Finally, I got this finished :)
A few of us struggled a little bit with this build on a separate topic, but if I am not mistaken, all of us made benders that we are satisfied with. hooray!
I made one, and struggled for days to make it stable and sound good, fought the oscillation, and crazy feedback troubles, abrupt note decay, you name it. And then I decided to start over, and made an entirely new build, and that one worked like a charm first try, here's a soundcloud clip, recorded with a tele deluxe bridge pickup into a line 6 ux1 and it's ac30 simulation
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/kuato-design-stompboxes/wooz[/soundcloud]
I made this for my friend Woo, who is an experimental ambient musician but he engages in all sorts of music, he is particularly known as one of the leaders of Serbian psychedelic free and noise jazz, most notably Belgrade Noise Society. He often has shows abroad so it will be pleasing for me to know that sound is flowing through my solder and some very distant people are listening to Woo's crushing emotive soundscapes.
He bought this somewhat bizzare enclosure of an old army fuzz on the local flea market for like, two dollars worth. Sit in his closet for years, and now he decided to make something out of it. We chose the Tone Bender MK II.
The transistors used are GT308B [B in cyrilic is V in english] as Q2 and Q3 and as Q1 I am using an unknown smallbear tranny from a fuzz face kit.
The hfe and leakage are as follows
56, 0.121
74, 0.03
102, 0.032
I made that 470R resistor a 1k5 so it's LOUD, and I made Q1's B resistor 100K + 100K trimpot so I could push it a little more. That, and a biasing trimpot on Q3, allowed a much better tunning possibilities, so I biased the two by ear and got the best results, fantastic sustain and clean up.
It's not noisy at all, due to the quality of the transistors I reckon, even with all full crancked, so I haven't felt the need for shielded wire whitch is something I always do ordinarily...
I did have to put a 330R resistor in series with the Attack knob as a maximum fuzz limiter.
Overall, I am extremly happy with this build, and I gotta make me one! :)
It's kinda harder to dial right than the fuzz face, but well worth it, I feel like the bender will give you more satisfaction going straight into the clean channel of an amp than the FF will, and that might be a plus in your book.
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/969283_10151843586496337_793163684_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1098117_10151843586511337_1964956384_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/1148882_10151843586516337_616618577_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1187046_10151843586656337_933981002_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/537201_10151843586606337_1785210054_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/1174772_10151843586601337_1532459496_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/995996_10151843586711337_879244305_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/1175228_10151843586731337_2049948732_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/1185367_10151843586751337_135465082_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/970695_10151843586806337_781243180_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1186203_10151843586831337_41292793_n.jpg)
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/1184891_10151843586851337_1813593600_n.jpg)
and a demo on a real amp [wanted to do a better demo but after many listens I decided not to, this represents the pedal nicely, and the sound is not that bad, it's my first ever video on youtube haha, lol]
Volume and Attack halfway up.
Enjoy it people and feel free to comment and make suggestions if I could improve anything at all on it and all...Cheers!
That's a fun build. It's nice to see a nonstandard enclosure. I dig the decorations you put on the inside.
I've never actually built a germanium bender. I've got boards and trannies, I just need to get around to it.
I really like that enclosure. I wish I could find stuff like that at flea markets!
that pedal sounds great, man! fantastic chops, too. :)
Thanks!
Yeah, I was on a frenzy lurking through old junk at flea markets for months. I even traveled to other cities all in hope that I will find a dallas arbiter fuzz face :D No luck. Not even a proper enclosure. But hey, some of my friends have them hehe.
I did score on a 80's Ibanez chorus though, one of those 18V models, really nice, got it for around 25 bucks.
Benders are a lot of fun, last night Woo used it on a gig and the sound was huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge, sustain perfect, although, he did use it on an Orange from the early seventies. AND a Hi-Watt DR-103 both at the same time.
I am telling you dudes, that's worth of selling a house to get em :D
Oh yeah, I don't know if you can see it on the pictures, but try to notice the switch. It's highly unusual, I preserved that from the original pedal, it's a fantastic switch, i'll try to get a better picture of it.
That is a freakin' cool looking pedal. Is that the 'open your mind' dude from Total Recall??
hahahaha yes, Kuato :)
I call my pedals - Kuato Design hehe.
Man I love the pedal aesthetics and the sound of this one. That's got to be one of the coolest enclosures I have seen.
Love your riffage also on the soundcloud demo. Good stuff, keep it coming!
I love this one too.
That pedal sounds great and looks really cool. 8)
This man can build and tuna fuzz.
Glad to see the finished product! Yes, I was also trying to get mine sounding right while you were building yours. But when I box it, I don't think I will have an enclosure as cool as this! :)
That switch does look interesting from what I can see in the picture. Some kind of DPDT?
That thing looks terrible... but also great. Got the junk yard chic vibe.
That enclosure is badass!!
Cortex, maybe I missed it in the description, but i see 3 trimmers. One is for q1, another for q3. what is the third one for?
Guys thank you for the great comments!
Chinaski, it's the non-working voltage sag trimmer :D Woo needed the pedal for the show so I haven't got the time to remedy that, but I'm gonna do it eventually.
Still, it's funny that it doesn't work, it's a dead simple hack, like, insert trimpot between the power rail and the place where it goes on the board, and somehow I managed to make it non-working, pretty crazy.
Oh!
I forgot to give a shout to Juansolo and Cleggy for being my off-forum sensei, some of their tips made me move on the right track here. Cheers!