# Marigold Fuzz (Sola Sound Yellow Hybrid Tone Bender)



## finebyfine (Dec 19, 2021)

Had this one 99% done a few months ago and saw it when digging through my finished but not enclosed pcb box and decided to box it up. I used the closest I had on hand for the BC107 and BC109C and because I'm not sure how it's supposed to sound I didn't stress on it. BC107 has a BC108 in it and the BC109C has a BC109B in it. Germanium transistor has an Hfe around 130, I tried higher gains and it came across more Silicon like all around. 

I have BC107s and BC109Cs on the way in a bit and I'll swap them out when they come to see what I think. 









Very very quick demo. Guess where the chord progression is from and I'll send you a bag of Germanium transistors. 


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		https://soundcloud.com/finebyfine%2Fmarigold%2Fs-sCkGNu3Rr6K


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## Chuck D. Bones (Dec 20, 2021)

Sounds like it might be something by Nirvana?

IMO, the tone is all about Q3.  Q1 and Q2 are like Simon & Theodore; Q3 is Alvin.

Clean build, BTW.


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## finebyfine (Dec 20, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Sounds like it might be something by Nirvana?
> 
> IMO, the tone is all about Q3.  Q1 and Q2 are like Simon & Theodore; Q3 is Alvin.
> 
> Clean build, BTW.



Nirvana’s about 100 years too late.

The differences I was getting by 350 hfe q3 vs 80 was wild. I’m sure leakage was playing a role too but I wasn’t really selecting for it other than looking for low leakage transistors. There were aspects I liked about super low gain transistors in here, and I’m really excited to play around with it even more now that it’s done.


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## Bret608 (Dec 20, 2021)

I think you might have the first build report for this! I've got a board too that I just need to populate someday here. I'll be curious to hear more about your transistor experiments. Q3 on this circuit has this setup with the diode where it's forcing it to act leaky. That led me to think low-leakage germaniums are the way to go, but who knows really? I've got a black glass OC141 (135 hfe and really low leakage) to try but will probably try a lower-gain 2n1306 as well.


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## finebyfine (Dec 20, 2021)

Bret608 said:


> I think you might have the first build report for this! I've got a board too that I just need to populate someday here. I'll be curious to hear more about your transistor experiments. Q3 on this circuit has this setup with the diode where it's forcing it to act leaky. That led me to think low-leakage germaniums are the way to go, but who knows really? I've got a black glass OC141 (135 hfe and really low leakage) to try but will probably try a lower-gain 2n1306 as well.



Really cool to know about the diode setup, I should have pulled up the schematic as I was popping transistors in there lol!

I really wish I had recorded some of the different transistors I tried, if even just for my own notes, because Q3 really is as Chuck said the Alvin (was not expecting to see an Alvin and the Chipmunks reference anytime soon). Leakage wise everything I tried was within a range I'd consider "low leakage" but I wish I had popped in something super leaky just to see. 

At an Hfe of ~350 it lost a lot of character and sounded just kind of like any generic silicon fuzz. Not a bad thing but I just figured not the point of the circuit. If I liked lower gain fuzzes 80 was a great sweet spot for that - really warm and finger sensitive, Southern rock-ish light fuzz.

There was one transistor I tried that ended up woolier than what's in there now, and I wish I had kept that one in there or just kept track of what it was. It might have had an Hfe around 200. I almost held off on the build report to go back digging for it but I was pretty ready to call it a night. Next time I open it up that's the sound I'm gonna be hunting for.


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## mdc (Dec 20, 2021)

The version I built up on veroboard used a 2N3440 in Q1, a BC549C in Q2, and an OC140 w/ hfe around 80 in Q3. It sounds (to my ears at least) absolutely identical to the original. I socketed the zener diode and couldn't really hear much (if any) difference between a 5.1 and 4.7 - I just went with whatever got the bias closer to the original one.


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## Fuzzonaut (Dec 20, 2021)

Sounds great! 

Black Sabbath?

I left a MP11A, hfe 75, leakage 0,17mA in mine.


