# What's your favorite Fuzz Face build?



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

Hey all, 

I know that this is an entirely subjective and probably impossible to answer question, but I'm curious what your favorite Fuzz Face builds are (Pedal PCB or otherwise). A friend asked me to build them one, and of all the fuzz types out there it's the one I have the least experience with or knowledge of what the different varieties sound like. So, I thought I'd ask the collective group here since y'all probably have a lot more combined knowledge on that specific kind of build than I do.


----------



## ICTRock (May 3, 2022)

The DAM Meathead Dark is a modified Colorsound One Knob Fuzz which is itself a modified silicon fuzz face. It does one thing just so incredibly well.

The problem here is what sort of fuzz face they're after. Classic germanium with all the mojo? Silicon fuzz face? Some modified panel of knobs and switches that they can tweak until the sun burns out?


----------



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

ICTRock said:


> The DAM Meathead Dark is a modified Colorsound One Knob Fuzz which is itself a modified silicon fuzz face. It does one thing just so incredibly well.
> 
> The problem here is what sort of fuzz face they're after. Classic germanium with all the mojo? Silicon fuzz face? Some modified panel of knobs and switches that they can tweak until the sun burns out?


Haha yea I get that, it definitely seems like it's a bit of a rabbit hole with fuzz in general as far as the different variations out there. They don't have a ton of experience with pedals, so I was thinking simpler is better here. I saw that the Twin Face pcb has an option for both Germanium and silicon voicings, which seemed like it could be cool to have at least a little bit of tweakability there. I'll check out the Meathead though, that sounds cool too!


----------



## BuddytheReow (May 3, 2022)

I'll just leave this here. These are stripboard layouts. Enjoy!


----------



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

BuddytheReow said:


> I'll just leave this here. These are stripboard layouts. Enjoy!


Thanks for this! I haven't quite gotten to the point of doing my own stripboard layouts yet, but a Fuzz Face seems like a good place to start for that so I'll definitely try one of these when I finally get around to that.


----------



## JamieJ (May 3, 2022)

My favourite fuzz face is a tone bender. 😂

In all seriousness any correctly biased fuzz face with either a 470nF/1uF input cap works for me!


----------



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

JamieJ said:


> My favourite fuzz face is a tone bender. 😂
> 
> In all seriousness any correctly biased fuzz face with either a 470nF/1uF input cap works for me!


Man don't get me started on Tone Benders, that is a rabbit hole I've been very happy to get lost in these days. So simple but so many options!


----------



## Betty Wont (May 3, 2022)

Check out the SRS EQ Exciter. It is the heaviest Fuzz Face derivative I know, and the EQ on it is out of this world. Almost like subtractive synthesis.


----------



## JamieJ (May 3, 2022)

For context what guitar and amp does your friend play and what music do they like?


----------



## BuddytheReow (May 3, 2022)

jwyles90 said:


> Thanks for this! I haven't quite gotten to the point of doing my own stripboard layouts yet, but a Fuzz Face seems like a good place to start for that so I'll definitely try one of these when I finally get around to that.








						TUTORIAL - What's the Deal With Stripboard/Veroboard?
					

A few people have asked me about stripboard so I thought I'd do a simple writeup. Turned out a lot longer to make it "simple", but I covered the bases here.  What is Stripboard?  Stripboard is simply a different type of prototyping platform. If soldering is your main vice, this is the way to go...




					forum.pedalpcb.com


----------



## gheorge77 (May 3, 2022)

JamieJ said:


> For context what guitar and amp does your friend play and what music do they like?


This was my exact question as well.

I've built a wide variety fuzzes and want to love tone benders and fuzz faces but I always end up coming back to the Soviet era big muffs as my favorite. I did like the hybrid tone bender

I find that I'm not getting enough volume with my GE fuzz face and tone benders. I know I can mod those but I haven't as of yet. Just as a basis of comparison, I play Sabbath kind of music, tuned to either d standard, drop c standard, or b standard, and I'm playing through either a Plexi or TMB.


