SandSpur Fuzz (Analogman Sun Face BC108)

[MichaelW]

Well I actually have 3 pedals on deck drilled with all the parts pulled and ready for assembly, I picked this one since it was Friday afternoon and I figured I'd knock it out quickly and have something new to play with.

Turns out the wife wanted to spend some time together and we wound up watching the last episode of Stranger Things Season 4. (2 1/2 hr episode, pretty unsatisfying ending for me....)

Then she wanted to spend some time together again this morning.......didn't get back to this until just now when she went grocery shopping.

I wound up using 2 BC108's with Hfe ~470 (as per @Big Monk's suggestion) and biased Q2 to 4.5v (as per @thewintersoldier's suggestion).

Sounds spot on to me, I played with the bias a bit more but returned it to 4.5v as it sounds the best to me there. The Sundial knob is interesting. Turned all the way CCW the pedal sounds a bit more like a distortion than fuzz but turned fully CW it can get spitty and a bit gatey.

The only other full on silicon fuzz I've built is the Acid Rain and I put them side by side. Different sounding fuzzes but I still really dig the tone controls on the Acid Rain.

The SandSpur sounds really good with a P90 neck pickup and I'm really enjoying making some noise with it!
With all my fuzzes built so far, it's been kind of academic and just pure joy in noodling as I still haven't come up with anything to use one in the context of a song.
Still thinking about that.......

 

[fig]

Nice as always Michael. I too prefer the Acid Rain.


Oh: Have you built the 5Lb Fuzz? Definitely socket clippers and try sans-clipping…

The BAT46s ~350mV Vf tame and mellow it out..

 

[dawson]

Those guts are satisfying to look at.

 

[szukalski]

Looks so fresh and clean.

You need to get some fuzz songs! Break out the Hendrix.. Foxy Lady!

 

[giovanni]

This is on my wishlist and probably the pedal I’ll use for my upcoming workshops (but with BC548 or something). I didn’t realize how few components it has! Nice build!

 

[Cvoxdog]

I built one recently that sounds great with a mp38a and a bc549b.

 

[MichaelW]

I built one recently that sounds great with a mp38a and a bc549b.

What were the gains you used?

 

[Cvoxdog]

I just socket the transistors and try various combos until it sounds good to me. I still don't own a transistor tester but I can see that it'd probably be nice to have! That germanium and silicon combo didn't have noise with the fuzz knob maxed out and sounded a bit smoother.