# “The Fuzz”



## Big Monk (May 19, 2022)

So, it’s finally happened. “The Fuzz” is here. 

And yes, the enclosure is fucked up. My drill plan had the frequency switch on the wrong side. It’s a blessing in disguise really. I drilled a temp hole and modified my graphics and drill plan a bit today ahead of ordering the final enclosures. 

Here it be. Clips tomorrow:


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## spi (May 19, 2022)

Nice!  I was expecting more knobs?


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## Grubb (May 20, 2022)

Looking forward to clips. And you've reminded me I have some drilling jobs to do tomorrow. Love to see digital files become a physical product!


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## fig (May 20, 2022)

Well done sir!


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## jeffwhitfield (May 20, 2022)

Am I missing something? Where are the transistors?


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## BuddytheReow (May 20, 2022)

You filed down the serial # I see. Does that make this board a felony? lol


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## Harry Klippton (May 20, 2022)

jeffwhitfield said:


> Am I missing something? Where are the transistors?


They're right above the trimmers


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## Big Monk (May 20, 2022)

I’m going to make one small change before posting clips. 

On the breadboard, the spread of values for the frequency switch seemed distinct enough. In real time, however, that’s not the case. 

Right now I’m using 220 nF for the Bright setting, 220 nF||470 nF for the Medium setting and 220 nF||1 uF for the Fat setting. 

I’ll be swapping the 470 nF for 820 nF and the 1 uF for a 2.2 uF and then posting some clips.


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## Big Monk (May 20, 2022)

BuddytheReow said:


> You filed down the serial # I see. Does that make this board a felony? lol



Against myself! I just didn’t write it in. Once I’m satisfied, I’ll grab the Sharpie and give it 0001


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## music6000 (May 20, 2022)

A touch of Makeup like A.H uses!


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## Big Monk (May 20, 2022)

music6000 said:


> A touch of Makeup like A.H uses!
> 
> View attachment 26529



Nice!

Yup, that's how it's SUPPOSSED to look.


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## almondcity (May 20, 2022)

I think these are my favorite knobs in the whole world. Nice work


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## JamieJ (May 20, 2022)

This looks great @Big Monk - You could always use a blend pot instead of a switch to blend between 47N and 2u2??


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## Big Monk (May 20, 2022)

JamieJ said:


> This looks great @Big Monk - You could always use a blend pot instead of a switch to blend between 47N and 2u2??



Well, I've never really liked the blend pot and how it sounds but also, this switch is very subtle, so IDK. 🤷‍♂️


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## JamieJ (May 20, 2022)

Tweaking your cap values for a greater spread should do the trick then. I really love my fuzz faces with a bass cut option with 47n as the input cap.


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## Big Monk (May 20, 2022)

I had a chance to take a video today:






A few thoughts:

1.) Background Hiss - There's quite a bit. Frankly, I can't remember whether this was there on the breadboard or not. On the plus side, no oscillation or RF to be heard.

2.) Frequency Switch - The subtlety here is a little disappointing. Frankly, and I won't kid myself, I'm not hearing much of an audible difference, despite confirming the switch is working and switching capacitance. 

I'll think on this over the weekend. I'd like to solve these issues before giving any of these away. 

Overall i'm very happy with the tone, cleanup and layers of drive available, and goof up on the enclosure notwithstanding, the aesthetics as well. I'm gonna get this on the breadboard again this weekend and compare them. 



JamieJ said:


> Tweaking your cap values for a greater spread should do the trick then. I really love my fuzz faces with a bass cut option with 47n as the input cap.



I'll test some different values out this weekend. What's interesting is that on the breadboard I was getting very ice-picky rolloff and now I think I may have been using small caps in the tens of nF range rather than the hundreds of nF I'm using now. I think what I'll do is try 47 nF, 680 nF and 3.3 uF and see how that sounds.

This is what happens when you stop taking notes halfway through the testing...'


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## Big Monk (May 20, 2022)

Update: Went in and switched out the smallest and largest input caps and it’s still very subtle. 

I went with 47 nF for the Bright cap and 3.3 uF for the Fat cap. Medium cap stayed at 820 nF. 

I’m contemplating just eliminating the switch before ordering new enclosures and using 680 nF-1uF as the input cap. 

I’ll do some high volume testing this weekend just to confirm I’m not crazy. Also double checked the PCB and switch connections. Everything is in order so it’s not an installation or design error.


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## dawson (May 20, 2022)

Big Monk said:


> I had a chance to take a video today:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Nice legs, dude!

Personally, I dug the settings toward the end of the demo- like around 5:55 through the duration.
*listening through mid-range PC speakers, after youtube's had its' way with the sound quality.


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## Big Monk (May 20, 2022)

dawson said:


> Nice legs, dude!
> 
> Personally, I dug the settings toward the end of the demo- like around 5:55 through the duration.
> *listening through mid-range PC speakers, after youtube's had its' way with the sound quality.



Thanks dude! 

I’m leaning toward eliminating the frequency switch altogether. I don’t want to be gifting people a pedal with a useless control.

Fortunately, the base tone is what I was looking for. I had hoped that the frequency switch would offer some versatility for people playing different pickups but it seems something like 820 nF-1uF should be sufficient.