----------



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

JamieJ said:


> For context what guitar and amp does your friend play and what music do they like?





gheorge77 said:


> This was my exact question as well.
> 
> I've built a wide variety fuzzes and want to love tone benders and fuzz faces but I always end up coming back to the Soviet era big muffs as my favorite. I did like the hybrid tone bender
> 
> I find that I'm not getting enough volume with my GE fuzz face and tone benders. I know I can mod those but I haven't as of yet. Just as a basis of comparison, I play Sabbath kind of music, tuned to either d standard, drop c standard, or b standard, and I'm playing through either a Plexi or TMB.


My friend asked me to build a pedal for her husband's birthday, so my knowledge of his gear is limited to some second hand info. As far as I know, he plays a Strat and uses your average, run of the mill solid state amp. He doesn't have anything super fancy and his only other pedal is a looper, but he's been getting more into it lately so she asked for a Fuzz Face since I think he's into some Hendrix style stuff and that seemed like a good starter fuzz for him.


----------



## Harry Klippton (May 3, 2022)

JamieJ said:


> For context what guitar and amp does your friend play and what music do they like?


💯💯💯💯


----------



## almondcity (May 3, 2022)

Foxx tone machine 

Let me state that this is half a joke and not a fuzz face, but it is a nice fuzz pedal, plus it has the octave switch


----------



## Sturdag Lagernathy (May 3, 2022)

Black ash fuzz from EQD(Carbon black from PPCB) is a very good, simple "face" circuit that works very well with a Strat and would be my first choice for someone into Hendrix and new to pedals. Very easy vero build as well!


----------



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

almondcity said:


> Foxx tone machine
> 
> Let me state that this is half a joke and not a fuzz face, but it is a nice fuzz pedal, plus it has the octave switch


Haha yea I was looking at that one and was a little surprised by the recommendation. Although it does seem like a cool pedal, I'm all about octave switches


----------



## Harry Klippton (May 3, 2022)

Sturdag Lagernathy said:


> Black ash fuzz from EQD(Carbon black from PPCB) is a very good, simple "face" circuit that works very well with a Strat and would be my first choice for someone into Hendrix and new to pedals. Very easy vero build as well!


I thought the black ash was a tone bender


----------



## Big Monk (May 3, 2022)

I would say that if he plays a Strat into an everyday, decent solid state amp, you can probably lean toward the stock Fuzz Face circuit.


----------



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

Big Monk said:


> I would say that if he plays a Strat into an everyday, decent solid state amp, you can probably lean toward the stock Fuzz Face circuit.


Yea I've been thinking that would probably be best. Debating now between the Sandspur Fuzz or the Twin Face. Or maybe I'll just make both and keep the one I end up not giving him...


----------



## Cybercow (May 3, 2022)

Personally, I like the Burns Buzz Around fuzz (PedalPCB "Gnat"). I know it's not a Fuzz Face, but its timbre and sustain are amazing. Finding the right BJTs and biasing properly is the fun part. Admittedly, playing thru one is even more fun.


----------



## phi1 (May 3, 2022)

For Ge fuzz face builds these days, be aware it can be a challenge to source Ge transistors in the correct Hfe range, or you may want to buy a lot and test the Hfe yourself. Smallbear used to sell pre-tested kits for FF, not sure if there’s anywhere doing that sort of thing currently.


----------



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

phi1 said:


> For Ge fuzz face builds these days, be aware it can be a challenge to source Ge transistors in the correct Hfe range, or you may want to buy a lot and test the Hfe yourself. Smallbear used to sell pre-tested kits for FF, not sure if there’s anywhere doing that sort of thing currently.


Good lookin out! I've had some decent success with those kinds of parts from Guitarpcb.com, they sell pre-matched sets for fuzz face kits as well.


----------



## Coda (May 3, 2022)

I would suggest the Sandspur PCB, though with the FF input cap. You’d also probably need a cap across Q2. The reason: the Ge FF sound (the one everyone goes crazy over) requires an amp that’s already cooking…like a loud Marshall, etc. Ge FF into a very clean amp is, well…underwhelming. Si FF, however, it’s excellent. You can socket the transistors and swap out different things…BC108 (the standard), BC109C (my favorite), BC549C (the same things as 109C, but I find that they sound a bit thicker, though not as full), BC107, and so on and so on. Each set will sound slightly different.


