making my fuzz sound more "jimi-like"

makepeace

Hi guys.

I've recently finished building a fuzz face based on the General Guitar Gadgets "Late 60's Boutique Fuzz". Its the one with a volume, fuzz, bias and contour knob, and a trimmer pot (for which i've just used a normal pot, ie a 5 knob fuzz)

I always hear that Jimi Hendrix used the mysterious Dallas Aribiter fuzz face, but I can't seem to get close to it with this pedal. Listening to his records, his sound doesn't sound fuzzy to me at all, more like an overdrive of sorts.. I can get closer to it with the overdrive setting on my Cube on full! Am I on the wrong track with trying to build a fuzz pedal to get his sound?

I got all of my parts from Small Bear including the real deal PNP germanium transistors, with a set of resistors with appropriate values.

My pedal sounds great as a fuzz pedal. It does a dynamic Wolfmother tone very well, and is very versatile otherwise, going from subtle to crazy, and even doing a kind of polyphonic octave thing, but I can't seem to find Jimi in it.

I looked at the technology of the fuzz face page at http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/fuzzface/fffram.htm and found this:

So i was thinking the appropriate mods i could do to it would be to:

1. take out R4 (GGG schem) and jumper it.
2. replace R5 (GGG) with a 8.2kohm resistor
3. put a 1k resistor in series with the pot linking the 22uF cap to ground

Do you think that would help?

The other thing i might have to do would be to buy a few more sets of germanium transistors..

Anything else that I could do to it to help get a "Jimi" kind of drive?

Another thing, I'm thinking about putting a voltage sag circuit in it, with a pot and a resistor setup as a voltage divider, to vary between about 6.5 and 9 volts. Would this in essence be doing what the trim pot is doing? I checked out with a multimeter and the trimpot seems to vary the voltage going into one of the transistors.

Cheers :goodtimes:

MikeM

Honestly... Buy a tube amp. I hate fuzz through solid state :/

makepeace

Indeed.. I am working on that. Going to be getting a kit from Karel i think.. probably the tweed deluxe, with a few mods..

Rob-dos

mikes probably right.. tube is the way to go, also jimi had to crank up that tube up to 10 to get some distortion going strong
dont know if he did that in both recording and live but from listening to the two it would appear he did
go test the theory out first, would suck to pay tons for a tube and its got nothing to do with that haha..

MikeM

I get an epic fuzz if I pop a 12ax7 in my champ and crank it.

MIKA-the-better-one

Step 1: Get a tube amp, Jimi used marshals and bassmans.......
Step 2: Crank it above 5 atleast
Step 3: But a fuzz that does that jimi sound.......... some of the good ones are in my view................ MXR fuzz 108........ a Fuzz Face.............. Keeley Fuzz head.............. .. MJM London Fuzz (my favourite)
Step 4: get a strat (fender)

?

But then still it wont be the same.......... because you would have to have a zombie jimi hendrix to get the perfect sound

MikeM

Flip each pickup 180' to get the inverse stagger!!!!

matta

Tip of the Day: Lower C1 to 220nF to get more overdrive and clearer mids/tops and less whoofy bass.

makepeace

cool thanks matta. i'll try that out tonight.

makepeace

ok i swapped the 2.2uf cap out. i didn't have a .22uf cap lying around so i used a .1.

unfortunately nothing happened when i plugged it in, and upon turning everything up far louder that it should be, i heard a little treacle of strum responsive noise emanating from the speaker.

i replaced the 2.2uf cap and the pedal isn't working, so i conclude that something must've died.

will have to go over the circuit this weekend again..

matta

Yeah, doesn't sound good ??? My first guess would be to check you didn't tear the trace or shorted out while swapping out the caps. JD's boards are double sided, so sometime, if you pull a component before cutting it off you can tear the trace quite easily, which would stop the audio in it tracks... check for continuity over that part. .1uf is fine, the idea is just to lower the input cap to let more of the tone through a block more of the low end.

