# Cheap Fuzz Face clone?



## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

Can anyone recommend one?


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Build one, they're about 9 parts 

I don't know of who makes a decent cheap clone, sorry.


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## bluzfish (Mar 12, 2011)

Pretty simple circuits. In the 60s they sold for around $20 but you could get them for $10 to $15 - practically disposable. I think the majority of the cost was the cast metal casing. By comparison, a Vox wah would have been about $50.

Sorry, I don't know of any cheap clones out there but I'm sure there would be some.


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

I was hoping there might be a Dano pedal that was similar, or something.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Sadly, no, despite the fact that there is no shortage of pedals based on the FF design. Have you considered a BYOC?


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

Yeah, it seems a little pricey for a kit.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I'll be in Toronto for the Vanier Cup / Grey Cup weekend, and downtown on Friday the 23rd, doing some component shopping. If you're up for doing the rest of the work yourself, I can whip up a working board for you, and you can do all the machining of the box and installing. I have a big batch of germanium trannies I can test and pick from. Let me know if that appeals to you.


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

mhammer said:


> I'll be in Toronto for the Vanier Cup / Grey Cup weekend, and downtown on Friday the 23rd, doing some component shopping. If you're up for doing the rest of the work yourself, I can whip up a working board for you, and you can do all the machining of the box and installing. I have a big batch of germanium trannies I can test and pick from. Let me know if that appeals to you.


Thanks, PM sent.


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

A big Thank You to mhammer who went out of his way to provide me with an economical solution to my Fuzzface lust. He is a gentleman and a pedal scholar.
I just tried it and it sounds great! I can't wait to get it in a box and finished.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

You're more than welcome, Jeff.

Fuzzes can be such a personal taste. Glad it sounds good with your own rig.

Just got back in from the big smoke. Once I get unpacked, I'll direct you to some good resources on how to finish wiring it up.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Mark is the man!


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

Great!:thanks5qx:


mhammer said:


> You're more than welcome, Jeff.
> 
> Fuzzes can be such a personal taste. Glad it sounds good with your own rig.
> 
> Just got back in from the big smoke. Once I get unpacked, I'll direct you to some good resources on how to finish wiring it up.


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

He sure is!:rockon2:


sulphur said:


> Mark is the man!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

No, no, no. Chad Kackert is THE MAN. I'm "the guy".
Here's a useful link for ya, Jeff: http://www.diystompboxes.com/wiki/index.php?title=DIY_FAQ#TRUE_BYPASS_AND_SWITCHING

Pick a suitable spot on the white wire from the in jack, and cut. The piece from the jack goes to pin 2 (as per drawing below), and the piece from the board goes to pin 1. Cut the blue wire from the volume pot to output jack in a similar fashion. Jack part goes to pin 5, pot wire to pin 4. Bob's your uncle.

Just one VERY big caution to avoid the heartbreak of wonky switching. If too much heat is applied to solder lugs on a stompswitch, the grease inside the switch liquifies and ends up coating and insulating the contacts. It doesn't "break" anything, but makes them either intermittent or nonconductive. If that happens, you CAN pry the tabs and clean the grease off the contacts, but that's a nuisance. Better to follow safe procedure up front and avid the problem in the first place.

So, make sure your wire is tinned, and the solder lugs are tinned, to speed up soldering. Leave some time between applying heat to any single switch lug, or use a pair of needle nose pliers or other devices to "soak up" heat and cool the switch off, before applying heat to another solder lug.


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

Thanks again, mhammer.


mhammer said:


> No, no, no. Chad Kackert is THE MAN. I'm "the guy".
> Here's a useful link for ya, Jeff: http://www.diystompboxes.com/wiki/index.php?title=DIY_FAQ#TRUE_BYPASS_AND_SWITCHING
> 
> Pick a suitable spot on the white wire from the in jack, and cut. The piece from the jack goes to pin 2 (as per drawing below), and the piece from the board goes to pin 1. Cut the blue wire from the volume pot to output jack in a similar fashion. Jack part goes to pin 5, pot wire to pin 4. Bob's your uncle.
> ...


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

My pleasure.

Incidentally, I included a terminating resistor on the input of the circuit so that you wouldn't get switch-popping. Normally, if you have a capacitor on the input, and completely disconnect it when bypassing, when you engage the pedal again, the sudden connection of that free end of the cap results in the stored charge having a way to go somewhere, and it DOES, producing an impulse and audible "pop". The 1meg resistor you'll see between the input (white) wire and ground (where the red and green wires go to) allows the input cap to drain off between when the effect is in and out of circuit. A common solution to a common problem. One can use a larger-value resistor, but generally the larger the value of the input cap, the more charge it can store, so the easier you have to make it for that charge to drain off easily. If the cap was, say .1uf, I'd be content to use 2.2M or 2.7M, but since the cap is 2.2uf, I needed to go lower. You don't want to go TOO low because that can load down the input too. So, most folks will adopt 1M as a reasonable compromise between accelerating drain-off and minimizing loading.

You'll note that the output doesn't need any such terminating resistor because the output cap always has a path to ground, via the volume pot.

Some folks will use the appropriate terminating resistors, but still find a pop. That can often stem from the use of a status LED connected to the switch. The sudden connection of the LED to the power supply produces an sudden current draw, which results in a spike on the power line, that shows up as an audible pop. 

There are a variety of ways to cure that. One is to simply use an ultra-bright LED. This will produce acceptable brightness with much less current. So, where a standard LED on a BOss pedal might have a 2k2 resistor between the LED and the power line, an ultrabright might let you get away with 15k-18k or more (higher resistance decreases the amount of current drawn) and still have a status LED bright enough to see under stage conditions.

A second way is to use an arrangement that introduces some lag to the lighting up of the LED. Jack Orman has a nice little lab-note about it on his web-site: http://www.muzique.com/lab/led.htm


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## keefsdad (Feb 7, 2006)

Wow, you sure know your stuff. I don't think I'll bother with an LED, but that's good to know. Hopefully I'll be putting it together next week.


mhammer said:


> My pleasure.
> 
> Incidentally, I included a terminating resistor on the input of the circuit so that you wouldn't get switch-popping. Normally, if you have a capacitor on the input, and completely disconnect it when bypassing, when you engage the pedal again, the sudden connection of that free end of the cap results in the stored charge having a way to go somewhere, and it DOES, producing an impulse and audible "pop". The 1meg resistor you'll see between the input (white) wire and ground (where the red and green wires go to) allows the input cap to drain off between when the effect is in and out of circuit. A common solution to a common problem. One can use a larger-value resistor, but generally the larger the value of the input cap, the more charge it can store, so the easier you have to make it for that charge to drain off easily. If the cap was, say .1uf, I'd be content to use 2.2M or 2.7M, but since the cap is 2.2uf, I needed to go lower. You don't want to go TOO low because that can load down the input too. So, most folks will adopt 1M as a reasonable compromise between accelerating drain-off and minimizing loading.
> 
> ...


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