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[floydmoline]

yeah i knew what you meant i was new to it at one time myself :-D, Si fuzz pedals are just as fiddly as Ge boxes, the designs of fuzz pedals in general is the reason, in a fuzz you really aren't boosting the signal to clipping like in a amp or a diode clipper, a fuzz pedal you are saturating one of the transistors in the circuit that is kind of what gives fuzzes their unique sound.

long story short a fuzz pedal is picky regardless of  whether it's Si or Ge, which is fine as long as you aren't picky about how it sounds :-D

[tidwop]

i need a heavy distortion pedal, how much you charge, iam being serious btw   

[characterzero]

Just wondering where do you buy your parts?  I was about to use pedalpartsplus.com because they have good looking prices, especially on true bypass switches, but they didn't have all of the transistor and capacitor values I needed.  What about going to Radio Shack for some components?  Does anyone know how their selection and prices are?  I'm just thinking it might be helpful to have someone who knows what they're talking about there when I get parts in case I have questions. 

[floydmoline]

radio shack is a hole in the earth...... their prices are out-rageous on parts.....

http://www.smallbearelec.com/StoreFront.bok
Http://www.mouser.com

[MrSandMan]

radio shack is a hole in the earth...... their prices are out-rageous on parts.....

http://www.smallbearelec.com/StoreFront.bok
Http://www.mouser.com

quoted for truth

[characterzero]

radio shack is a hole in the earth...... their prices are out-rageous on parts.....

http://www.smallbearelec.com/StoreFront.bok
Http://www.mouser.com

quoted for truth

Thanks for those links, I totally forgot about the SmallBear site because pedalpartsplus had $4.50 3pdt switches, where the smallbear ones are $10.  Their other prices look reasonable though, so thanks  .

I sort of figured Radioshack would suck, but the optimist in me wanted to believe otherwise... oh well.  Getting stuff in the mail is always exciting to me anyways. 

[floydmoline]

radio shack is local, and they seriously do take advantage of that fact....

yeah the TPDT switches at small bear a bit steep, but an LED is a convenience, not required and IMO better left off unless youa re powering via AC since a distortion box alone draws minimal current and a battery will last forever in one, add an LED and it lasts all of about 72 hours :-P unleeess you really know how to tune an LED driver they EAT batteries quickly

[characterzero]

Ehh, I've got a 1Spot adapter with a daisy chain, so I don't need to worry about battery time too much.  I mean if I was using batteries because of a gig, I'm sure I could get by with a mere 72 hours  .  But yeah, I think I'll buy most of my stuff from smallbear now.

[floydmoline]

problem with all the parts places, some things are cheaper at one than the other, you'd think with all the same suppliers the prices would be similar /shrug

[characterzero]

Just bought parts for my first pedal!  I found someone who substituted some parts from the original schematic and still got good results, so I was able to just use pedalpartsplus for everything.  Now I just have to wait for them in the mail! 

[floydmoline]

what ya building, and what was substitued? :-D always cool to see someone getting a start

[characterzero]

I'm doing this basic "Radioshack Fuzz"  http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=65426.40 (it's down a little bit.

Basically I'm using the subs that "Cardboard Tube Samurai" mentioned a few posts after the schematic.  Basically, after searching I became convinced 120K resistors don't exist.  I got some extra parts/doubles so I can tweak stuff and also make something for a friend.  Hopefully, I'll end up with something that sounds half decent, plus fuzz is a sound I'm completely missing from my arsenal.

Judging by this soundclip from one of the projects that was only using RadioShack parts, it could end up sounding really good.
http://www.filefreak.com/pfiles/49560/RS%20FUZZ.mp3

... ::: gears up to play some sabbathy riffs:::

All in all it's a fairly cheap project, and hopefully it'll pan out well.  I'm doing it with help from a friend who knows a lot more about electronics so, that should help.   

[floydmoline]

yeah for the 120k anything close would work in the feedback loop, more than 110K but less than 200K, 120K is a fairly common value, i use them in place of 150K all the time, because i run out of 150Ks quickly lol..... an advisable mod i would reccomend is replace the 1M output with a 100K - 500K, 1M seems a little high to me, i'd leave the caps where they are..... good they are what i'd use, it'll be a little "wooly" (bassy / full range) with the caps in there, raise the input cap to lower the filters center frequency, i.e. to make it a bass fuzz..... to me a fuzz should be a bit on the bassy side, but i am a tone bender buff, i am not much of a fuzz face kinda guy, the only draw back i can see with that is you have to twiddle the volume on the guitar to vary the input gain.... prolly not a good thing, i'd stick a lower valued pot on the emitter of Q2, i.e. make R4 a 1k or 2K pot. and then get yourself a fancy red round case...... LOL

[characterzero]

Wow, that's for all the advice, it's really helpful especially since my friend who wants one of the fuzzes mainly plays bass. 

And in reference to the cool case, I think the Roger Mayer fuzz cases are by far the coolest design.



However, I'm starting with the typical boring gray rectangle... can't wait, though I'll probably take a while twiddling with the set up before I actually put it together. 

[floydmoline]

yeah those octavia cases are pretty snazzy, i like boxes with non-standard designs, rectangles and and squares are so boring