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Blew $120 on a boutique fuzz kit that sounded like a dying mosquito
Spent an afternoon soldering that fancy Fuzz Face clone from a small builder, plugged it in, and got nothing but thin static. Anyone else had luck with those premium kits or should I stick to my usual stripboard builds?
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lucas_hunt1mo ago
Fuzz Face circuits are super simple but that "dying mosquito" thing sounds like a transistor biasing issue. Did you check if the resistors matched the right hFE range for whatever germanium transistors they used, lol.
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taraj111mo ago
Oh man, I spent like three weeks on a Fuzz Face build last year and it was doing that exact same thing. I finally narrowed it down to the 8.2k collector resistor being way off for the Russian germaniums I used (hFE around 110 if I remember right). Swapped it to a 10k and that dying mosquito sound cleared right up, it turned into a fat, warm fuzz instead. For me, it's always worth measuring the transistors first and then adjusting the resistor values to match, even if the schematic says one thing. Those old circuits are way too touchy for a one-size-fits-all approach, you know?
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