mdc
Well-known member
I heard 'Girl Like You' come on the other day and was reminded of that song's great fuzz tone in the lead part.
Legend has it, he used a B&M fuzz unit for the track. It's a Colorsound pedal, not too different from a Big Muff, in the same family as the Supa and Jumbo Tone Benders, as well as the more recent yellow hybrid. Faustone released a nice, true-to-vintage-spec clone of the original a while ago and made the schematic freely available.
I breadboarded the circuit, it sounded pretty great as-is, but the BMP tone section is pretty lossy without the final recovery stage, and has a bit more mid-scoop than I'd like. Stock, it also sounded really close to the yellow hybrid bender that I already have, so I figured I'd tweak it a little. No major changes, really, but...
I laid it out on vero and built it this afternoon, and it sounds pretty cool. A solid one-knob fuzz with a bit more hair than a big muff but definitely in the same family.
Legend has it, he used a B&M fuzz unit for the track. It's a Colorsound pedal, not too different from a Big Muff, in the same family as the Supa and Jumbo Tone Benders, as well as the more recent yellow hybrid. Faustone released a nice, true-to-vintage-spec clone of the original a while ago and made the schematic freely available.
I breadboarded the circuit, it sounded pretty great as-is, but the BMP tone section is pretty lossy without the final recovery stage, and has a bit more mid-scoop than I'd like. Stock, it also sounded really close to the yellow hybrid bender that I already have, so I figured I'd tweak it a little. No major changes, really, but...
- swapped the clipping diodes for red LEDs
- swapped out the tone section for a fixed -6dB cut @ ~700Hz
- imo there's no reason to have the fuzz control anything but dimed, so I left that out too
- reduced C3 (the coupling cap after the input stage, C2 in my schem below...) to 10n; that's the value on the yellow hybrid and I think it sounds a lot better with a guitar.
- reduced the miller cap on Q3 to 390pf (honestly, the only reason is because I could only find two 470s in the baggie of breadboard parts and was too lazy to go get another 470 from the other side of the room. It sounded fine, why change it?)
- added some additional filtering to the power supply section
I laid it out on vero and built it this afternoon, and it sounds pretty cool. A solid one-knob fuzz with a bit more hair than a big muff but definitely in the same family.
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