----------



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

Coda said:


> I would suggest the Sandspur PCB, though with the FF input cap. You’d also probably need a cap across Q2. The reason: the Ge FF sound (the one everyone goes crazy over) requires an amp that’s already cooking…like a loud Marshall, etc. Ge FF into a very clean amp is, well…underwhelming. Si FF, however, it’s excellent. You can socket the transistors and swap out different things…BC108 (the standard), BC109C (my favorite), BC549C (the same things as 109C, but I find that they sound a bit thicker, though not as full), BC107, and so on and so on. Each set will sound slightly different.


Yea that’s a good point about how germanium reacts to the amp as well. It’s been such a long time since I’ve played into a solid state amp that I have a hard time gauging how something will sound on it. Silicon seems like a safe bet though


----------



## Coda (May 3, 2022)

jwyles90 said:


> Yea that’s a good point about how germanium reacts to the amp as well. It’s been such a long time since I’ve played into a solid state amp that I have a hard time gauging how something will sound on it. Silicon seems like a safe bet though



I personally like the sound of a Ge FF and a clean amp…but it doesn’t sound like Hendrix…


----------



## Big Monk (May 3, 2022)

I’ve come to really love the Fuzz Face, when for years I would forego it in favor of the MK II/Supa. 

It’s such a simple circuit but has a varied number of “levers” to pull to tweak the tone. 

I’ve been trying in my mind to approach it in chunks based on what I need:

1.) Cleanup Ability
2.) Overall Gain
3.) Overall Brightness
4.) Noise Reduction

There are a number of different combinations you can use to achieve any mixture of those 4 goals. 

Germanium, Low Gain Silicon, High Gain Silicon, Hybrid, etc.


----------



## cdwillis (May 3, 2022)

I haven't played a bunch of Fuzz Faces, personally. I built a Meathead clone, then a clone of the Dr Tony Balls Colorsound fuzz clone. They both sounded great. I've got a modified version of that type of circuit on my breadboard that I think I've tweaked/finished so I need to build a vero version. It's somewhere between the colorsound clones and a silicon fuzz face. I left the fuzz maxed out with the 1k resistor rather than have a fuzz control. The bias knob can take you from an overdriven type sound to a spitty gated fuzz. The input cap blend is pretty tight set to the 4.7nf cap, almost like a fatter treble booster, but blending towards the 1uf cap make it sound fatter and doomy. Cleans up pretty good with the guitar volume too.


----------



## jwyles90 (May 3, 2022)

Man you all are giving me some great options! For my friend’s build I think I’m going with the Sandspur, but this thread has made me look more into veroboard builds and I definitely want to give a couple of those a shot soon for myself.


----------



## andare (May 4, 2022)

cdwillis said:


> I haven't played a bunch of Fuzz Faces, personally. I built a Meathead clone, then a clone of the Dr Tony Balls Colorsound fuzz clone. They both sounded great. I've got a modified version of that type of circuit on my breadboard that I think I've tweaked/finished so I need to build a vero version. It's somewhere between the colorsound clones and a silicon fuzz face. I left the fuzz maxed out with the 1k resistor rather than have a fuzz control. The bias knob can take you from an overdriven type sound to a spitty gated fuzz. The input cap blend is pretty tight set to the 4.7nf cap, almost like a fatter treble booster, but blending towards the 1uf cap make it sound fatter and doomy. Cleans up pretty good with the guitar volume too.


Thanks for adding your schematic.

I've been breadboarding fuzzes for a few weeks and I'm trying to learn some basics.

I understand most of the mods you've made but I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

What's the function of the 100r in the power filtering section? Isn't the 47uF cap enough?

The small cap to ground after the pulldown resistor is there to reduce hiss and radio signals right?

About the values you chose for the small caps on the transistors. I know those smooth out the sound and must be small but are the values selected empirically or is there a logic, Q2 has a smaller cap.