Cheers

Matt

makepeace wrote ok i swapped the 2.2uf cap out. i didn't have a .22uf cap lying around so i used a .1.

unfortunately nothing happened when i plugged it in, and upon turning everything up far louder that it should be, i heard a little treacle of strum responsive noise emanating from the speaker.

i replaced the 2.2uf cap and the pedal isn't working, so i conclude that something must've died.

will have to go over the circuit this weekend again..

singemonkey

Jimmy played through tube amps and controlled the amount of fuzz with his guitar volume knob (hence the overdrive-y sound). The tube amp would need to be cranked, and you'd need a good volume pot on your guitar, as far as I understand.

matta

Yip, I illustrated this to Shadow1 today... it makes a HUGE difference.

Cheers

Matt

singemonkey wrote Jimmy played through tube amps and controlled the amount of fuzz with his guitar volume knob (hence the overdrive-y sound). The tube amp would need to be cranked, and you'd need a good volume pot on your guitar, as far as I understand.

shadow1

yip heard MATTA's beastly prototype fuzz and the KEY is definately CRANKING a valve amp....thats when fuzz seems to work REALLY well...

makepeace

finally got round to looking at my pedal again.. i plugged it in and turned everything on the pedal to full, amp volume quite high, and managed to get some sound out of it, but not nearly as much as before the cap replacement..

my diagnostic is that the original cap i put back in has been fried (from all the soldering). would this cause the pedal to work, but not at full level? also the led isn't coming on anymore..

is there a relatively easy way to test if a cap is working?

cheers,
jono

matta

Hi Jono,

How hot is your iron? If it is temperature controlled I'd stick between 350-400 degrees Celsius, also, you really don't want to spend more than a couple of seconds when soldering as excess heat can damage components.

I can't see how the LED would not be working unless you have a cold joint somewhere. Also check continuity between all your grounds, that too could cause the LED not to work, and can also cause the pedal itself to not pass audio properly.

To check a cap you need a multimeter with a capacitance setting, or a standalone capacitance meter, remove one leg of the leg and check between the component (you can't test a component in series like this, hence lifting one leg).

My first port of call based on your comment is to test continuity on all your grounds.

I hope that helps!

Cheers

Matt
'

makepeace wrote finally got round to looking at my pedal again.. i plugged it in and turned everything on the pedal to full, amp volume quite high, and managed to get some sound out of it, but not nearly as much as before the cap replacement..

my diagnostic is that the original cap i put back in has been fried (from all the soldering). would this cause the pedal to work, but not at full level? also the led isn't coming on anymore..

is there a relatively easy way to test if a cap is working?

cheers,
jono

makepeace

thanks matta,

as it turns out.. the patch cable i was using is faulty.. >☹. what is quite fascinating though is that i was able to hear, although at an incredibly low volume, fuzzy guitar responsive sound with only one half of the plug working.. strange..

thanks for the advice ?

Tokai-SA

I had the most Jimi like fuzz pedal you can get...the Kevin Randall Gypsy Fuzz...it doesn't get any better than Kevins pedals.
I tried for a month to sell it in SAfrica for R 1500...no buyers...sold it on a USA forum for R 2000,00 in 5 minutes.

http://www.krmusicalproducts.com/

VetGat

it must also be remembered that jimi used an octave pedal also- not an overbearing octave, in fact it takes seasoned ears to here it, but it is there and the fuzz on a high pitch note isnt what it is on a lower note. therefor, combine a fuzz with a with an octave, or simply buy sometheing like a oc-3 from boss. i guarantee that the octave WILL make all the difference

MIKA-the-better-one

not sure if an oc3 is your best bet on jimi octave sounds... more like a roger mayer octaver, or the jimi hendrix fuzz, or the tycobraugh octave........ there are ALOT of jimi ish octave pedals...... the oc3 is pretty digital.........

mlst good fuzz's carry subtle elements of octave up anyway