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Germanium Fuzz - Clean-Up Mysteries and Casualties


franjo

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dear effecteers & pedallers,

dear builders,

 

 

i own 3 germanium fuzzes with variations on the 3knob tonebender circuit. i can swap transistors in all of them.

 

fooling around with one, i discovered that i had put in the oc-74 into the q1-position incorrectly. much to my surprise, i didn't get the big buzz i hoped for (of course), but while i had the fuzz full up, it got some germanium crunch with it. in addition to that, i suddenly got a wonderful CLEAN-UP with my volume poti!!!

 

this works as well with oc-70, oc-75,oc-76, oc-82 and the usual oc-44.

 

have i discovered the secret of fuzz clean-ups? it's so mysterious. i just wanted to share this with You.

 

 

franjo

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I'm not a tech expert, but I'll share what I was told by BYOC-Keith. A tonebender is basically a fuzzface circuit with a germanium boost before it, at full blast. That's why, in the original circuit, the amount of fuzz is not very controllable, since you don't control the first germ boost but the second part of the circuit. In later clones, this is usually 'corrected' so there's more control.
Now, if I follow your steps and you say you did something wrong with the first tranny then it wouldn't be so strange that you have a good cleaning up germanium fuzz sound. You accidentally got rid of the boost in front of it.
Basically that's a step back in time, rather than an improvement ;)

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sounds about right

Originally posted by Godin73

I'm not a tech expert, but I'll share what I was told by BYOC-Keith. A tonebender is basically a fuzzface circuit with a germanium boost before it, at full blast. That's why, in the original circuit, the amount of fuzz is not very controllable, since you don't control the first germ boost but the second part of the circuit. In later clones, this is usually 'corrected' so there's more control.

Now, if I follow your steps and you say you did something wrong with the first tranny then it wouldn't be so strange that you have a good cleaning up germanium fuzz sound. You accidentally got rid of the boost in front of it.

Basically that's a step back in time, rather than an improvement
;)

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Originally posted by franjo

dear janglin jack,


sorry i found nothing like that on the analogman's site, just some tranny discussion of ac18 vs. nkt275


thanks anyway


franjo

 

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to mis direct you. Analogman talks about how he tests the transistors and tunes the circuit. I found other webpages that delt with optimum values, etc. I can't find the links, but if you dig, you might be able to find stuff using DIY Fuzz Face search criteria. You will find little things like this:

 

http://www.geocities.com/stompbox2001/ac128.htm

 

Jack

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