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## Bricksnbeatles (Dec 20, 2021)

Sounds a bit like Holst. Specifically the opening of Uranus or one of the main Themes from Neptune. I recognize that chord progression, and I’m quite sure it’s something else, but I’m blanking on what it could be.


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## finebyfine (Dec 20, 2021)

Fuzzonaut said:


> Black Sabbath?


Nope!



Bricksnbeatles said:


> Sounds a bit like Holst. Specifically the opening of Uranus or one of the main Themes from Neptune. I recognize that chord progression, and I’m quite sure it’s something else, but I’m blanking on what it could be.


Getting really warm. The Planets is about 20 years too late though


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## Bricksnbeatles (Dec 20, 2021)

finebyfine said:


> Nope!
> 
> 
> Getting really warm. The Planets is about 20 years too late though


Thought so. I’m pretty sure I wrote an analysis paper on the piece it actually is though, so I’m embarrassed to say I can’t remember what it is haha


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## fig (Dec 20, 2021)

Deep Purple?


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## finebyfine (Dec 20, 2021)

fig said:


> Deep Purple?


I gave too many hints for the time frame for you to go and guess Deep Purple!


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## Mentaltossflycoon (Dec 20, 2021)

Bruckner


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## Fuzzonaut (Dec 21, 2021)

finebyfine said:


> I gave too many hints for the time frame for you to go and guess Deep Purple!



Come on, they are old enough for a guess! Also, my first guess was mainly based on the looks of the pedal. 

Antonín Leopold Dvořák, Symphony 9


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## finebyfine (Dec 21, 2021)

Fuzzonaut said:


> Come on, they are old enough for a guess! Also, my first guess was mainly based on the looks of the pedal.
> 
> Antonín Leopold Dvořák, Symphony 9



We have a winner! Opening of the second movement. Dm me your address and if there’s any type of transistors you’re looking for


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## benny_profane (Dec 21, 2021)

finebyfine said:


> We have a winner! Opening of the second movement. Dm me your address and if there’s any type of transistors you’re looking for


Ah okay. I was thinking maybe Dvořák, but isn’t no 9 E minor? Your progression was major?

Great build and demo! To add to the transistor info: I have hFE 75 with 51uA of leakage in my build. It definitely gets fuzzy—a bit tighter than a ge MKII, but still gritty. I adjusted the tonestack a bit since it was rather nasally on the treble side.


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## finebyfine (Dec 21, 2021)

benny_profane said:


> Ah okay. I was thinking maybe Dvořák, but isn’t no 9 E minor? Your progression was major?
> 
> Great build and demo! To add to the transistor info: I have hFE 75 with 51uA of leakage in my build. It definitely gets fuzzy—a bit tighter than a ge MKII, but still gritty. I adjusted the tonestack a bit since it was rather nasally on the treble side.



The 9th symphony in general is in E minor but some themes are in major, and most of the second movement is in major (I’m tuned to C# here so it’s C# major, although played horribly out of time) Some of the callbacks to earlier themes in the last movement are those major themes played minor. I’d be really curious to hear @Bricksnbeatles ’s take, I assume he was right that he’s written a paper about it even if the name was on the tip of his tounge.

It’s an incredibly interesting piece of music on the whole and I could spend far too long talking about it. My second favorite composition of music ever, second only to Floyd’s Echoes.

I gotta see if I have any more NPNs in the 75 range now! I think 85 was as low as I went. I wish the socket for Q3 I used didn’t take so much work to swap them out


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## Fuzzonaut (Dec 21, 2021)

finebyfine said:


> We have a winner! Opening of the second movement. Dm me your address and if there’s any type of transistors you’re looking for


Wow, cool! I'm struggling to get my MK II to sound half decently - or even a quarter


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## benny_profane (Dec 21, 2021)

finebyfine said:


> It’s an incredibly interesting piece of music on the whole and I could spend far too long talking about it. My second favorite composition of music ever, second only to Floyd’s Echoes.


If you haven't given Shostakovich a listen, I think you might really dig him.


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## finebyfine (Dec 21, 2021)

benny_profane said:


> If you haven't given Shostakovich a listen, I think you might really dig him.



I have not! What's a good entry point?


