Proco Rat / Fuzzhead Fx Green Lemming Distortion

 Something like this have probably been done before... Yes, Fuzzdog added a 3-band Marshall style tonestack to a Rat a while ago. Oh, and there is Idiotbox Blowerbox, a Rat tuned for bass with less gain with a James tonestack....

 This one is quite similar to the latter but has more gain on tap and are tuned for guitar. The James tonestack have Matamp/Orange values but can be tweaked witch Duncan Tonestack calculator. Oh, and there is a diode switch for assymetric SI/MOSFET clipping and symmetrical LED clipping. 

Fuzzhead Fx Barbarian Fuzz

 I dug out my breadboard to clear some thoughts and played around a bit. Well, I ended up with one of my top 3 fuzz circuits, Roland Double Beat. It is perfect as is, just added some minor filtering here and there. But the stock Double Beat rotary switch tonestack sucked IMO so I just tacked on the tonestack from Apocalypse Audio H Fuzz which very versitale and simple. Now this is a angry doom machine.

Got no name for it but listened to some Electric Wizard tune Barbarian the other day so...let's call it Barabarian Fuzz, ok?

ATM, the MOJO layout is verified but not the small one.

 

 

 

 

Fuzzhead Fx AN-602 O.D.

Just is a variation of a russian big muff. The base eq of the circuit is preserved i. e. dark, bassy and heavy but there is much more gain and volume on tap. There is also an old school inductor based Mid Boost circuit at the recovery stage that boost and saturate frequencies at 800Hz.

 

 

 

Fuzzhead Fx Red Sun Fuzz

 This one started as an attempt to improve an obscure old japanese germanium fuzz circuit from the late 60s called Sekova FA II Fuzz which suffered from quite low output and lack of sustain. After some experimenting I removed the clipping diodes, tweaked the bias and added another gain stage upfront which is borrowed from Roland Bee Baa but with a germanium transistor. For transistor selection I found that these with low leakage and a hfe around 100 sounds good but it is worth experimenting with others especially for Q2 and Q3.

 

 

 

Fuzzhead Fx Stoner Bee

 Another take one the Bee Baa. Did a version a while ago called Pink Goat with a the notch filter tone setting reworked among other things.

Here after some more tinkering we have Stone Bee. Compared to stock Bee Baa it has a bit more gain and less highs in all three gain stages. Tone section is replaced by one of the best big muff tonestacks around, the one from Grind Custom Fx Ultrastoner. Since the sizzle can be a bit much for some there is a "Highs"control which blends in a filter cap across the base and collector at Q3.

 

 

 

 

Fuzzhead Fx Puget Fuzz Sound

 Another old circuit have been under the axe, Jordan Bosstone. An attempt to fatten things up a bit and use a bass gyrator control. Wanted to try out the setup that DOD used in 90's and ended up with the tonestack from the infamous DOD FX69 Grunge...hence the name of the circuit. Not sure if it captures the Seattle sound but it sure sounds quite heavy and scuzzy.

 

 

 

 

 

Fuzzhead Fx Dronestortion Mk. I

 Last layout for a while. This is sort of a hack job, combining a Rat tuned for more low end with a LED/silicon diodes clipping switch. Then the signal is splitted into two signal paths using the Mid Scoop and Mid Boost tone sections from Boss FZ2. Signal is then fed into a treble cut control and an output buffer.

*Update 200909*

Tweaked it a bit more. A cap to ground at the input solved some noise artifacts without altering the overall sound. Highs control is now a 50kC pot.

Oh, and the name was changed to Dronestortion since....it can do some drone metal.

*Update 200912*

Final update, I promise.

The LED clippers seemed to the driving the following eq op amp stages into clipping resulting in some crackle and a bit harsch decay. Replaced those with normal 1N4148's and for the lower threshold diodes I used germanium diodes, old soviet D9K's but any ge diode will do with V.d. 0,3-0,27.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fuzzhead Fx Harmonic Gyrolator

 Harmonic Percolator is one the coolest vintage dirtboxes out there with its simple yet unique design, its odd even order harmonics texture, odd mojo parts and it is also a very good overdrive with the gain control rolled back. 

But using mostly humbucker equipped guitars nowadays  it tend to be overly compressed and a bit muddy and dull. Started to tinker with it tso it would suit hot humbuckers but no dice. As it is an unique circuit like no other, the usual mods didn't work out very well like reducing input cap or add a resistor in line with the input signal.

