I wanted to post this as a contest entry, but since my photos are not very well lit, I decided not to. [still, if Brian and the gang sees this as no major obstacle, they should let me know!]
I used a cross-process AS film, it never lets me down, but this time the photos have incredibly bad contrast and are overall too dark. Still, I like them, I like the increased lo-fi-ness of these, hope you will too.
I built this for a friend, I gotta fetch it off him sometimes and make better photos cause I failed quite epicly with this macro shots, which doesn't happen to me that often... oh well.
It's a Pharaoh version of the Muff yeah [like 4th or 5th that I did], and I added an extra pot which makes a ton of difference, no other mods than moded to extra quality components :D
Pics and demo now, my comments on the build and parts, a little later :) Cheers guys!
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rHzNkxrKidw/Uac1dsP-JmI/AAAAAAAABIE/-nKFTQgNCAs/w1315-h877-no/000053.JPG)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-PMmGqsebGEE/Uac1cOpLPdI/AAAAAAAABIA/mNR1NLc6nzk/w1315-h877-no/000052.JPG)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DM1IRrs4Y4c/Uac1d8vbLRI/AAAAAAAABII/YlVX1QCV6KY/w1315-h877-no/000054.JPG)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--yifuexaEWo/Uac1eyDy8zI/AAAAAAAABIU/zZ0DDQkMXZw/w1315-h877-no/000055.JPG)
and the sound demo, not a particularly inspired one, just 3 files concatenated, I commented on the file where are the boundaries of every file...sounds MUCH better in person, much more organic, and creamy, and there's no slight buzzing like heard in this file, the sound is just studio ready!
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/kuato-design-stompboxes/filthy-9-fuzz[/soundcloud]
Sweet, I think it looks great. And on perfboard!
I haven't seen the pregain mod for this before, do you like it?
I've been thinking about building a pharoah for a while but I already have a ramshead, is it different enough from a std muff?
Post this for your contest entry. If you're able to take better photos before tomorrow night, replace the pictures in your thread.
If you turn down the contrast in those photos and bump up the midtones, you might be able to make the guts clearer.
I really think you should enter this. I would like a few clearer photos. Not just for the contest, but because this looks like a really cool build and I'd like to admire it up close.
High contrast photography is the new goop- you have to protect your secrets somehow!
Love this build, really digging the style.
Nobody's commenting the sound, what do you think?
Thanks guys, but I fear I can't get better images in time, still it is YAM [yet another muff right] so what the heck, as much as I would like to be a part of the competition it doesn't matter, I'll enter it next month. Haven't been building lately that much to tell the truth. Though I have a Ge od/fuzz coming that will rock your world. It has been the end of my perfect fuzz quest, I hope I will show the finished build to you in a month or two.
Onto the Filthy 9 =>
This time I used carbon comp resistors, Evox Rifa, Silver Mica, and Styroflex capacitors, as well as some Panasonic electros. The transistors I ended up using with this particular combo of parts were BC192's, I liked them best in this circuit [though I have used 2N5089, 5088, and BC550C with this build very successfully] but all of the others gave too much gain and I ended up having a horrible fizzy sound. Then I switched for the bc192 and the sound became much better. It came to me as a great surprise when I measured those and got something a little bit over 200 in the HFE range. That's some crazy low gain, compared to 2n5089s! Still, the pedal never lacks sustain or gain, quite the contrary! This may be the gainiest, bassiest, and smoothest one yet.
Carbon comps do contribute a lot. They make the sound very silky, and milky in a way, "produced" if you will. Really, you can record this one with just about any type of gear and it should sound great on the tracks. Sweet.
As I have already mentioned, this is my 4th Pharaoh inspired build, in a nutshell, these are my findings:
-use metal film resistor for the tightest sound possible, great with crushing chords, riffs and whatnot, really a fantastic Mastodon-alike rhythm type of sound, and great for neck pickup work
-carbon comps will give you the smoothest sound you can get out of this circuit [Evox Rifa's in this particular build of mine really contribute to that as well], incredibly silky Gilmour type solos, and powerfull wall of sound power chord riffing that's not too tight or fast. You will experience some added noise, but it is much less than I have expected.
