Indeed, this first version was nice, but one main drawback that was feedbacked to me is that the switch was activated on release, which was not always very intuitive or easy to handle. Moreover, I wanted to add a "temporary" bypass option in the Montagne Tremolo.
In this post, I am going to explain a bit the new code and to show you how I did it.
If you have not read my post about Relay Bypass, I highly recommend you to read it before reading this post. All the basics of microcontrollers are presented there.
Yesterday, I received an email from a beginner that decided to make his first guitar pedal. I always enjoy this kind of emails and answering questions is part of the game. This time, he asked me a question that I had several times: "my circuit is noisy, could it be a ground loop?"
Ground loops are part of the legends and myths around DIY guitar pedals. When asking about noise in a setup, it is the most common answer, and is supposed to be the main cause for hum, hiss or other noises that you can have on your first circuits.
So I decided to write a post about it, starting from the begining:
Today, I am going to introduce the concept of Development Hell: it is a special place where projects stay when they need a lot of fine tuning before properly work. Unfortunately, I have a few projects that are still burning there, like the one I am going to present today.
It is a multi-fuzz machine! I always felt that a lot of Fuzz are quite a "one trick pony", they have a very characteristic sound that can be modulated by mods, but still sounds "like a fuzz face", "like a big muff"...etc. Moreover, fuzz are usually quite simple circuits, and I find that allowing one spot per fuzz on a pedalboard can quickly be space-inefficient.
So I decided to create a multi fuzz pedal, with no more than 3 different fuzz inside : a germanium Fuzz Face, a Muff Fuzz and a Companion Fuzz, which should provide the 3 main "flavors" of fuzz in this world: a classic warm, soft fuzz face, a "chainsaw", very raspy Companion Fuzz, and a compressed and heavy Muff Fuzz.
On top of that, I added an upper octave generator that allows to combine it with any fuzz, with a potentiometer to adjust the amount of octave. It is based on the Green Ringer circuit, which is a small, but efficient analog octaver circuit.
And of course, I made it fit in a 125B enclosure...
Let's face it: your good old soldering iron is not always the best pal to work with.
I had some troubles with mine: no support to put it when I busy doing something else than soldering, which can be quite dangerous if it falls or burn something. Moreover, the power cord was quite short and not very flexible, so it was not always easy to find a good "spot" for it in order to be perfectly comfortable. Finally, it takes a long time before getting hot enough to solder, and 30W is sometimes a bit low to solder big potentiometer or jack legs.
So I decided to invest a bit in a soldering station.
After reading a lot on the web, I have found this little gem: the Hakko FX888D, a Japanese soldering station that you can find for $96 on Amazon.
The Maestro Fuzz-Tone is simply the first fuzz ever! I felt a bit like an archeologist when inspecting this effect ! Someone gave me this one for repair, experiencing some issues with the built-in jack and the switch. Here it is:
It is quite in good shape for a 50 years old guitar pedal! The pots allowed me to date it, from 1966. There is a serial number as well, but I do not really know how they work. I think each serial correspond to the number of the unit. Thus, the lower the serial, the older the pedal is. This fuzz is not that big for a vintage fuzz, especially compared to the 1973 Supa Tonebender that I had on my bench before.
At the front of the pedal, there are two controls: Volume and Attack (translate by "Fuzz"). It is the second version of the Fuzz-tone, the FZ1-A. The two knobs are also original, and are the same "reflector" knobs used on vintage Les Paul.
Indeed, the pedal was made by Gibson in the same factory as the Les Pauls, in Kalamazoo, Michigan! Thus, a lot of parts are shared with vintage Les Pauls: the knobs, potentiometers and some low value capacitors. I believe that it allowed Gibson to lower a bit their prices, selling this pedal for $40 at the time (which should be around $300 today though...). Gibson even included it in some bass produced at that time, like the Gibson EB-0F, Gibson EB-SF 1250 and Epiphone Newport EB-SF!
Inside, the circuit is dead-simple. Three pnp transistors, wire on an eyelet bakelite board create the saturation. They are Motorola 2n2614, old germanium transistors. The original FZ1 used germanium 1n270 transistors, whereas the FZ1-A version used Motorola 2n2614. It has also old carbon-comp resistors, from the sixties!
