Built a fuzz face clone with silicon transistors and it was night and day vs the germanium one I did 10 years ago

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2 Comments

Exactly what happened to me a few years back when i swapped out old parts for modern ones. The silicon version just sounded cleaner and more aggressive, like it had more punch in the midrange compared to the germanium one which felt kind of wooly and soft even with new parts. Germanium always has that low end sag that i sometimes miss for bluesy stuff but the silicon one cuts through a mix so much better. Did you try any biasing tricks to tame the silicon harshness? I found dropping the collector voltage to around 4.5 volts helped a ton.

river_rivera4510d ago

Oh man, yeah I went through the exact same thing. I ended up swapping a 1k resistor on the emitter for a 470 ohm and it smoothed out that harsh top end without losing the clarity. Also threw in a 100pF cap across the collector and base which tamed the fizz without killing the bite. The lower collector voltage trick worked for me too, I aimed for 4.2v and it stopped sounding like a pissed off hornet.