Sunflower mod for EMGs?

[paulbarrette]

Hi all
Is there any mod/resistor change for the sunflower to play nicely with EMG pickups? Or other high output humbuckers? I have the guitar vol turned way down. Maybe that is just a fuzz thing?

Thanks
Pb

 

[hamerfan]

Active pickups (or buffers before) and GE transistors seem to be a problem.

 

[paulbarrette]

Active pickups (or buffers before) and GE transistors seem to be a problem.

I crank down the volume on the guitar for bc108 fuzz. I will be interested to hear what the difference is with Ge.
I definitely have to move the pedal before all the boss pedals.

Thanks
Pb

 

[manfesto]

It's the low output impedance of the active pickups that are interacting badly with the Fuzz Face's low input impedance and making it sound funny, same as if you put a buffered pedal before a Fuzz Face

Adding an AMZ Pickup Simulator in front of the fuzz would make them play much nicer (check out the AionFX Solaris and Epsilon build docs for an example implementation):

Guitar Pickups Simulation

Schematics & circuits for guitar effects with vacuum tubes and solid state electronics. FREE downloads of schematics such as TS-9, Fuzz Face and other classic rock devices.

www.muzique.com

 

[paulbarrette]

That is interesting. I wonder if the sunflower input clean 50k trim would help? Maybe i would have to add the transformer in the link you sent. If so it might be worth breaking out to a real pot instead of trim.

Thanks
Pb

 

[manfesto]

That is interesting. I wonder if the sunflower input clean 50k trim would help? Maybe i would have to add the transformer in the link you sent. If so it might be worth breaking out to a real pot instead of trim.

Thanks
Pb

Oh yeah, putting it external would be a very smart move since you lose the volume-pot interactivity when you put in a pickup simulator after it, so you'd have to use the "input" trim for that (which would be after the pickup sim but before the FF circuit) to do that (that's why the AMZ page has an example implementation with a volume and tone after the transformer at the bottom of the page, and again check out the AionFX Solaris build doc for an example implementation):

https://aionfx.com/app/files/docs/solaris_documentation.pdf

 

[paulbarrette]

Oh yeah, putting it external would be a very smart move since you lose the volume-pot interactivity when you put in a pickup simulator after it, so you'd have to use the "input" trim for that (which would be after the pickup sim but before the FF circuit) to do that (that's why the AMZ page has an example implementation with a volume and tone after the transformer at the bottom of the page, and again check out the AionFX Solaris build doc for an example implementation):

https://aionfx.com/app/files/docs/solaris_documentation.pdf

View attachment 67358

I was looking at the solaris implementation. That looks really interesting. Maybe that pickup section could be put in a passive pedal all on its own? I had a simple plan on tag boarding a Ge fuzz pedal, but that looks like it needs more thought :-(

thanks, great info in this thread!
Pb

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Yeah the other guys are right it's definitely the active pickups causing you problems. If it was me I'd probably try some other fuzz circuits that play a bit better with buffers and move on from the fuzz face.

 

[paulbarrette]

Yeah the other guys are right it's definitely the active pickups causing you problems. If it was me I'd probably try some other fuzz circuits that play a bit better with buffers and move on from the fuzz face.

I agree. I am looking at the proteus version for comparision.
thanks

Pb

 

[paulbarrette]

There is another discussion from a few years ago here on this:

Jack Orman's Pickup Simulator / Anti-Buffer...

Anyone ever build/use one of these circuits? http://www.muzique.com/lab/pickups.htm I use a lot of different fuzzes in different configurations with a pedal switcher/looper (which has a built-in buffer) and I've been thinking about building a few of these to go in front of fuzzes. I wonder if...

forum.pedalpcb.com

 

[manfesto]

Maybe that pickup section could be put in a passive pedal all on its own?

I've seen that done before, usually marketed as passive "unbuffer" pedals (I found more than few just searching "unbuffer" on reverb), but they usually don't have the trimpot after them so that'd be a nice addition if you were gonna build one

 

[paulbarrette]

I've seen that done before, usually marketed as passive "unbuffer" pedals (I found more than few just searching "unbuffer" on reverb), but they usually don't have the trimpot after them so that'd be a nice addition if you were gonna build one

Yes. I think that would give us options.

Thanks
Pb