The electrolytic capacitors had been replaced (very common, old electrolytic transistors tend to leak, and are often replaced in vintage builds like this one), the yellow Suntan capacitor is not original as well. Apart from that, all the rest is original! It feels quite extraordinary to discover a perfectly preserved circuit like this one when opening the pedal, it feels a bit like opening Toutankhamon's tumb!
Close up on one of the transistors:
The fuzz has only one input, and a jack allows you to connect it directly to your amp. Well, it is one the first guitar pedals, so pedalboard were not really an option at that time!
History of the Maestro Fuzz-Tone
The Maestro Fuzz-Tone FZ1 was the first fuzz pedal ever! In the early 50s, blues guitarists started to push their amps to make it distort and create a weird, unusual guitar sound: saturated guitar sound. Some players even made holes in the speaker to make the distortion even greater! In 1961, Grady Martin bought a faulty transformer creating a weird distortion, and recorded a song called "The Fuzz" with it. The name "Fuzz" was born!
The song became really famous, and many artists did want to use the same sound. However, the transformer died shortly after the song was recorded. Glenn Snody, the original owner of the transformer and Revis Hobbs, a radio engineer, wanted to recreate the sound of the transformer using transistors. And this is how the Fuzz-Tone circuit was created! Snody and Hobbs showed it to Gibson, who developed a prototype and commercialized a first batch of 5000 units in 1962, selling it for retail price of $40 at the time.
The original Fuzz-Tone advertisement is quite amusing, they say it can sounds like an organ or mellow woodwinds... I would rather say: a huge screaming dirty nasty sound that will crush your ears lol! Here is the record:
I do not know how they made the recording, I cannot reproduce any of these sounds at home! This record feels like listening to the really birth of rock...
The Fuzz-Tone was quite a commercial failure: besides the 5000 units shipped in 1962, Gibson did not sell any other fuzz pedal until 1965! Indeed, in 1965, the Rolling Stones issued "Satisfaction". Keith Richards did use the FZ1 on the records to make the main riff. It was used to emulate the sound of a horn, because the Stones did not have horns in their band at the time.
The Fuzz-Tone became then really famous (the hype for guitar effects was already there :) ), and Gibson sold more than 40 000 units later! It also inspired many other manufacturers that begin to create other fuzz circuits like the Tonebender, Fuzz Face...etc.
Versions and other models
The FZ1 was declined in several models. The FZ1 was quite a commercial failure, and Gibson did not make more of them... It is also the more collectible version fo the FZ-1, as only around 5000 units were manufactured (less than the Klon Centaur!). You can distinguish between these four version by looking at the front of the enclosure. Here are the four main versions of the FZ1 (spot the differences!):
In 1965, the Rolling Stones made it famous, and Gibson issued another model, the FZ1-A. It did not use the same transistors (2n2614 instead of the original 2n270), and used only one AA battery!
There was a few change to the circuit: the two 20uF coupling electrolytic capacitors were replaced by 1uF ones, and the second collector resistor was changed to 10k instead of 1.5k, maybe to compensate the lower voltage. The name of the model is clearly written on the front of the enclosure, with "FZ-1A" instead of "FZ-1".
It was first manufactured in the Kalamazoo factory in Michigan, and then, after 1968 (not so sure about the exact date though), FZ1-A were later manufactured in Lincolnwood, Illinois. The location of the factory is written below the Gibson logo. The serial numbers are also higher (see below).
Finally, the FZ1-A was a reissue in 2002, exactly reproducing the circuit and the enclosure, with the same transistors! Fortunately for us, it was manufactured in Nashville, Tennessee, which is written just below the Gibson logo. Also, the reissues do not have a serial number engraved.
The FZ1 also had successors. Later on, Maestro issued the FZ1-B, which uses silicon transistors. The circuit is thus quite different, powered by a 9V battery, and the Fuzz does not sound quite the same. It is less saturated, and a bit buzzy. It is pictured on the left here:
Later on, the FZ1-S model was issued in a huge enclosure, with a very cool looking metallic circle. It has three controls, and a switch for the tone control: you have guessed it, it has almost nothing to do with the original Fuzz Tone! It is closer to a Fender Blender or an Univox Super Fuzz (no octave though).
