It don't get no easier....

[duhvoodooman]

...than the BYOC Extra Special Vintage Fuzz kit, if you want to stop paying some bozo (hmmm, now who could that be?? ) to build your pedals and try making one yourself. Whilst building the last batch of pedals I recently finished, I whipped off one of these Fuzz Face clones in no time and it sounds AMAZING--great warm, woolly fuzz that cleans up beautifully when you roll back the guitar's volume knob.

BYOC advertizes this as one of their simplest kits, and it truly is a piece of cake to build. There are a mere 11 components on the PCB--child's play! At $95, it's not a cheap kit, due to the ultra-premium components used, highlighted by the pair of NOS Philips AC127/01 NPN germanium transistors. Keith calls 'em "the holy grail of negative ground vintage fuzz tone", and you'll get no argument from me on that claim! As is so often the case, you get what you pay for--and here, it's a great sounding Fuzz Face clone for under $100!

P.S. Makes a great Chistmas gift--kit or prebuilt!

 

[tunghaichuan]

As always, I'm in awe of your pedal building and finishing skills. :master: Nice job, looks very good. :AOK:

I'd like to hear some sound samples when you get a chance to record some.

tung

...than the BYOC Extra Special Vintage Fuzz kit, if you want to stop paying some bozo (hmmm, now who could that be?? ) to build your pedals and try making one yourself. Whilst building the last batch of pedals I recently finished, I whipped one of these Fuzz Face clones off in no time and it sounds AMAZING--great warm, woolly fuzz that cleans up beautifully when you roll back the guitar's volume knob.

BYOC advertizes this as one of their simplest kits, and it truly is a piece of cake to build. There are a mere 11 components on the PCB--child's play! At $95, it's not a cheap kit, due to the ultra-premium components used, highlighted by the pair of NOS Philips AC127/01 NPN germanium transistors. Keith calls 'em "the holy grail of negative ground vintage fuzz tone", and you'll get no argument from me on that claim! As is so often the case, you get what you pay for--and here, it's a great sounding Fuzz Face clone for under $100!

P.S. Makes a great Chistmas gift--kit or prebuilt!

 

[marnold]

Too bad there's not a mod for putting the bias adjustment on the pedal itself. That probably could be rigged up relatively easily. I hear those germanium transistors are very temperamental.

Nevertheless, that would be a kit I'd be interested in.

 

[duhvoodooman]

Too bad there's not a mod for putting the bias adjustment on the pedal itself.

But there is, of course. You just move the trimpot off the board and wire it in as an extra control pot on the pedal face.

That probably could be rigged up relatively easily.

Very easily. I'm not convinced that it's remotely necessary, unless you're planning on changing transistors often. Even then, I'd recommend using an internal trimpot, since you'd be "under the hood" to change the trannies anyway. Now if the pedal has switchable trannies installed (as in my Fuzz Farm pedal), then an external bias adjustment pot becomes a real necessity.

I hear those germanium transistors are very temperamental.

They're really not as tempermental as people make them out to be. Their biggest drawback is that they are quite temperature sensitive, which makes their tone change if subjected to significant temperature increases, e.g. playing outdoors on a warm, sunny day or in a non-AC room during hot weather. Even then, there are countermeasures available (other than a bias control) that help offset this temperature instability. I'm not sure a bias control is even all that effective for this problem.

Nevertheless, that would be a kit I'd be interested in.

I'm here for ya, Rev! :dude: