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After checking out the Fuzzrite schematics out there vs the Fuzzmite from raulduke I decided to go the route of a "Ventures Model" FuzzRite clone.  Modded schematic at the bottom.  My only change was 2N1711 transistors which sound great in this circuit.  Pics:

Happy Father's Day!

Mr. Bug Monster, Mr. Happy Robot, and Ms. Tensile-Strength-of-Hair-Tester are mine, the rest are their awesome cousins!

[Before:]

I sold the guts for this a little while ago to treeslayer and rebuilt it with a late 50's Supro Comet circuit point to point.  My revised schematic generated from various originals and with OT/PT info:

Before:



After:









I made some changes from the gutshot above to reflect a 1946 schematic I found and also rerouted some wires for lower noise.  It is now built to updated schematic above.

Soundcloud:
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/timbo_93631/valco[/soundcloud]

Went to order some parts from Mammoth and saw this:
http://www.mammothelectronics.com/product-p/000-donation.htm

I did this one a little different than the build doc, Q1 is OC139 with red dot as collector, Q2 is BC109b, C3 is 150nf, C4 is 4.7nf.  Dig it:







[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/timbo_93631/binary_fuzz[/soundcloud]

I have bult a bunch of verbs with the new BTDR-2 Digilog reverb bricks and I have had a few that were strange/started malfunctioning.  One developed a pronounced slapback echo to accompany the verb, another was really bright/cut out alot of lows, and the latest one goes into horrible white noise mode after about a minute of playing.  Anyone else have problems with the small bricks?  Soundcloud of the latest:
https://soundcloud.com/#timbo_93631/space-verb-goes-whacko

So I am trying to wrap up my 2 in 1 which is half green bean.  Is it okay to use 1uf tantalums instead of box caps for C2, C8, and C10 instead of box caps as long as the (+) is towards the input?  I have added 1uf film caps to 3 parts orders from different sources I placed over the weekend hoping some will get here in time but the first ones I ordered on Thursday just went to post office yesterday :/

A 40 week collaborative build by myself, my wife, and God.  Many hours of diagnostics, and a few close calls where we thought she might not make it, my daughter Penelope Delanie, our sweet Penny Lane:

Klon Buffer built from jimmybjj's layout found in this thread: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=1507.0
useful little thing, I have it wired as a mute right now when it is off.  Has teh TONZ like a klon!

I got this PCB from Bean awhile back, I think in his emergency sale.  Coulda been Holiday PIF, I can't remember.  Anyhow, I took every opportunity to make it brighter aside from changing two of the 220nf caps to 100nf.  I like it.  Has the 500kc sustain knob, 100k volume.  I am still trying diodes in it.  It has 1N4148's in right now but I have some BAT41's in the mail.  Chickenheads are some of the new phenolic ABS knobs from Mammoth and I gotta say they are a real step up from their regular knobs.  Finish is my regular sparkle black but with a green and gold glitter flake over that then distressed and clear coated.

    I was playing my Tele the other day and *plink* the outside edge of the nut by the low E had popped off.  There had been hairline crack there since I bought the guitar and it has had plenty of dings so I imagine it suffered a knock directly to the edge of the nut at some point.  It is a Squire Std. so the stock nut was hard plastic with very deep nut slots and there was always pinging on the B string when I'd make a big bend. 
   It was clearly time to shop for a replacement nut and at the same time overcome my fear of final shaping and fitting of a nut.  I don't have a set of nut files and they are so expensive I didn't want to start with a blank so I knew I'd be looking for a slotted nut.  I looked at all the common stuff on ebay, stew mac and guitarfetish.  There was alot of hype.  Bone hype, Earvana hype, Tusq hype.  I basically looked for what was going to have the closest string spacing as the stock nut and the right dimensions overall and settled a Tusq-XL nut that had a marginally wider string spacing (about 0.02" e to E).  I spent the better part of this morning sanding down the overall height trying to keep it flat by going slow and steady then trimming the sides to fit and then doing the fianal nut slotting with a set of feeler gauges and some welder tip cleaning files that were just the trick to make small depth adjustments.  I don't think you could do more than one or two nuts with them.  I think the PTFE ipregnated in the Tusq-XL nuts also made sanding and filing really slow going because it is so slippery.
   Now I cant believe the difference.  I am not gonna say it is all because of a Tusq nut, I could imagine 99% of the improvement is just from having a properly cut and shaped nut that is nice and tight in it's slot, but this guitar has a whole new level of resonance in the neck and body now.  Any of you guys go through this and have a surprising outcome?