-use carbon film resistors for an in-between type of sound
-ceramic [mexican] KPDU caps proved to be very raspy in sound, which I quite liked
-metalized polyester film caps will give you smoothness
-if you would like to have a fantastic one-knob tone control on this build, I would adwise putting a 15K resistor instead of Highs, and reducing the Tone pot to 50K. Really, If I ever make this for myself, that's what I am gonna use. I had it on my test build for months, and it was fantastic. Did a simulation on the Duncan tone stack app and it looked interesting, tried it, and it is the bomb folks!
-the added pot is R12 [or 13 depending on the schematic] and what it does is limiting the amount of signal to the second clipping stage. How does this affect sound? Well, without loosing any sustain [okay maybe a little, it's not infinite any more] you get fantastic pick attack clarity and articulation, you can really hear the way the plectrum dances over the strings, and the character of your guitar way more. I love this mod, it is the best thing to do to a Muff based pedal!
-if you use a power supply, and experience hum no matter how well your power supply is filtered, use a 47R resistor in line with the + power rail and then to the circuit, it will work as a charm.
The placement of the battery on this particular build [first time I have ever done something like this] is weird, I know. But my friend wanted me to make this pedal exactly the way I made one of the previous ones, but have the footswitch in the middle lower part of the enclosure. So i did what I could to wire everything according to how I was experiencing the least noise and still respect his wishes. Not my best wiring, but hey, sounds great, it is reliable, and replacing the battery is not hard at all.
In a years time, the battery in my previous build dropped from 9V to 8.2V! No need for the power supply at all!
Somebody asked me if I had a blog, and thus I have created one recently...it's simple, and has only two posts, but tomorrow I will post my Sunkings for example. Cheers!
http://kuatodesign.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-filthy-9-fuzz.html
I think it sounds great though I know no recording ever really captures how things sound in person.
I think it sounds awesome!
Also, you can't enter this pedal next month, because you posted the build report this month. Builds need to be posted in the month they're built. So, include it in this months contest for sure! I think you'll get some votes, cause that's a super build.
Jacob
Thank you Jacob so much.
What I meant was, enter the next month with another build, not this one :)
I'm gonna skip this one, it was my fault not shooting a couple more ones at least with my mobile phone just in case. Lots of great builds in there, voting will be really hard as every month is.
Dude, put it in already and stop analyzing the pics! If you hadn't said anything, I would never have noticed.
Jacob
Quote from: Cortexturizer on May 30, 2013, 06:21:12 PM
I'm gonna skip this one, it was my fault not shooting a couple more ones at least with my mobile phone just in case. Lots of great builds in there, voting will be really hard as every month is.
Do the pics really have to be good enough to clone the pedal with one glance? I can see switches, a circuit, a battery and some pots- if these pics aren't good enough to enter the monthly contest I might as well pull my entry, because I don't see a great deal of difference.
In short, just enter the thing! It's a beauty and deserves to be there.
yeah, man... that thing looks great.
The pics are fine. More than adequate to see that you actually built it.
Toss it up in the contest, duder.
Beautiful build. Love the pics.
std muff
No, that's what I like about the photos. They're so stark and harsh. That's a very cool look. Plus the pedal just rips. Nice demo. I've never built a version or variant of a Muff that has panned out. The other guitar player in my old band in Canada and I get together every few years and I can play his rig with his mid 70's Muff and it sounds like crap and when he plays the same setup it's magic. I keep hoping I'll "get it" one of these days.
Get it in the contest. This is coming from a May contender! I love it.
I think the sound is just great. I listened with good headphones to really hear the textures. Fantastic sounding fuzz and playing sir ;)
EDIT: I see you did enter, good deal
Hey, cortexturizer.
That thing is a work of art.
The sound cloud link on your blog only appears as text, not hypertext (using Netscape on my tablet).
Anyone else mentioned this?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
Your words warm my heart good sirs of infinite awesomeness! Thank you all for the compliments.
