fuzz Archives - EffDub Audio

Back in 2012, I put together the simplest circuit I could think of, which was a couple caps, a resistor or two, some diodes, and an LM386 amplifier IC. I left out everything that was 100% necessary for a functional circuit, including polarity protection, pulldown resistor, and power filtering. Lots of people built that simple circuit, so I thought I would update it a bit to include a few basic improvements that I had omitted from the original. The design owes a lot to the Big Daddy from RunoffGroove.

This one is perfect for breadboarding and experimenting. Try different diode types for D2 / D3, add a gain control via a pot between pins 1 and 8, change up the input and output caps, throw a simple boost in front, etc.

Also works great for building on perf or vero/strip board.

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Effects Projects

March 3, 2023 effdub

AstroClone – An Astrotone Fuzz clone

Thought I’d redraw the classic Astrotone circuit and tinker around a bit. With some mods, it sort of reminds me of a light-weight version of the Colorsound Overdriver. The schematic in the File Pack below has the vintage parts values (to the best of my knowledge). I’m calling this the AstroClone since it’s an Astrotone Fuzz clone (duh).

Included in the AstroClone File Pack is artwork for etching (600 DPI), schematic and layout images, and Eagle CAD files.

And below is the BOM for my take on the circuit. I dropped the tone control because it’s useless. I also changed up things a bit to get a little more output and a little more grit.

R1 – 2M2
R2 – 33K
R3 – 1M
R4 – 470K
R5 – 2K2
R6 – omit
C1 – 1µ
C2 – 47n
C3 – 47n
C4 – 47n
D1 – BAT41 (any schottky will work)
D2 – 1N914 (any silicon will work)
Q1 – 2N4401
Q2 – 2N5089
GAIN – B250K
VOL – A25K

Effects Projects

February 24, 2023 effdub

Bazz Fuss Project: The Onesie

The Onesie project is my contribution (one of them, anyway) to the long and glorious history of a fantastic DIY fuzz circuit known as the Bazz Fuss. It’s super simple and sounds fantastic. With just one transistor, one diode, two capacitors, one resistor, and one potentiometer, the Bazz Fuss delivers a hell of a lot of fuzzy goodness despite it’s simplistic design. It’s very difficult to get great tone out of such a small number of components, with the only other similarly efficient circuit I can think of being the Electra Distortion.

This iteration of the Bazz Fuss stays true to the original (brought to you by a fellow known as “Hemmo” and popularized by the fine folks at RunoffGroove.com), but is built on a PCB that mounts directly to a 3PDT footswitch. This avoids the necessity of precise enclosure drilling, as you can mount the pot anywhere you like and simply run leads from the switch-mounted PCB.

The layout includes pads for bypass LED and current-limiting resistor, as well as power filtering and reverse power polarity protection. It’s very easy to build, and very cheap to have PCB fabricated. It’s a DIY dream, in other words.

Build Your Own Bazz Fuss Project!

Download the Onesie File Pack, which includes schematic and PCB images, Eagle CAD files, and a bonus turret or eyelet layout image.

Effects Projects

February 23, 2023 effdub

SmallBazz – Germanium Bazz Fuss for DIY

I can promise that you haven’t seen this exact circuit configuration in some over-priced boutique pedal. What we have here is my wacko take on the classic Bazz Fuss, a mainstay DIY favorite owing to its low parts count and surprisingly amazing fuzz tone. The original uses a darlington integrated circuit in a transistor-sized package (MPSA13), so I thought I’d spice things up with a discrete darlington arrangement but with germanium transistors instead of silicon. More mojo, amirite? Germanium Bazz Fuss is the coolest.

And to add to the quirkiness of this particular circuit, I decided to go with an oddball transistor: the NPN Germanium 2N1101, which is readily available from Small Bear Electronics. Why this particular part number? Two main reasons: 1) it’s NPN and much easier to deal with in terms of biasing and power supply setup, and 2) I’ve never seen it used in any circuit, and that’s enough for me. Also, it’s cheap and easy to source (at least for now as of 2023). The drawback? It’s not at all a standard package, doesn’t readily fit any existing PCB layouts, and doesn’t exist as a part in any of the common PCB creation applications.

So I created my own part for the 2N1101 in Eagle CAD and set off to create a fun new version of the Bazz Fuss. I added a few extra features: a switch to toggle between two feedback clipping diodes, a gain control, and a bias trimmer to dial in those finicky Germanium transistors. Here’s the schematic:

Once more for the SEO: Germanium Bazz Fuss.