I like it with the Tungsram OA1160's that are in there, but stock 1n4148's are nice too for a crisper sound.  Just subbed the parts to make it a '77-'78 Grey spec DOD 250.  Next up is a Darkside in a 1590bb, I think I am gonna have a bit of the agoraphobia Jon mentioned a few days ago in his Trrr-treeeh build report!

Love the smoothie,1590a's are fun to try and pull off cleanly.

So you can see the MKII I have been working on and has been the inspiration for this thread:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=5623.0
Soundclip is in the Audio/Video demos:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=6009.new#new
As you can see in the gutshot I bootstrapped a 33uf dry tant to the 47uf filter cap, ended up with a 10nf tropical fish cap for the output cap, and added a 47 ohm resistor between 9v+ and the board.  Adding the 33uf and the resistor really helped cut down on background hiss that was there even with no trannies socketed, and i am really happy with the overall noise levels now.  Also Attack pot is a 2k with a 2.7k resistor across lugs 1 and 3 that changes it to about a 1.3k pot which also helped Q3 from oscillating at high levels.  Transistors are OC139 Q1, OC140 Q2, and OC141 Q3.

Here is the toanz:
[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/timbo_93631/mkii-2[/soundcloud]
I really like all of the cool things you can do with the MKII, very piano-y double tracking some of the backgroundy octaves and things.  Lead part was with gain only 60% or so and volume around the same.  Recorded in studio1 artist using ampire cos the family was asleep.   Ampire was set to really neutral settings in order to show a pretty non-colored tone with the MKII and some fake verb for the obviously non-fuzzed guitar.  I feel like my demos are slowly getting better, spent a little more time on this one and I am pretty proud of the mix and some other things I have been trying to do better at.  Recording is no joke.  Anyhow you get the idea, I think MKII's are edging out MKIII's for me too (JakeFuzz!)

As continued from this thread: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=4595.15

So how does that affect transistor performance?  For instance, what would you gain by having a 1k with the 10uf cap for a corner frequecy of ~16hz?

Got busy on these guys yesterday and wrapped them up tonight.  Smoothie is superb.  The opposite end of the Phase spectrum from the Bad Stone I built, just nails Speak to Me/Breathe.  Rub-A-Dub has the long brick, and I think it is really nice if you are into a really drenched with reverb sound.  Perfect for the oft mentioned ethereal stuff but I think it is really good for doing Link Wray stuff too.  Got crazy with Apache when I was rocking before boxing this after noon.  Many thanks to Madbean for all the hard work, long hours, and personal/financial risk he has taken to make these things happen, and to Josh (gtr2) for the awesome job on the Rub-A-Dub board.

So I was trolling Craigslist early this week and I came across a '68 Hammond M103 that wasn't working for $50.  I called the seller and he held it for me all week until my Dad and I could go pick it up this morning.  I am so freakin stoked, it is in perfect condition just the tone generator is gummed up from it sitting for about 10 years unplayed.  I have been looking for one for so long and today I finally became the proud owner of a Hammond freaking organ.  I am freaking out.  Yeah!  I have some oil on the way, hopefully flushing the gummy stuff with naptha and some fresh oil will free things up.  Awe-sum!

I have to do a simple poll for my math class, so why not here, and why not about dirt boxes?  I can't stop bulding them, and I know I'm not the only one.  So what do you guys build the most of?  If you want to describe the tonal qualaties you are chasing by building "just one more" please comment below.  This poll is also up at FSB.

Really diggin this fuzz.  A mashup between the MKIII Tonebender and Soulbender parts.  Mainly taking the adjustable bias from the Soulbender but using cap values from the MKIII.  Not a perfectly matched set of transistors, but it sounded good on the breadboard and sounds good boxed up, they are Sanyo NPN germaniums from a 70's Bell and Howell tape deck.  I finished it a while back but hadn't posted it, it went straight to the pedalboard without time for pics!  Thanks to Haberdasher for yet another perfect etched PCB and a nice trade.