Monday 31 May 2021

Point Reyes Kuiama Fuzz

 This was a request. here is a change to try out your low gain and low leakage soviet transistors in a Tonebender Mk. II. There is a trimpot for each transistor and an onboard voltage converter for daisy chaining. The schematic specifies MP40 for all transistors but I bet other should work and sound good as well like MP41, MP42, MP20, MP21, GT308, GT402 etc, etc, etc. Just mind the pinout for the GT series transistors. Vero - Point2Point Layouts has a spreadsheet for for most NOS russian transitors HERE.

You can also build a Marshall Supa Fuzz by upping the 5uF (....or4,7uF) capacitors to 10uF or a Vox Tonebender Mk. II by upping both 10nF caps to 15nF.


22 comments:

  1. Verified... Q3 Collector trimmer should be 10k though

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  2. wow the world would sure be a boring place without DIRTBOX LAYOUTS, everyone really appreciates what you're doing !!!!!

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  3. This is awesome. Thank you! I have a bunch of transistors sitting around that didn't quite make the cut for other stomp boxes. Will be happy to try this out.

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  4. Hey...great site...thnx so much! I want to put the trim pots externally. Would I use linear pots? What would be the best way to do this? Thnx again!

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    1. I suspect that the only trimpot that would be usable as an external control would be the 10k one. The 50k's might have a very limited range and/or just sound bad.
      For the 10k trimpot as an external control; solder a wire from K16 to lug 3, L16 to lug 1 and 2. Not sure about the taper, I think you need to try it yourself.
      I would also increase the 470ohm resistor to 1k or so for more output and for some voltage protection for Q3.

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    2. Ya the 50k trimmers are to help with oscillation... the 10k is the bias, mostly helps with sustain, and it changes the flavor of the fuzz.

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  5. I was wondering why visits to the Russian pinout chart was so high. Thanks Anders.

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  6. I can't find this schematic in the usual places, is it unshared (completely understand) or am I just sucking at searching?

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    1. here is the thes schematic:
      https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vdNnWEvjsoRdWDLnF98S7eMQZciKS_X-/edit
      As you can see, it is pretty much a standard TB Mk2 with three bias trimmers and a voltage inverter.

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    2. fuzzhead... I can post the DIY Pedal discord link here if you'd like. That is where Miguel(pointreyes) shared the schematic for the pedal.

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    3. https://discord.gg/kMaGjdzKjd

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  7. Tried building this and the fuzz sounds great however I am getting a constant high pitched whine. Tried a few transistor sets and it is constant regardless of transistors. Any ideas? A cap maybe?

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    1. Which charge pump do you have and where did you buy it? These can cause oscillation if it the wrong type and there is still fakes out there....

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    2. I can't believe I didn't think of that. I have some 7660's from Tayda and they've been unreliable in the past. Do you have a reccomendation?

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    3. I buy them at a local shop so I don't have that much experience when it comes to buying charge pumps online but I've read that you should avoid ebay and Tayda...
      If you're in the US I guess you're safe if you order from Smallbear or any of the big electronic chains like Mouser...
      For the EU, Musikding, Banzai and few others is pretty safe.

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    4. Canada but I order regularly from SmallBear. You can trust them for Fets and transistors so I don't mind paying a little extra. Thanks for the help and thank you for your absolutely excellent website!

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    5. Just thought I should chime back in. I bought some better charge pumps and voila. Problem solved. This is a great sounding fuzz!

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    6. Perfect! Glad everyting turned out good!

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