Fingolfen
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I've been building pedals for several years now, and I realized I'd never actually built a fuzz face... of any sort. So I figured it was time to rectify that, but did I want silicon or did I want the OG germanium?
Fortunately with the Twin Face I get both!
As you can see from the PCBs above, there are very few components in the build itself - even given that there are two independent circuits on the PCB. I'm using carbon film resistors for this build (as it's a vintage pedal). The only semi-exotic components are the germanium transistors which I picked up from Smallbear. I did make one minor modification to the circuit. Most modern Fuzz Face boards include an input pull-down resistor (usually around 1MΩ), but the Twin Face board did not. I went ahead and added one at the input on the main PCB.
One problem with germanium fuzz face pedals is they generally required a positive ground - making using one with other effects on your pedal board more difficult. The Twin Face PCB gets around this by incorporating an on-board voltage inverter which permits the use of normal 9V center negative power supplies. The board also includes trimmer resistors so you can set the bias on both the germanium and silicon transistors independently.
I decided to relocate the LED to the bottom of the enclosure, so I used one of my 3PDT daughter boards which lets you put it on either side of the stomp switch. The main PCB and daughter board are connected with 2.54mm ribbon cable. The jacks are connected to the boards with aviation grade wire from Tube Depot and the connections are insulated with heat shrink tubing. The only challenge here was the fact that the germanium transistors are a bit tall and had to be pushed over gently to fit.
Our mascot for this pedal isn't technically a dinosaur, it's a synapsid, though the Lycaenops did live over 250 million years ago! I'd found a collection of some mostly good licensable art which included the Lycaenops. It took me a little while to figure out whether it was a smilodon or something else. I eventually decided it most looked like the Lycaenops.
In terms of the sound - it's a fuzz face through and through. You do get a bit of a pop sound if you toggle between the two, but otherwise it sounds amazing. It has all of the raw early character of the original!
Original blog (more Lycaenops facts and preamble): https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2024/08/steggo-finally-builds-fuzz-face.html
Fortunately with the Twin Face I get both!
As you can see from the PCBs above, there are very few components in the build itself - even given that there are two independent circuits on the PCB. I'm using carbon film resistors for this build (as it's a vintage pedal). The only semi-exotic components are the germanium transistors which I picked up from Smallbear. I did make one minor modification to the circuit. Most modern Fuzz Face boards include an input pull-down resistor (usually around 1MΩ), but the Twin Face board did not. I went ahead and added one at the input on the main PCB.
One problem with germanium fuzz face pedals is they generally required a positive ground - making using one with other effects on your pedal board more difficult. The Twin Face PCB gets around this by incorporating an on-board voltage inverter which permits the use of normal 9V center negative power supplies. The board also includes trimmer resistors so you can set the bias on both the germanium and silicon transistors independently.
I decided to relocate the LED to the bottom of the enclosure, so I used one of my 3PDT daughter boards which lets you put it on either side of the stomp switch. The main PCB and daughter board are connected with 2.54mm ribbon cable. The jacks are connected to the boards with aviation grade wire from Tube Depot and the connections are insulated with heat shrink tubing. The only challenge here was the fact that the germanium transistors are a bit tall and had to be pushed over gently to fit.
Our mascot for this pedal isn't technically a dinosaur, it's a synapsid, though the Lycaenops did live over 250 million years ago! I'd found a collection of some mostly good licensable art which included the Lycaenops. It took me a little while to figure out whether it was a smilodon or something else. I eventually decided it most looked like the Lycaenops.
In terms of the sound - it's a fuzz face through and through. You do get a bit of a pop sound if you toggle between the two, but otherwise it sounds amazing. It has all of the raw early character of the original!
Original blog (more Lycaenops facts and preamble): https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2024/08/steggo-finally-builds-fuzz-face.html
