giovanni
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Alright, it seems like I am getting back into a groove building pedals. This is my second one this year and the 5th in about 6 months, which is a record for me after years of not building much of anything. Last famous words, I will post another build report in 2028 lol.
I procrastinated building this pedal for literally years. I can't remember why I picked the Sandspur, I think I just wanted a simple circuit to build for a pedal making workshop I was planning and then never actually organized. But I thought it would be a solid circuit and I do not have a Silicon Fuzz Face so that checked multiple boxes for me.
At the time, I wanted to start making UV printed enclosures (in part because of the workshop, but mostly because I just wanted to). I originally used Inkscape and totally botched several steps in the process so the first enclosure I got UV printed was unusable. I posted my troubles on the forum and @Brett was extremely kind and basically remade the design and made a corrected pdf for me (thanks again for that man!). I think the result looks pretty damn good. This was probably in 2022 and the enclosure has been sitting on a shelf since. Until the other night as I was going through my builds and decided that this would be an easy one to knock out.
The build went completely smooth, probably the easiest in a long time. And I usually make the mistake of not planning ahead well enough and end up having to fix one or more problems along the way. But not this time. I started the build yesterday and just finished it tonight. Luckily I had drilled pilot holes for a batch of enclosures a long time ago so the drilling was pretty easy today.
I biased the collector of Q2 to 4.5V with the sundial in at noon. Honestly the bias doesn't feel like it's changing the tone a lot, but I am not sure what to expect from it. I would think there would be more gating on either end but I don't hear it. Maybe I need to get back to it with fresh ears some other day.
One thing that's weird is that I get some weird gating / sputtering artifacts when the fuzz is all the way up, no matter how I bias it. If I turn the fuzz down a smidge, they all go away. Not sure if this is to be expected or depends on the transistors' hFE or the guitar impedance (using a MIJ Strat). I used BC108's I got from Tayda, both measuring around 360 hFE. The fuzz controls the feedback resistor so it directly changes the gain but I believe also the bias, so maybe above a certain value it puts the transistor in a weird bias state?
However, with the right settings, this thing sings. These days I don't play any style of music for which such a sound makes sense, but it is fun to pull out a couple Hendrix riffs (even though I am also using the wrong amp) with a very cool sounding fuzz. I am now thinking that I should try it with the DejaVibe. Oh and it cleans up really nicely with the guitar pot, as one expects.
I procrastinated building this pedal for literally years. I can't remember why I picked the Sandspur, I think I just wanted a simple circuit to build for a pedal making workshop I was planning and then never actually organized. But I thought it would be a solid circuit and I do not have a Silicon Fuzz Face so that checked multiple boxes for me.
At the time, I wanted to start making UV printed enclosures (in part because of the workshop, but mostly because I just wanted to). I originally used Inkscape and totally botched several steps in the process so the first enclosure I got UV printed was unusable. I posted my troubles on the forum and @Brett was extremely kind and basically remade the design and made a corrected pdf for me (thanks again for that man!). I think the result looks pretty damn good. This was probably in 2022 and the enclosure has been sitting on a shelf since. Until the other night as I was going through my builds and decided that this would be an easy one to knock out.
The build went completely smooth, probably the easiest in a long time. And I usually make the mistake of not planning ahead well enough and end up having to fix one or more problems along the way. But not this time. I started the build yesterday and just finished it tonight. Luckily I had drilled pilot holes for a batch of enclosures a long time ago so the drilling was pretty easy today.
I biased the collector of Q2 to 4.5V with the sundial in at noon. Honestly the bias doesn't feel like it's changing the tone a lot, but I am not sure what to expect from it. I would think there would be more gating on either end but I don't hear it. Maybe I need to get back to it with fresh ears some other day.
One thing that's weird is that I get some weird gating / sputtering artifacts when the fuzz is all the way up, no matter how I bias it. If I turn the fuzz down a smidge, they all go away. Not sure if this is to be expected or depends on the transistors' hFE or the guitar impedance (using a MIJ Strat). I used BC108's I got from Tayda, both measuring around 360 hFE. The fuzz controls the feedback resistor so it directly changes the gain but I believe also the bias, so maybe above a certain value it puts the transistor in a weird bias state?
However, with the right settings, this thing sings. These days I don't play any style of music for which such a sound makes sense, but it is fun to pull out a couple Hendrix riffs (even though I am also using the wrong amp) with a very cool sounding fuzz. I am now thinking that I should try it with the DejaVibe. Oh and it cleans up really nicely with the guitar pot, as one expects.