And finally why a 100k pot for volume? I still don't understand how to select pot values.

Sorry for the barrage of questions. You can tell me to just Google it and I'll take it


----------



## Fuzzonaut (May 4, 2022)

jwyles90 said:


> I was thinking simpler is better here.



Just in case you'd completely change your mind: Moonn has a PCB with a few options, the blurp says "Why find the perfect Fuzz Face when you can have 864 Fuzz Faces in a box?"


----------



## szukalski (May 4, 2022)

Moonn stuff is incredibly sexy. Do recommend.


----------



## Sturdag Lagernathy (May 4, 2022)

Harry Klippton said:


> I thought the black ash was a tone bender


Oh man! You are totally correct! Not sure why I was thinking of that one. I think I was meaning the Sandspur fuzz(Analogman's "Sunface"). Thanks for the correction!


----------



## jwyles90 (May 4, 2022)

Fuzzonaut said:


> Just in case you'd completely change your mind: Moonn has a PCB with a few options, the blurp says "Why find the perfect Fuzz Face when you can have 864 Fuzz Faces in a box?"
> 
> 
> szukalski said:
> ...


Oh man, those look awesome. Might be a little overwhelming for someone who doesn’t know much about pedals but I’m for sure adding some of those to my “to build” list


----------



## szukalski (May 4, 2022)

jwyles90 said:


> Oh man, those look awesome. Might be a little overwhelming for someone who doesn’t know much about pedals but I’m for sure adding some of those to my “to build” list



If you do an order, then make sure you include a Peachy Fran. That's a fun one!


----------



## rmfx (May 5, 2022)

Oooh I got some favorite mods!
-B500k for volume and C1k for fuzz. Always found the stock pots bunched the whole useable range in the last bit of rotation. These tapers gave me a LOT more useable room and fine-tweakability.
-Bump the 330-470R resistor up to 1k for a bit more volume.
-External 10k bias trim pot! I think the fuzz face sounds GREAT overbiased. Takes on more of an overdrivey characteristic. Of course, starving Q2 also sounds pretty cool.
-Lower the input cap to get rid of some of the tubbiness.
-Some fuzz faces gave me buzz when my guitar's volume knob was at 0, and the noise decreased as I turn up the volume. Throwing a resistor in series between the input and first cap helped this and didn't seem to effect the stock sound of the fuzz face too much to my ears. Can't remember the value but I think somewhere between 100-470R sounds correct. I tried a bunch of values and went with the lowest value I could while getting the noise floor down to my liking with my guitar's volume at 0.


----------



## Feral Feline (May 8, 2022)

Has anybody named their build "Fuzz Facebook"?

Edit: there-their now, it's okay to have the odd typo


----------



## cdwillis (May 8, 2022)

andare said:


> Thanks for adding your schematic.
> 
> I've been breadboarding fuzzes for a few weeks and I'm trying to learn some basics.
> 
> ...



The 100 ohm resistor is there to help quiet down any power supply ripples along with the 47uf cap. You could remove it and probably not notice a difference. Or you could bump it up to 220 ohm or 470 ohm and get a little less voltage to the circuit so you have more of that low battery type of sound people dig with fuzz faces.

As far as the miller caps go, this started off as a Colorsound fuzz on the breadboard, which used a 220pf miller cap on q1 according to one schematic and no miller cap on q2. That may have been the reissue version or something. There's a bunch of one knob fuzzes that use the same topology with tweaked values. I've built a clone of the DAM Meathead and it had a 470pf miller cap on q1 along with a 47pf cap on q2. I thought it had a bit of a mid notched sound at times so I played around with the miller cap values to get something that smoothed out the silicon transistors inherent qualities without taking away too much sparkle.  I couldn't tell you what equation to use to determine what it's frequency response is. I just went by ear.

The 100pf to ground on the input just cuts out radio signals. My house has old wiring and I live down the street from a radio station so when I breadboard fuzzes, specifically these fuzz face or tonebender mk1.5 type circuits, I always pick up radio signals. The cap helps cut them out so I can turn my guitar volume down without hearing country music lol.

