I've collected a bunch of circuits like these

www.freestompboxes.org

I need to redo it in SMD to make it smaller (and maybe make a phase switch), but you get the point:
View attachment 55848

If you can get a phase flip in there as well I'll buy a billion of them from you. (Or at least 50x)

 

[xefned]

I need to redo it in SMD to make it smaller (and maybe make a phase switch), but you get the point:
View attachment 55848

Ooo, very interesting.
Perhaps a dumb Q: is a phase switch actually necessary? or could one just swap the send and return on one of the pads and achieve the same thing?

 

[szukalski]

Ooo, very interesting.
Perhaps a dumb Q: is a phase switch actually necessary? or could one just swap the send and return on one of the pads and achieve the same thing?

No. That wouldn’t work.

 

[kylewetton]

Hey man, here's a question for ya


"The twangy drivey bit is his Animato, and then he kicks in his Big Muff for the big driving chorus."

Do you mean to say that he has a Big Muff and Animato stacked (both on) for the chorus, or does he swap between?

Also, any idea what his Big Muff of choice is?

 

[jjjimi84]

Man, your demos look and sound amazing and the playing is top shelf!

 

[UtilityBeltFX]

Hey man, here's a question for ya


"The twangy drivey bit is his Animato, and then he kicks in his Big Muff for the big driving chorus."

Do you mean to say that he has a Big Muff and Animato stacked (both on) for the chorus, or does he swap between?

Also, any idea what his Big Muff of choice is?

I'm pretty sure he's stacking the Animato with the Big Muff. Although with his rig of 3 amps in parallel, it's possible one amp was clean, one was the animato, and one was the big muff all together.

His Big Muff of choice is the Black Russian version, tone set nearly on full.