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## jeffwhitfield (May 20, 2022)

Harry Klippton said:


> They're right above the trimmers


Durp! I’m blind. 🤪


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## Big Monk (May 21, 2022)

Shout out to @JamieJ for making me reconsider the blend control. Did some surgery last night to expand the Q2 bias range and remove the Frequency switch circuitry. Added a temporary blend control. I’ll be revising the enclosure drill plan, art and board to accommodate an internal blend trim and use a smaller LED and then ordering final PCBs and enclosures. 

Kind of a bass-ackwards build report but sometimes even the best laid plans (and enclosures and PCBs) require “field” changes.


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## Big Monk (May 22, 2022)

Played around a little more today. Ended up ditching the blend control for a single cap. It really just acts as a switch anyway. I’ll go with a single cap for the input between 680 not and 1 uF. 

I have to redesign the board slightly and I believe add a base to collector cap slot     as well, as adding 470 pF seems to have helped the hiss issue too.

So I’ll be revising the art and Drill plan, as well as the PCB for the final run.


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## fig (May 23, 2022)

Big Monk said:


> Shout out to @JamieJ for making me reconsider the blend control.





Big Monk said:


> Ended up ditching the blend control for a single cap.


Well Jamie, it _nearly_ lasted a day. 

Do you have a current schematic? Not that I could be any real help mind you, but I am curious about this hiss.


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## Big Monk (May 23, 2022)

fig said:


> Well Jamie, it _nearly_ lasted a day.
> 
> Do you have a current schematic? Not that I could be any real help mind you, but I am curious about this hiss.



Give me 10...


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## fig (May 23, 2022)

Big Monk said:


> Give me 10...


PayPal or Venmo?

( I paid to see the Sistine Chapel…this schematic better be worth it )


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## Big Monk (May 23, 2022)

fig said:


> Do you have a current schematic? Not that I could be any real help mind you, but I am curious about this hiss.



So here is the "as-built" schematic:




For starters, I can't rule out with 100% certainty whether I'm chasing my tail or not, i.e. I can't remember for certain if this level of hiss was there on the breadboard and I just disregarded it because, well, breadboard!

From this breadboard demo though, I think I can hear what I'm hearing now:






So it becomes a case of having zero RF or oscillation and trying to simply squelch some of the hiss. 

I believe the Gain pot may actually be contributing. Input/Series resistance can often be a culprit for excessive noise in pedal and tube amps so that is where my head is at right now. 

Yesterday I tried some strategic cap placements. I used a 470 pF across the B-C of Q1, but that muted the tone too much and did not really help with the hiss. I currently have a 100 pF cap across the Volume control and that definitely helped so that may stay permanently. I may try the 100 pF across the Gain pot as well and see if that helps. \

Overall, not a huge issue but I had hoped for a fairly quiet pedal, which this is in the classic sense (no whale/dolphin in distress noises or spanish language radio stations/country stations).


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## MichaelW (May 23, 2022)

I dunno, sounds fab to me, right around 2:17 mark. Killer sound.


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## fig (May 23, 2022)

Have you considered audio probing to find where it is being injected or accentuated? My _guess_ would be the area around the Q2 bias trimmer into the volume pot.
This is unrelated but a chance for me to learn something if you’ll indulge me (apologies for derailment)..coming off the emitter of Q2 are two polarized caps to ground (10u, 2.2u). Why two, and why those values? Thanks in advance.


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## Big Monk (May 23, 2022)

fig said:


> Have you considered audio probing to find where it is being injected or accentuated? My _guess_ would be the area around the Q2 bias trimmer into the volume pot.



If all else fails I will do just that. I’m going to try some “at volume” testing to see how effective the 100 pF across the volume control is, as well as 100 pF across the Gain pot and a cap at B-C for Q2 for completeness. 



fig said:


> This is unrelated but a chance for me to learn something if you’ll indulge me (apologies for derailment)..coming off the emitter of Q2 are two polarized caps to ground (10u, 2.2u). Why two, and why those values? Thanks in advance.



That was a way for me to “‘tweener” cap values for the emitter cap. 10 uF just wasn’t cutting it and my next option was either 15 uF or 22 uF. So basically I can now get any value from in between standard values. 

When I do a Silicon MK II, I’ll do the same to get values in between 4.7 uF and 10 uF, which is another no mans land.


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## Big Monk (Jun 21, 2022)

“On this week’s episode of “Waste Not, Want Not”……..”

I was cleaning my bench a couple weeks ago and saw “The Fuzz” enclosures with the switch hole error in my enclosure bin. 

So I whipped up a quick PCB that I could use in that enclosure:









Offboard wiring tomorrow then some sound clips and then these are going up on Reverb to fully fund the Giveaway fuzzes.


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## Big Monk (Jun 30, 2022)

Got it all wired up:


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## fig (Jun 30, 2022)

It looks great Derek!


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## Coda (Jun 30, 2022)

And here we are with August right around the corner…


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## Big Monk (Jun 30, 2022)

Coda said:


> And here we are with August right around the corner…



Well, these are getting sold straight away so I can get on with the Big Show…


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## Bricksnbeatles (Jun 30, 2022)

Ain’t never gonna do it without the fuzz on


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## Big Monk (Jul 4, 2022)

I’m sick as a dog and the whites are in the laundry today so no socks:


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