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## Bricksnbeatles (Dec 21, 2021)

Ahhhh! Dvorak— I should have known it was him, but for some reason I thought the timeframe didn’t match up for it being “around 100 years before Nirvana”. 


finebyfine said:


> I’d be really curious to hear @Bricksnbeatles ’s take, I assume he was right that he’s written a paper about it even if the name was on the tip of his tounge.


I’ll take a look through my files and see if I still have it saved anywhere. 
I think it was an analysis of the ways in which most prominent performances of the piece deviate from the dynamic markings and tempo indications given in the written score, and how those changes do/don’t detract from the composer’s original intent. It’s possible though, that paper was actually written about Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, in which case the Dvorak paper was a harmonic analysis hand-written in real-time at a university performance of his full New World symphony (we were given the option to choose any performance at the school’s theater, and had to sit in the back behind the lighting and mixing desks, write an essay in real-time (which we thankfully weren’t graded very harshly on, due to the constraints of the situation), and immediately after, hand it in to be graded by whichever TA was in attendance, who would be waiting at the box office for us to turn it in.)


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## benny_profane (Dec 21, 2021)

finebyfine said:


> I have not! What's a good entry point?


Hmm. Probably No. 5. No. 10 is really interesting and has a lot of his notation motifs. I really like No. 7 (Leningrad)—but it’s really long and almost literary in its arrangement (bit like Wagner’s heroic epics in that way).

I’m sure @Bricksnbeatles will have better insight here than I do.


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## Mentaltossflycoon (Dec 21, 2021)

finebyfine said:


> I have not! What's a good entry point?



Symphony's 5 and 10.  String quartets. Fun fact: Shosty loved cryptographs, the most famous being his signature, initials D-S-C-H which translated to D-Eb-C-B which is used throughout in 10th symphony and especially the 8th quartet.  Included in the 10th is another little thematic bit that translates to Elvira... his mistress... it's also the first symphony he wrote after Stalin died so it's a little bit of a middle finger to him too. 






Edit:   had to listen back and find her.  Elvira in the French horn at 33:49.


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## finebyfine (Dec 21, 2021)

Bricksnbeatles said:


> I think it was an analysis of the ways in which most prominent performances of the piece deviate from the dynamic markings and tempo indications given in the written score, and how those changes do/don’t detract from the composer’s original intent.


Even if this wasn't your Dvorak essay, isn't this true of #9 to the point that he actually changed the tempo of one of the movements after a few of the early preformances? And I probably should have said 80-90 before Nirvana


benny_profane said:


> Hmm. Probably No. 5. No. 10 is really interesting and has a lot of his notation motifs. I really like No. 7 (Leningrad)—but it’s really long and almost literary in its arrangement (bit like Wagner’s heroic epics in that way).


I will check these out! Thanks


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## Bricksnbeatles (Dec 21, 2021)

benny_profane said:


> Hmm. Probably No. 5. No. 10 is really interesting and has a lot of his notation motifs. I really like No. 7 (Leningrad)—but it’s really long and almost literary in its arrangement (bit like Wagner’s heroic epics in that way).
> 
> I’m sure @Bricksnbeatles will have better insight here than I do.


I’d agree with all of that. I like No. 8 a lot as well. His first jazz suite, while not my favorite, is a pretty accessible introduction to his work as well. 

His 2nd piano concerto is also pretty highly regarded. His son, Maxim Shostakovich, is a pianist, and since the 2nd piano concerto was written for him, I like his performance of it from 1986— something about keeping in the family is kinda cool to me, even if there are probably some better performances of that piece.


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## Bricksnbeatles (Dec 21, 2021)

finebyfine said:


> Even if this wasn't your Dvorak essay, isn't this true of #9 to the point that he actually changed the tempo of one of the movements after a few of the early preformances?


That does sound familiar, though I won’t claim to be an expert on the matter. I’m sure that’s something I addressed in the essay if that’s the case (if that scene is what my essay was) but it’s just one of 12 or so music theory essays I wrote in one semester almost 5 years ago, so it all blurs together a bit. Definitely seems likely though, so I’ll take your word for it.


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