But I stumpled upon Dead End Fx Splinter project whcih offers a sollution for this namely reducing the coupling cap value between the transistors and adding a cap across the base of Q1 and ground.

Later on I added a "Texture" control which techically is a resostat which alters the resistanse to ground for one of the clipping diodes. Most stock HP's has 4,7k resistor here for some assymetric clipping. I used a 10k pot so stock setting is at noon, turn it up and you get a more open and wide distortion, roll it back for some glithy compreesed sounds with sub octaves jumping around.

And I added a two band gyrator tonestack at the end with values not to far away from Boss HM2. The result is a quite lo-fi, fat, industrial and grim fuzz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fuzzhead Fx Box of Germanium Mk. II

An updated version of a project I was tinkering with a couple of years ago. The idea was basically to find some use for some low leak USSR germaniums other than in Fuzz faces, Rangemasters and Tonebenders, And to do a germanium version of Zvex Box of Rock. Some biasing tweaks was necessary since BJT Ge's is a completely different animal to MOSFETs but the cap values in the signal path is more or less identical. Couldn't resist to add Boost switch so you can use it as a fuzz as well...and decrease the value of the low pass filter cap in the tonestack to 12nF since I found it a bit muddy with 22nF.

First version was positive ground but I used normal power supply for this version since I have to many unused MP38A transistors but other fairly low gain and low leak NPN germaniums should work as well.

 

Fuzzhead Fx Foghead

YAFF (Yet Another Fuzz Face) with some addons. After the fuzz section there is a J FET buffer before the tonestack to keep things clear. Tonestack is inspired by Death by Audio Fuzz War V2 but with a bit more focus on the mids. A ge diode acts as a clipper on the treble side which adds some compression and sizzle.

 

Fuzzhead Fx Soundwave War

Just a variation of various Death by Audio circuits using reverse beta gain (reversed transistor gain). Initially I was messing with Fuzz War 7 transistor fuzz and eventually got it to work but it was unstable and the decay was very erratic.

Replaced the five first stages with the four first stages of Soundwave Breakdown since it's much more stable. Added a small 470pF cap across emitter and base to tame oscillation. Tonestack is big muff style with tweaked values with a treble bleed cap parallel with the tone control to the two revovery stages. Germanium hard clippers is russian D311 with quite low voltage drop (0,2v). And I found that MPSA18 worked much better than 2N5089 which sounds much bigger and has more sustain and pleasant decay.

And yes, it does doom.

Verified

Fuzzhead Fx War Pig Pre Amp

One for the Sabbath freaks...

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Fuzzhead Fx Pink Goat

My take on Roland AF-100 Bee Baa. Ditched the boost switch and one of the tone settings but added two new ones. "Highs" switch toggles between stock (middle position) and two settings that cut some highs:-). The other switch named "Notch" toggles between  three settings in the twin notch circuit. Middle position has 10nF to ground which gives a full sounds with lower mids. The two other settings is closer to stock Bee Baa tone with varying degree of scooped mids. Combining those switches quite ba broad variety of tones; harsh and thin to wooly and bassy.

This one is verified.

'

 

Fuzzhead Fx Freya Fuzz

Fuzzhead Fx MOSFET Pie V2

Verified

Fuzzhead Fx Mammoth Bender

I've always loved Tonebender Mk2's but always felt that it lacked some low end for the music I'm playing at the moment. So I decided to a heavy TB2 variant....no wait, it's more like this; What if an old Marshall Supa Fuzz met a Wooly Mammoth and had a baby?

It would be the Mammoth Bender. The core is a Tonebender Mk2 with some tweaked resistor values. Capacitor values and the tonestack is lifted from ZVex Wooly Mammoth. Transistors is NPN Germaniums, part number isn't that important more attention should be noted to Hfe and leakage which is noted bellow the layout.

This one is verified.

Fuzzhead FX MOuSeFET

Here is a variation on the Rat theme. I wanted to do a MOSFET Rat since I have a few CA3240 dual op amps lying araound and I like the sound of MOSFET transistors of hard clippers. Caps is enlarged a bit for a bit more low end and a switch for a 10uF running in parallel with 2,2uf cap is added for a bit more gain and low end. Stock output FET buffer is replaced with the second half of the op amp.