Ch1naski thank you for pointing that out, I'm gonna fix that immediately. Cheers.
Quote from: gordo on May 31, 2013, 12:59:47 AM
No, that's what I like about the photos. They're so stark and harsh. That's a very cool look. Plus the pedal just rips. Nice demo. I've never built a version or variant of a Muff that has panned out. The other guitar player in my old band in Canada and I get together every few years and I can play his rig with his mid 70's Muff and it sounds like crap and when he plays the same setup it's magic. I keep hoping I'll "get it" one of these days.
I found your comment especially interesting :) Mainly because I was a "never Muff" guy for soooo long, I always thought that kind of pedal sounded like crap. Just overly compressed, with no pick attack at all, every guitar through it sounds the same, etc...But to be quite honest I wasn't really into fuzzes for a long time, but hi-fi perfectly smooth distortions and overdrives.
But since then I've learned. Needless to say fuzz is the only source of dirt I enjoy now. All the dists and ods just sound without a soul to me and like two dimensional tools, whereas fuzzes sound like they have five dimensions and are entities on their own, it's like you play with the fuzz, and if you two get along than it's magic, like with a great band member with whom you experience great chemistry, whereas with dists and ods you are playing alone, driving those tools to some goal. I don't know. I'm just busting my head right now, should stop :D
But yeah, I decided one day to build a Pharaoh muff inspired pedal, and I loved it, it had a muff character and sound but none of the major setbacks of the original. Not to say that I haven't grown to like the original as well in the meantime, oh brother, I love it, but this is still my favorite variant of the circuit.
I have not found a BMP that I really flip over either. I have a P19 that I like alot but it renders a very specific Gilmour sound very well and not much else IMO
I really like the sound of your pharaoh. Did you use the tagboardeffects vero?
At one point I think someone was going to convert the mudbunny board to pharaoh specs. Not sure if that happened or not?
Loved your demo, both the sound of the pedal and your playing. Well done sir!
Quote from: pryde on May 31, 2013, 06:48:30 PM
At one point I think someone was going to convert the mudbunny board to pharaoh specs. Not sure if that happened or not?
Is this the thread you're thinking of?
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=2385.0
After that demo I can see a mad rush with all of us building that board. ;D
Quote from: pryde on May 31, 2013, 06:48:30 PM
I have not found a BMP that I really flip over either. I have a P19 that I like alot but it renders a very specific Gilmour sound very well and not much else IMO
I really like the sound of your pharaoh. Did you use the tagboardeffects vero?
At one point I think someone was going to convert the mudbunny board to pharaoh specs. Not sure if that happened or not?
No, I got burned once with their veros, not gonna happen again ;) I used Harald Sabro's vero layout, he is the man. Google Sabrotone.
Haha guys I recorded a bunch more demos of previous builds, for example
Here's a bluesy demo => https://soundcloud.com/earthless/faraon
and a sludge metal demo [ts-808 into a pharaoh all the time, recorded live in the studio, just me and the drummer] => https://soundcloud.com/earthless/faraon-heavy
this combo is the shit guys. build a ts-808 and a pharaoh in one enclosure and it's the best and most organic metal sound hands down.
and, a metal core deftones kind of demo => https://soundcloud.com/earthless/faraon-downtuned-heaviness [tele on the bridge pickup, with a particular down tunning that I won't get into now]
yes, you all should build one :D
this last demo, downtuned heaviness, it's recorded with this build depicted in this thread but with 2n5089 transistors, it has more sag to it to my ears, much more gain and saturation, for this kind of demo it works nice but I had to tweak the sound a lot...with lower gain trannies like the ones I used in the end [bc192s] it sounds much better overall...
Good looking and nice Fuzz texture in the sound clip!
Question on the pre-gain mod, am I right that it's the 6.2K resistor following Q2 and the .47u cap? What value pot did you use (if you dong mind giving up your secrets :) ). I don't have a lot of parts around so I'll have to order a pot to try it.
Thanks!
Koko
Yes man, you are right! I used 10K for the pot. Anything past that I would asume would result in extreme fizziness...
