They don't come much more straightforward than this - a Dick Denney design, the Colorsound Fuzz Box is a one-knob silicon fuzz face with a couple of value tweaks, but other than that, you know what you're getting here.
This is the D*A*M / Macari's reissue layout.
COLORSOUND FUZZ BOX - 0.15" VERO LAYOUT
There's a few comments below regarding values - yes, they can vary a bit in the wild. I think the different Macari's releases have slight tweaks to some resistor or transistor values. From what I gather, this is normally the bias resistors on Q2 (2k2 and 82 ohm as shown above).
There's also a bit of debate on the topic at FSB
The Colorsound Hammer House Fuzz Box uses what looks to be 5k6 and a 270 ohm resistor, so there is some room for movement or experimentation in this area. I've certainly needed to change values occasionally to get the best results out of some vintage RCA silicon transistors that I was using.
Increasing the 82 ohm resistor lifts the output a bit. With the 82 it's a bit above unity running full tilt.
Same again but with a 120 ohm resistor - you can see it has a bit more beef now compared to the input signal, despite only having an extra 38 ohms of resistance.
Hi, there's many sources suggesting that the 82R resistor should be subbed to 820R. Have you tried this and/or do you know if there's other differences between the circuits with 82R and 820R?
ReplyDeleteHello - what sources? I'd be interested to see.
DeleteI've made a few with 82 ohms, and they sounded fine. I'm sure some transistors might bias better with an 820, and maybe some were made with 820?? It's only one resistor, so I'd suggest making it and trying it with both.
Pretty sure I've also seen one from the nineties with a 1k resistor here as well.
I just looked at Macari's and the Hammer House Fuzz has a 5k6 resistor instead of 2k2, so I would say values vary in the wild.
DeleteDirtbox Layouts here https://dirtboxlayouts.blogspot.com/2019/06/colorsound-fuzz-box.html and Guitar FX Layouts here https://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2013/04/1-knob-fuzz-bonanza.html suggest using a 820R. In addition to the added power filtering and polarity protection might there be something else that I'm missing perhaps?
ReplyDeleteOK, I take my layouts directly from the Sola Sound ones made by D*A*M. You can see the resistor values.
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