First up, schematic.
And a verified layout.
Monday, 5 August 2019
Death By Audio Red/Blue Card Fuzz
With lots of help and footwork by AlexS, we managed to trace Oliver Ackermann's red business card PCB which turned out to be a noisy fuzz monster. Gain, Resonance and Filter controls is very interactive and you can dail in gated fuzz, oscillations and bizarre lo-fi filtered fuzz.
First up, schematic.
And a verified layout.
First up, schematic.
And a verified layout.
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I chose this guy because I thought it could be a bit more “stable” than some of the other DBA stuff. Meaning everything I’ve tried has been finicky and frustrating except for a few. This one basically does everything violent that you want a gated fuzz to do. Similar to a Fairfield Unpleasant Surprise or a Dwarfcraft Great Destroyer. I even got some unique ring mod and octave weirdness with the Gain rolled back a bit. Lotsa fun. Thanks for the layout guys.
ReplyDeleteTom said he got this build to work, but after triple checking the board multiple times and cutting between the tracks and reflowing joints I could not get anything out of this layout except a beeping noise. this is the first layout I could not out of the ones I did on this site.
ReplyDeleteAlright, so I built a second one, and it fired up right away. Really reminds me a lot of a fuzz factory, but a different take on it. I know this is already verified but it works well. Still have no clue what was wrong with the first one
DeleteJust thought I would add, after spending some more time with this build, its definitely a cool fuzz. I hope others build it and report their experiences. Mine is super super gated when doing any lead notes, especially on the B and high E strings. Like the notes hold for a half a second gated. On the other hand, power chords ring out with a lot of sustain. If anyone has any suggestions on how to decrease the amount of gating, i will love ya forever.
DeleteThis thing does some pretty cool warbly fades into gatedness though
Much of, but not all of the gating has to do with the zener diodes. You could replace some or all of them with a different zener or a more traditional diode. But first mess with the gain control. I seem to remember the controls all being somewhat interactive. Does the fuzz sound a little dark to you? Or is it just my build?
DeleteI'm sorry it's not kicking yet. I know how frustrating it is. But it is a DBA circuit. I've had little luck with them. The layout does work though. The only complaint about this one is that it is a little dark sounding. But I think Oliver voices his circuits a bit on the dark side. Otherwise it's a great fuzz.
ReplyDeleteI swear Oliver intentionally buys parts out of spec just to mess with the DIY community
DeleteOr he started buying surplus parts that no one wanted at nothing prices and made them sound interesting. Why buy top shelf parts if you're looking for an f'ed up, broken sound?
ReplyDelete