Thank you for the kind words Loztboy!
Cortex,
I have been hankering for a new fuzz sound and I may give the pharaoh a go as I got a few mudbunny boards here.
Just to clarify, you would recommend changing the tone control per above specs and omitting the "highs" pot (sub with 15k) all together?
Is the highs pot not that useful in this circuit where the tweaked tone control wound serve better?
Thanks for any additional info/help you can provide.
Thanks!
Glad to see you entered this!
Koko
Quote from: pryde on June 01, 2013, 11:29:25 PM
Cortex,
I have been hankering for a new fuzz sound and I may give the pharaoh a go as I got a few mudbunny boards here.
Just to clarify, you would recommend changing the tone control per above specs and omitting the "highs" pot (sub with 15k) all together?
Is the highs pot not that useful in this circuit where the tweaked tone control wound serve better?
Thanks for any additional info/help you can provide.
Hi Pryde, sorry it took me so long, was away from the computer for some time...
Here's the mudbunny standard tone stack
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-iWcvxNmXgDA/Uas0E3S0DWI/AAAAAAAABLE/W5Vt8UkJ2F4/s755/mudbunny%2520triangle%2520version%2520tone%2520stack.jpg)
what I did to my pharaoh spec mudbunny in terms of ditching the highs pot and making a traditional style one knob tone control was this
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-e84VK1v8a84/Uas0EzyHJSI/AAAAAAAABLI/FAhnmcTccRI/s748/cortexturizer%2520pharaoh%2520one%2520knob%2520tone%2520stack.jpg)
At this time I can't really remember was it 10 or 15k between Tone and 22n cap, but I'm pretty sure it was 15, still you should try both and see what you like. I can't guarantee that this kind of tone control would work nice on a standard muff but with the pharaoh spec'd muff it is just great. The Earthbound Audio Supercollider which is another highly regarded muff variant uses a 50K pot for the Tone control as well.
As you can see on the graph you never loose bass as much, just fiddle slightly with the middle content and strongly with the top end frequencies.
It worked for me just brilliantly, hope it will for you too.
It's all a matter of trying out what works for your gear as you know (http://www.muzicki-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/mfsmajli-pivo.gif)
I think this has inspired me to make a Pharaoh. I really like the sound a lot, especially the first demo. May have to resurrect the idea of doing the Pharaoh off the mudbunny.
Great! Do it!
Now when I take a look at that second diagram above, I can see that the Japanese builder Sho Iwata has done a very similar thing here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPHKHVBTsAM
and Burgs naturally says it's fantastic never to loose the bass. I don't know, it worked fantastic for me
So where did you find the BC192s? I can't find them anywhere?
I am from Serbia [Europe] and I got those in a local store. I don't really think that it matters that much, what I do think is that with this particular build [not with the circuit in general because I have used 2n5089s and BC550c which are 4 times the hfe than 192s] those transistors worked the best. They were in the 220-250 kinda gain range. Everything past that was too much and fizzy even with pre-gain on zero.
If you can get bc184s I would try those as well.
What would be very cool to try, is 4 NPN Ge trannies with this. I have 5-6 or six of them, selected ones, they range from 82 to 350 hfe, so I guess with a little bit of hassle it is possible to find a quad with 200ish hfe. If I ever build a circuit like this again that's what I'm gonna try.
I think 2n3904's are in the ~200 hfe range. they are readily available and might be a good option to try. I still plan to build up a pharaoh soon when I get a chance.
Yeah those are probably in the ballpark. It's strange, the original Black Arts pedal uses MPSA18 as Q1 and all the others are 2n5089, MPSA18 has a gain to a 1000, and those 2n5089 are in 700-800 range.
One would think that using 4 times less hfe would produce a wimpy and weak fuzz [I know that hfe does not equal gain but still] but you have heard the sound sample, it has tons of gain on tap.
It's not just the Q2,3,4 that I substituted for lower gain trannies, it's the Q1 as well. Actually, the biggest change for the better with this particular build of mine, came when I ditched that MPSA and put a nice, behaving, 192 in there ;D