Serial numbers of the FZ1: date your pedal easily
Sometimes pots have been replaced, and the pedal can be hard to date. I tried to decipher the year of each serial number. This is not an official statement, however, I have emailed Gibson about it, maybe they have more infos to give me. In the meantime, if you are the lucky owner of a FZ1, you can give me the serial number and the date of your pedal. Thus, we can complete the table!
Model
Year
Factory
Units shipped
Min-Max
serial seen
Serial
between ?
FZ1
1962
Kalamazoo, Michigan
5461
870-4628
1-5461
FZ1-A
1965
Kalamazoo, Michigan
3454
6174-?
5462-8916
1966
Kalamazoo, Michigan
20943
10665-21354
8917-29860
1967
Kalamazoo, Michigan
6625
22933
29861-36485
1968
Kalamazoo, Michigan
?
42970
36486-42970
FZ1-A
Lincolnwood, Illinois
?
43762-44537
43762-44537
FZ1-B
Lincolnwood, Illinois
?
No serial number
no serial
FZ1-A Reissue
2002
Nashville, Tennessee
?
No serial number
no serial
The easiest way to do it is to do these steps:
Find the name of the model (FZ1 or FZ1-A?)
Find the place it was made (Kalamazoo, Lincolnwood or Nashville?)
Read the serial number
If your pedal is not in the serial numbers indicated above, open it and look at the potentiometers. The date should be on it, like on vintage guitars.
Circuit analysis: how does it work?
As mentioned before, the circuit is based around three transistors:
Like usual, let's divide it in functional parts:
It has a negative polarity because of the PNP transistors, and use only one AA battery, so 1.5V only!
Input stage
The input stage is basically a small buffer that also cuts some bass.
First, there is a coupling capacitor of 0.01uF. It avoid parasitic DC current to enter the circuit, and also filter some low frequencies: you loose a bit of bass. A 1M resistor connected to ground prevents noises when the pedal is switched on.
The first transistor is wired in emitter follower (not really common in guitar pedals), in order to adapt the impedance of the guitar signal. The emitter is indeed connected directly to the power supply. Thus, it has a gain of around unity, and does not amplify the signal.
There is another electrolytic coupling capacitor after this capacitor.
Saturation stage
This is where the fuzz happens! A transistor is pushed beyond its limits and saturates because of the gain that it too high.
The bias of the base of the transistor is defined by R4, R5 and R6. The fuzz knob is wired as a variable resistor, in parallel to R6. So when the Fuzz knobs changes value, the bias of the base of the transistor varies. Basically, the more you turn the "Fuzz" potentiometer to the right, the higher is the current going through the base of Q2.
Basically, there is too much current going to Q2, which creates saturation: the fuzz is there!
Note that the emitter of the transistor is wired directly to ground to make the gain of Q2 maximum! 10k is also quite a high value for the collector resistor, and it helps increasing the saturation even more. If you replace it by a bigger value, you can increase the saturation even more!
C3 is a coupling capacitor that prevents any parasitic current from the collector to go in the circuit.
Output stage
This stage amplifies the signal and can even boost it a bit to get a nice volume output.
It is very simple : the Q3 transistor amplifies the signal a lot (and saturates as well : there is no emitter resistor, plus a high value collector resistor = very high gain!).
The C4 capacitor is a coupling capacitor that prevents parasitic DC current to go out. C4 also cuts some bass, as it is quite a low value (10nF). If you use a bigger value, the pedal will be more bassy and muddy. I actually like it with a higher value, it really changes the character of the fuzz.
Finally, a volume knob sends more or less signal to ground. If you turn the potentiometer to the right, the resistance increase, and more signal goes out the circuit instead of going to ground: higher volume output! It is the same control that is used in the Fuzz Face.
There it is! I hope that this post was helpful and fun to read! If you have any remark or question, post a comment below!
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Finding good electronics suppliers is a key issue when building guitar effects professionally. Indeed, they play a huge role in traceability and quality of the components (where the components come from and what they are exactly), and also the price of these components. Sometimes, they can also add delays if they are bad with handling orders and shipping it quickly.
Goods electronics suppliers are the root cause of a good build quality for a pedal builder.
With my crowdfunding project, I have an intermediary position. I cannot order directly from manufacturers (because I would have to order thousands of units at least), but I can order from electronics wholesalers!
Already 95% of the components have been ordered, and I already received quite a lot of parts! Here is a picture of the switches I got this morning (more pictures will follow in a next post):
