This Week on the Breadboard: BJFe Arctic White Fuzz
- Thread starter Chuck D. Bones
- Start date
Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
"Good news everyone!"
The four knob version is here.
White Knob: LEVEL - White Knob: TONE - White Knob: ATTACK - White Knob: FUZZ
I did my own thing with the TONE control network. Treble cut below noon, flat at noon and treble boost above noon. It will purr, growl, snarl or roar depending on the knob settings. I had 4.7μF for C4, but it got a bit muddy when ATTACK was dimed, so I reduced it to 2.2μF. YMMV. With FUZZ & ATTACK below about 10:00 it plays clean. Crank FUZZ and use your guitar's volume knob like you would with a Fuzz Face. With FUZZ & ATTACK dimed, it gets very mid-focused, to the point of sounding a bit like a stuck wah. I tried MPF4393, PF5102 & J113 for Q2. They all worked well with the same value for R8. The PF5102 has the most gain, although the only time it matters is when ATTACK is dimed. ATTACK is very touchy above 4:00. If you're only intersted in the high-gain end of the range, then I recommend C1K for the ATTACK pot. Similarly, C500K works well for FUZZ. We get all of the tones from the original Arctic White Fuzz and a bunch more with this setup. D1 can be any diode, or you can go with a 1N5817 in series with R14 instead. Q1 can be any high-gain low-noise Si NPN.
The four knob version is here.
White Knob: LEVEL - White Knob: TONE - White Knob: ATTACK - White Knob: FUZZ
I did my own thing with the TONE control network. Treble cut below noon, flat at noon and treble boost above noon. It will purr, growl, snarl or roar depending on the knob settings. I had 4.7μF for C4, but it got a bit muddy when ATTACK was dimed, so I reduced it to 2.2μF. YMMV. With FUZZ & ATTACK below about 10:00 it plays clean. Crank FUZZ and use your guitar's volume knob like you would with a Fuzz Face. With FUZZ & ATTACK dimed, it gets very mid-focused, to the point of sounding a bit like a stuck wah. I tried MPF4393, PF5102 & J113 for Q2. They all worked well with the same value for R8. The PF5102 has the most gain, although the only time it matters is when ATTACK is dimed. ATTACK is very touchy above 4:00. If you're only intersted in the high-gain end of the range, then I recommend C1K for the ATTACK pot. Similarly, C500K works well for FUZZ. We get all of the tones from the original Arctic White Fuzz and a bunch more with this setup. D1 can be any diode, or you can go with a 1N5817 in series with R14 instead. Q1 can be any high-gain low-noise Si NPN.
Will be building this soon with B550C/J113, and the 3k9 resistor + bias trimmer you suggested.
Bit of a noob though... can I check how I would measure the bias voltage while I'm adjusting the trimmer? Is this the voltage between the the circuit at [Q1 collector/Q2 gate/C3/R7] and ground?
Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
Measure voltage at Q2-D w.r.t. GND. Adjust trimmer to get between 5.3V and 5.4V. After that, you can adjust the trimmer by ear if you like.
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Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
Nope, my bad, I should have typed Q2-D (drain). It's been corrected above.
Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
Sweet!
Feral Feline
Well-known member
Great graphic!
Do I see colours of the arctic tundra? Does a snow leopard even live in the arctic tundra? I thought they lived in snow caped mountains. See, this is why pedal designers need to be more aware of big cat environments. Well, of most large mammals in general really.
Very cool enclosure though, despite the needless complications.
Very cool enclosure though, despite the needless complications.
Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
I see something else.
adding a link to this geofx article from 1998 that discusses the fuzz face layout in detail.
szukalski
Well-known member
The build went well, really enjoy this pedal. v2 is a great evolution from v1, an immensely better pedal. One of the few things I have boxed this year!
forum.pedalpcb.com
First build to get the new Sheepylove faceplate approach. Thanks Dave, this is a fun one.
[Sheepylove] Dall v2 - Celestial Engineering Average White Fuzz
It's been a while since I've done a build report, I've been doing a lot of building but not a lot of boxing. A big part of that is because I've been working on a few things, moving from DipTrace to KiCad, and playing with ideas for different faceplate designs. I think I have got to a happy place...
forum.pedalpcb.com
First build to get the new Sheepylove faceplate approach. Thanks Dave, this is a fun one.
Hi all,
Arrived late to the party. Built it and it's fantastic! Thanks for sharing CB!
The LED is sadly not purple, but violet. It's a bit of a bummer, but I didn't find purple in my local shop.
Lots of space
How does it sound? It sounds great! I don't have many fuzzes, so I can only compare it to a few. I got an HFD clone with only SI transistors (so a bit modded you might say) which sounds fine but doesn't have as much gain as the AWF.
I got a Boss FZ-1 and it sort of sounds similar to the AWF to me. But the FZ-1 gets boomy when you go full blast and you get the feeling that you need to work extra hard. Don't like that. The AWF on the other hand is way tighter and very lively.
The AWF has a lot of range (low gain to high gain), and then you can even twiddle with both Attack and Fuzz for more variation. But honestly I just boxed it up and started playing it and I liked it full blast and then use the volume/treble on the guitar. It was hard to put the guitar down, because it's really fun playing it.
The vero:
And the solder side, already flipped for you:
It's as per Chuck's schematic, only I put an 1n5817 in series with R14 instead of using 1N4002 and I added a ceramic parallel to 100uF.
In my build I used BC550C and an SMD J113 (marking 6S). My little, cheap tester said Vp ~ 1.8V and Idss ~20mA. For R8 I used 5k6.
Vcc (behind R14) 8.41V
BC550C
C 0.795V
B 0.734V
E 0.162V
Vbe 0.574V
Vce 0.628V
J113
D 4.61V
S 2.32V
G 0.795V
Again, thanks for sharing this, I really like it!
Arrived late to the party. Built it and it's fantastic! Thanks for sharing CB!
The LED is sadly not purple, but violet. It's a bit of a bummer, but I didn't find purple in my local shop.
Lots of space
How does it sound? It sounds great! I don't have many fuzzes, so I can only compare it to a few. I got an HFD clone with only SI transistors (so a bit modded you might say) which sounds fine but doesn't have as much gain as the AWF.
I got a Boss FZ-1 and it sort of sounds similar to the AWF to me. But the FZ-1 gets boomy when you go full blast and you get the feeling that you need to work extra hard. Don't like that. The AWF on the other hand is way tighter and very lively.
The AWF has a lot of range (low gain to high gain), and then you can even twiddle with both Attack and Fuzz for more variation. But honestly I just boxed it up and started playing it and I liked it full blast and then use the volume/treble on the guitar. It was hard to put the guitar down, because it's really fun playing it.
The vero:
And the solder side, already flipped for you:
It's as per Chuck's schematic, only I put an 1n5817 in series with R14 instead of using 1N4002 and I added a ceramic parallel to 100uF.
In my build I used BC550C and an SMD J113 (marking 6S). My little, cheap tester said Vp ~ 1.8V and Idss ~20mA. For R8 I used 5k6.
Vcc (behind R14) 8.41V
BC550C
C 0.795V
B 0.734V
E 0.162V
Vbe 0.574V
Vce 0.628V
J113
D 4.61V
S 2.32V
G 0.795V
Again, thanks for sharing this, I really like it!
Last edited:
Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
Nice job!
I've yet to see a purple LED. Pink & UV are the closest I have. You could try a 3-lead red-blue LED and turn them both one. They'll need separate ballast resistors.
I've yet to see a purple LED. Pink & UV are the closest I have. You could try a 3-lead red-blue LED and turn them both one. They'll need separate ballast resistors.