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I'm experimenting with swapping transistors in a Mudbunny (BMP).  Everyone talks about 2n5133's vs xyz tranny and so forth and also about the mystical hFE ratings.  Does a higher hFE rating imply that its effect in the pedal will make it sound more saturated / distorted?  OR does it relate to the overall loudness in terms of volume?

For example, I put 4 BC239C's in the Mudbunny and the distortion was sweet but I had to dime the volume on the pedal to get the volume where I needed.  Unity was probably at 3 o'clock.  Conversely I had some 2n2088's in there that sounded saturated (but not as nearly as sweet) AND unity volume was at about 10 o'clock on the volume knob.

Testing the hFE's on a digital multimeter with a hFE meauring feature put the 239's around 520 hFE across the 4 trannys.  I realize this doesn't probably doesn't account for leakage.  Perhaps this is the key element?  For reference the 5088's were in the 450 hFE range.

Can anyone shed some light?  Perhaps it's way more complex. 

Which Mudbunny clone is closer to the original tall skinny letter (early) Green BMP?  I've read that original tall skinny-letter BMPs are closer to the Civil War BMPs that preceded them than the later fat-lettered Green Russians....

Between the GR and the CW, which circuit is bassier?  I built the Violet Ram's Head and while it is cool, I want it to have more balls / thickness like my green russian.  Is the Civil War circuit the way to go to get me closer?

I know, it seems ironic to remove the octave effect from an octane, right?   

In a thread at another DIY page, Zach Vex himself answered a poster's question regarding removing the octave effect.  He had the following to say:

"We used to see Octane 1 pedals that sounded great but had no octave-up when the wrong value resistor was installed feeding the base of one of the transistor pairs used to generate the octave.  That's the simplest part you can remove to get rid of the octave.  On the schematic I've got here at home, R11 or R10 (right after the phase splitter) would be your two choices."

Brian from Madbeans suggested I try removing R9 from the circuit to achieve this on the Poindexter.  it didn't quite work.  It make it SUPER gated sounding.  Almost like a Fuzz Factory set at extreme comped and gated settings.

Based on Zach's description on what resistor to remove (the resistor right after the phase splitter) any suggestions on which resistor that would correspond to on the Poindexter circuit?

Thanks!

Greetings,

I'd like to add DC and LED to my Pastyface.  I'm using a Pedal Power 2 and have the special inverted cable to allow for the unique positive ground circuit of the Pastyface.  

Is this diagram correct?  I'm not sure about the whole thing but especially the battery connections.

If it's all wrong,  I'm enclosing a blank so that if someone is so inclined, they can correct it for me.

Thanks!

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For the Zombii, can I use the "Continental" Fuzz Face PNP transistor pair from Small Bear parts?  The pair has a OC75 and OC76 each at a gain of 89 and 105 respectively. 

If they will work, these transistors don't have tabs but they both have a red dot on the side that I assume indicates the collector lead.  Is this correct?  The multi-tester check seems to confirm this.

Finally, on the Zombii PCB regarding Q2 and Q3, which are the collector, base and emitter connections?  Perhaps for clarification, looking at the PCB, the Q2 and Q3 connections are both in a "V" shape with round connections at the left and mid point  of the "V" and a square connection at the right.

Thanks very much.