MI Audio GI Fuzz

[Chuck D. Bones]

Does anyone have one of these or the Madbean Pyledriver? Or the Neo Fuzz for that matter. I'd like to hear your impressions on the tone, controls, etc. I've listened to Andy Martin's demo on YaoTaob. Looks like it's worth breadboarding at least.

 

[Betty Wont]

I built a pyledriver for someone over a year ago. My impression was that it pretty much did what a swollen pickle does. But I believe it is tonebender based rather than big muff.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Thanks for the feedback!
I'd describe it more as a modified Fuzz Face with a booster up front and a BMP tone stack at the end. I have a Swollen Pickle (snicker) and I can see how there might be some overlap in capabilities, but the SP doesn't do gating or have a variable input impedance. They may have similar gain and the tone stacks are pretty much the same.

 

[Robert]

I'm almost caught up with shipping.... Then a few build docs to go....

I'll get one of these in the next PCB order.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

I didn't even know this board was in the queue. Excellent!

 

[Mir9]

I would love to have the Neo Fuzz, the earlier germanium version.

As for the GI Fuzz, I built the Tagboard one, with some of the Madbean mods. This was mainly making the trim pot external as I was always adjusting it to lower noise.

Yes it's a boosted Fuzz Face type thing with a sort of Hoof type Muff eq. It has Tone, midrange and a 3 position treble cut. All are very effective. The remaining FOUR controls adjust gain throughout the circuit to fine tune things beyond any other of my fuzzes. It can get noisy!

My personal mods were adjusting the taper or direction of some of the pots so it was always "more" as I went clockwise.
It's one of my most versatile fuzzes: from very clean with a hint of breakup, to ripping aggressive fuzz. It's not a smooth drive.

 

[Robert]

I didn't even know this board was in the queue. Excellent!

It wasn't until today.

 

[Robert]

 

[darwin999]

I would love to have the Neo Fuzz, the earlier germanium version

Does anyone have ... the Neo Fuzz for that matter

I'm returning to this prior thread.
Does anyone know how to adapt the the GI Fuzz PCB (aka PPCB Fuzz Captain) to turn it into the Neo Fuzz?
I.e., is it the same basic circuit, primarily re-biased for Si vs Ge??
Can I readily adapt the Fuzz Captain PCB for a Neo build???
I prefer the sound of the Neo Fuzz to the GI Fuzz, and have the Ge transistors waiting to be put to good use.
Thanks in advance to anyone that knows!

 

[HamishR]

I'm almost caught up with shipping.... Then a few build docs to go....

I'll get one of these in the next PCB order.

Oh - do you do build docs?

 

[darwin999]

Oh - do you do build docs?

As far as I can tell, @Robert is pretty much a one-man show here - he seems to do it all.
He seems to decide what effects to clone, traces them, designs PCBs, builds/tests prototypes, writes build docs, etc, etc.
Hopefully he has some helping hands for orders/shipping/handling.
How he has any time left over to debug people's circuits and respond to forum questions is totally beyond me.
Maybe the answer is that @Robert has also been cloned...?

 

[HamishR]

It's ok, I was just teasing!