Silicon Fuzz build
Karol, 18 July 2020
Today I'm gonna show you process of building effect. The effect is based on famous Fuzz Face, which is ideal for begginer pedal builders because of its simplicity.
Fuzz Face is, as the name suggests, fuzz distorion pedal made by dunlop. First Fuzz Face appeared on the market in 1966. The main and the most influental on sound elements in the circuit of Fuzz Face are transistors. The first Fuzz Face used germanium transistors, and the most popular one were AC128. Later Fuzz Face with silicon transistors showed up. It's said that germanium transistors produces more warm sound whereas silicon transistors make fuzz harsher.
The schematic of the effect is very simple, my version is just a little diffrent than original: I used 10k trim pot instead of 8.2k resistor and 22uF cap instead 20uF.
I've soldered the circuit on pervboard. I use red cable for +9v supply, black for ground, green as input and blue as output.
The next step was to prepare an enclosure. The sizing is 112x60x30 mm - standard hammond 1590b. It is very easy to process. I marked holes placing with sharpie and then drilled holes. The enclosure was painted with 3 layers of blue paint, but before, it is very important to clean it with acetone. The label was designed with InkScape, printed with laserjet on waterslide paper and transferred on the enclosure.
At this stage it was ready to solder everything up. The last step was to adjust the 10k trim pot. To that I measured voltage at second transistor's collector and biased it to the 4,5 V.
The effect is ready! Pleases the eyes and, what's more, the ears. Sounds really fantastic, I don't have original Fuzz Face for comparison, but maybe one day it will be opportunity. The finall effect of the Silicon Fuzz is on the images below :)
