Fuzzbox deal

[Kap'n]

Guitar Center is blowing out their BBE "Free Fuzz" pedals for $50. If you have their flyer with 10% off coupon, it's $45.

It's a pretty nice fuzzbox, if a little dark sounding. I opened mine up, and it's all discreet components on a PC board with a solid TPDT switch. Standard two transistor fuzz.

I'll be tracing mine out this weekend, and swapping a couple of components to brighten it.

Oh, if you want/need a 'tubescreamer' the Green Screamer is the same price. No idea what the inside of that looks like.

[chuckocaster]

i've been really impressed with the new BBE pedals.

[Kap'n]

I spent a bit of time tracing the circuit. It's pretty much a fuzz face.

C4 - a 100pF small yellow disk capacitor in the middle of the board is responsible for trimming off the high end, and making it a bit wooly sounding. I pulled one leg out of the circuit board - VOILA! Nice, bright fuzzy sound!

Not bad for a $45 pedal.

[Gris]

Germanium...?

[Kap'n]

No, silicon. It kicks ass though! It cut in a band before, but was a bit muffly. Now it's what it should be.

Kap'n gives it two psychedelic thumbs up. Can't beat the price! True bypass. It even comes with a wall wart. What more do you want?

[Rickenjangle]

Kap'n, how hard is it to tweak the circuit - for someone who has built a BYOC and then had to have his electronic-nut friend check it out for him?

[Kap'n]

Five minute. If you do the down and dirty mod, you just need to take the back off, and snip a wire.

If you want it easily reversable, you need to use a metric socket to remove the pots from the chassis, then heat a solder connection.

[Rickenjangle]

Dang! Went to my local guitar center yesterday and they were all out of the Free Fuzz.

[Kap'n]

Bummer. Maybe they'll price-match it on-line?

[Franklin]

Damn! I missed this. I was looking for a silicone fuzz too....

[Kap'n]

It's "while supplies last" at your local GC. There might still be one in Orange.

[Rickenjangle]

I hate my local GC. The workers there are total "beavis and butthead" dudes. The guy in the acoustic guitar room knew next to nothing about woods, preamps. Heck, he didn't even know how to pronounce "Takamine" (he called it a Take - uh - mine!). This young kid that looked like Travis Meeks tried to hook up a demo-model of the Brian May Red Special that they were blowing out on clearance. It had never left the store, but they didn't have the box, the manual, the cool bag, the shilling piece - OR the required power supply. He couldn't find a supply to replace it and I just said "thanks anyway" and walked out. Very poor inventory control. D'uh!

I am super-bummed about the Fuzz pedal being gone, though! That might have been a fun little tone-toy!

[wingnut1]

Why not just build a BYOC Fuzz Face Rickenjangle?

[Rickenjangle]

My BYOC Tribooster sounds great but I didn't do it all correctly; now the LED won't light. I think I'd better steer clear of trying too much DIY stuff...

[Don]

While you're at the BYOC website go to their forum and look up the Radio Shack fuzz.

For very little money you can build a great sounding two silicon transistor fuzz. The only part that you can't get at Radio Shack is the switch.

[Rickenjangle]

Is it my imagination or did their prices go up? A simple fuzz circuit for $89? Even with great components, that seems high...I might as well look to ebay to get an actual reissue fuzz face for that kind of coin...

[Don]

Their prices have gone up. They've gone boutique with the fuzzes as well. Their Tone Bender clone looks really good.

[goofballone]

I got one today for $30

If you remove C4 to brighten it up will it take care of the cliping Im getting at bedroom vol. or is that a different thing?

[Guitar_Mc]

I picked one up at GC today for $29 (new)! It was the last one they had.

GMc

[Rickenjangle]

Geez, I guess I'm outta luck on this...

My local guitar center sucks. They rarely have what I'm looking for.

[Kap'n]

How did those deals happen?

C4 rolls off some high end on the fuzz and makes it less raspy. I pulled one leg, and it sounds great.

[Cygnus X1]

How did those deals happen?

C4 rolls off some high end on the fuzz and makes it less raspy. I pulled one leg, and it sounds great.

Hope your leg heals ok, Kap'n...

[Kap'n]

Freestompboxes has a full schematic for this now. After looking at it, I removed a bunch of components, and added a couple of jumpers to make it an actual silicon Fuzz Face. It's a lot more aggressive now. Perhaps too much.....naaaaah.

I've got some Ge NPN transistors on order from Small Bear that I'll be trying out in it to see if I like that better.

[Rickenjangle]

Well, this is certainly an old thread, resurrected!

Having gone through several fuzzes myself, including a reissue Big Muff, an original Ram's Head Big Muff, a Fuzz Face, Tweak Fuzz, I think I've finally found the fuzz that I'll keep...

It's the Visual Sound Angry Fuzz. It's very versatile; I can get it to sound like the BM Pi, or the FF, and when I twist the anger knob up, which adds the high octave in, I can get an Octavia sound as well as one of those Foxx Tone octave fuzz sounds.

I don't think it'll live on my pedalboard, but it'll be available to place in front if I want to get crazy...which is really what I use a fuzzbox for anyways...

[Offshore Angler]

Kap'n, send me the marked-up schematic and I'll build Rickenjangle one. He's worth it!

[Kap'n]

Chuck - I'll have to wait until I get to my work computer -Windows 7 made my home copy of photochop obsolete.

Installed the germanium transistors from Small Bear last night. I had to tweak some of the resistor values. Steve is great in that regard. When he tests them for gain and leakage, he gives not only the values of resistors to make the transistors bias up right, he provides the resistors too.

Germanium makes this thing a completely different beast Much, much cooler than the high gain Si transistors that were in it.

It simply amazes me that the folks at BBE thought the pedal was ready for prime time. They added all these mods that in a boutique fuzz would be adjustable - and made them fixed in the most neutered positions. I removed seven of the seventeen components in the circuit, and it's incredible how much better it was - even before I went germanium.

General Guitar Gadgets has Fuzz Face kits on sale this month. $45! Such a deal.

[Gris]

Installed the germanium transistors from Small Bear last night. I had to tweak some of the resistor values.

Germanium makes this thing a completely different beast Much, much cooler than the high gain Si transistors that were in it.

Ayup... ;-)

[Rickenjangle]

Kap'n, send me the marked-up schematic and I'll build Rickenjangle one. He's worth it!

That is one heckuva nice thought, Chuck!

By the way, I got Jack that Motown DVD for Christmas but we've not yet watched it...

But on a note more related to pedals - my Wah pedal has crapped the bed, for no apparent reason...I don't know how to troubleshoot...