If you have a circuit that has a big volume output, using a logarithmic pot for the output volume works well because the taper shifts the loudest portion further clockwise on the knob. In a lower output circuit you can use a linear pot which has more volume earlier in the sweep. That will make it seem like the circuit is louder than it is because noon on the volume pot will be louder, you just won't have a tone of volume boost further clockwise like you would with a logarithmic pot. With the bias pot on here you lose a little volume once you get into that spitty velcro fuzz portion of the pot so I wanted to use a linear pot to make it seem a little louder. On the other hand turning the bias pot the other way makes it pretty damn loud.

I went with 100k for the volume pot because it's a common part really and I'm also using 100k for the input cap blend, so it's less unique parts to stock. I changed the output cap to to a larger one than the old fuzzes have so it would have a full bass output all the way through the volume pretty much. The output cap forms a high pass filter with the volume pot so a smaller cap will cut some bass out at lower volume output. You can use a filter calculator to determine the frequency response (http://www.muzique.com/schem/filter.htm), but I'm not totally sure how much the resistance in the front of the pot when using it as a voltage divider effects the response.


----------



## andare (May 8, 2022)

cdwillis said:


> The 100 ohm resistor is there to help quiet down any power supply ripples along with the 47uf cap. You could remove it and probably not notice a difference. Or you could bump it up to 220 ohm or 470 ohm and get a little less voltage to the circuit so you have more of that low battery type of sound people dig with fuzz faces.
> 
> As far as the miller caps go, this started off as a Colorsound fuzz on the breadboard, which used a 220pf miller cap on q1 according to one schematic and no miller cap on q2. That may have been the reissue version or something. There's a bunch of one knob fuzzes that use the same topology with tweaked values. I've built a clone of the DAM Meathead and it had a 470pf miller cap on q1 along with a 47pf cap on q2. I thought it had a bit of a mid notched sound at times so I played around with the miller cap values to get something that smoothed out the silicon transistors inherent qualities without taking away too much sparkle.  I couldn't tell you what equation to use to determine what it's frequency response is. I just went by ear.
> 
> ...


Thank you for the thorough answer!


----------



## Chuck D. Bones (May 15, 2022)

Skreddy Screw Driver.


----------



## fredeharley5 (May 16, 2022)

I dusted off the S/T Stone Roses album and b-sides and now I have a raging case of Fuzz Face GAS.
Most folks believe this is a silicon model (possibly a Crest Audio-built one with BC109C transistors). I've checked out some demos and it definitely sounds like it. Loud and proud and it seems like it's even a bit brighter with the guitar volume rolled down. Anything in that general tonal ballpark would be fine though.

I'm primarily a single-coil player, use 1x12 Fenderesque amps, and play indie rock and Americana-type stuff. Not looking for a doomy variant in other words.


----------



## HamishR (May 19, 2022)

For a simple, no frills but easy to get working fuzz I'd suggest the Sandspur, with the proviso that you might need to add a small cap to the second transistor to tame weird noises. For an amazing OD/fuzz which is based on a Fuzzface Chuck is right - the Skreddy Screwdriver is fantastic. And for a Strat player the Skreddy Lunar Module - or Fuzz Aldrin here (similar to the Screwdriver) is a wonderful pedal too. Skreddy stuff is amazing.


----------



## Big Monk (May 19, 2022)

HamishR said:


> For a simple, no frills but easy to get working fuzz I'd suggest the Sandspur, with the proviso that you might need to add a small cap to the second transistor to tame weird noises. For an amazing OD/fuzz which is based on a Fuzzface Chuck is right - the Skreddy Screwdriver is fantastic. And for a Strat player the Skreddy Lunar Module - or Fuzz Aldrin here (similar to the Screwdriver) is a wonderful pedal too. Skreddy stuff is amazing.



You can bypass the feedback resistor as well to get rid of oscillations as well.


----------



## Chuck D. Bones (May 20, 2022)

The Mechanic is also a killer Fuzz Face if I do say so myself.


----------



## jubal81 (May 20, 2022)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> The Mechanic is also a killer Fuzz Face if I do say so myself.


----------

