Fuzz Face Circuit Analysis 

This is a dad trying to maintain his sanity with guitar electronics.

Finally someone who explains basic simple things in clear language.❤ Thank you so much!!

Dads rule. I'm thankful you found time to follow your passion and educate others like me. Thanks for the info

Waiting for your next video, "Crybaby Circuit Analysis, With Actual Crying Baby"... ...just kidding. Great info. Thanks!

Just found your channel through this video. Wanted to say I truly enjoyed both the thorough breakdown of the FF as well as the life happening in the background! Godspeed, my man! Looking forward to watching the rest of your catalog.

I have kids, you are a brave man hitting the record button with the little ones around :D Id go 50k on the bias pot for Q2 (plus the minimum resistor in series), I've found some transistors (leaky ones) tend to require more voltage on the collector to saturate. Make it a 'bias' control on the front of the pedal so you don't have to worry about temperature shifting on the transistors as well. Good video mate!

7:47 props to your kids for that grimy mic distortion effect, that was awesome, it must run in the family :D

thank you for these video, im just getting into this hobby and ive found your videos a huge help and i just wanted to tell you thank you. im planning on building a couple fuzz pedals soon one of them will be stock NOS parts the other will be modern components full of these mods your talking about in your videos.

Love this video for getting ideas for making mods

Thanks for this. Gonna wire up my first fuzz clone kit but I wanted to add some flair, I think I will use a couple of your ideas.

Did you wrapped the baby in bubble wrap man? :-)

I have built a double transistors (piggyback) with 100k pot on+9v as a Bias control Input I built a custom 1958 value amp tone stack using what capacitors I had. 100uf +70uf(?) In parallel with 47if and 17uf in parallel. Gain control to emitter Output 47uf gives mids. The tone stack and other mods make it a versatile high gain pedal. More HM2 than straight Fuzz and with the 100k pot on the emitter it goes from almost clean overdrive to nasty mid/treble boost fuzz. Thanks for the video, I really enjoyed it. Cheers

Its fitting that you used a tonebender mk 1.5 schematic to explain the fuzz face. Dallas Arbiter designed the Fuzz Face "based" on the tb 1.5 (it's the same circuit).

Awesome video man. Thank you so much!

Thanks so much for this video it’s brilliant. I’ve just started building pedals and I made a fuzz face and a dam meathead clone. I now want to mod the meathead similar to what you suggest with the bias pot. Thanks again Klay brilliant work!

Fantastic job, all around!

Klay , man voice of a your angel 😇🙏 ( ha, ha), didn't expect in a video of a Fuzz F. Topic but your method , man you are great father and electronic engineer Teacher! Please hello to your angel and all family members,🙏❤️☮️🎸🌞 Salute from 🇭🇷 Croatia of Ana.😺😸😽😽👪.

@Kley De Jong, i was wanting to tell you think you my fuzz face sounds amazing the gain is perfect . its everything i was hoping for, i could not of done it with out your video helping me to understand the circuit a bit better. i even decided to make a Univox Super Fuzz next to my fuzz face on my bread board i got it working but i still have work to get the octave to pop out a bit more and the gain on my super is a little on the low side.

Very helpful video. Thanks!

great analysis, this helps me tremendously, thanks a lot :)

Credits to mom for that rescue operation @14:32!! Thanks for sharing and summarizing all your tips for tweaking this classic circuit!!!

a great video explaining the fuzz face, kind of hilarious you got marauded by an army of tiny children halfway.

Dude, your tone is safe. You are so good at this. Im like so impressed. Amazed and snappy subscription!

Very cute with the baby... This is the best video on fuzz I have seen to date. Thank you!

Great video thanks man!

What type of pot would you use on the input cap to blend the caps? Also would you use the same for the output cap? Thanks

Could you please make an analysis video of the MKII Tonebender?

good for me thank you upload

Thank you!

Hi, did you ever breadboard a Tonebebder. Thank you for all your great educational videos!!!

Hi. thnks for you explanaition. I do have a question. Changing the of the first capacitor will change the amount of bass frequencies, correct? With a lower values I'll have less bass frequencies? My question is: This will lower the overall bass freqs of the pedal or will just cut some of the muddy low end? will the high freqs stay untouched or will be affected as well? i'm asking because i like my fuzz with the volume down on guitar but when i turn my guitar vol upp to 10 i get that wall of fuzz and et lost in the mix. I would like to get rid of some of that low end. Thanks!

Instead of a switch, you can put a pot in every resistor spot where noon is stock value so you got cut and boost. I'm sourcing parts to do just that... Add a diode in parallel somewhere.. just make sure values are within tolerance. And if you go with a higher rated component instead of the minimum allowed voltage you can add to the mojo. It hold more magnetic field and takes a big longer to fully discharge (even tho it's super fast and happens almost instantly, it slows the discharge down slightly. It DRAINS not empties but on nano second levels) Awesome breakdown of the fuzz face. I'm building my own, gonna do all the old GE styles of dirt pedals but add a high voltage tube along with the GE black glass/metal can tubes... Maybe some sun mini tubes... 12ax7 preamp pedals are my jamb so Doing ALOT of research. Watched at least 100 hours of just videos about tubes and tube containing products of all kinds and the same in just The old RCA bibles.. transistors maybe got an entire years worth of time, I'm guessing 1000 probably over the last couple years.. Lots of old amp footage... Lots of crazy ideas to try out. People say the darndest stuff In videos and it leads to big things... I might be able to make a successful FX company out of all the crazy stuff I thought up. Can you do a half hour long video on Tonebenders.... Start with the first one and spend a little time talk about what that last transistor does... Please mention big muff. It's a Tonebender based circuit but must be at least mentioned. With a couple mods, the big muff can do fuzz face but more refined I fell since its got 2 extra tranny's. Make Q2 a Darlington and adjust caps/resistors to bias the increase gain. That config should be Considered the FUZZ FACE 1.5 since it's technically 3 tranny's but like backwards of the TBs circuits!! Love it when a demo gets the gears rolling. Thanks for the demo. Greatly appreciate you man! Be safe. Later

Sorted my pedal had the bypass switch was 90 degrees out , sounds great

did you use different collector Resistor for Q1 because you are not using the original AC128 germanium Transistor ?

What value pot should be used for blending the input capacitors. i used a 500k and it lost volume at 12 o clock when both were blended equally.

Hi , what happen of you change the 100k in the feedback to lower or higher value , any experience you can share..

I’ve seen this video in the past. It’s still hilarious.

Have you tried a 20k c or a curve? I’ve found that some lfo circuits respond better for their rate on a log or anti log so that may help that bias

Hi, New sub greetings from Costa Rica

Easy device to remember bass/cap relation: the bigger the #, the more 'oof' (phonetically pronouncing the microfarad abbr.) Want more bass? Up the 'oof'! I know it's not always microfarads...... but you get it.

Great video! I have a question. If you add the SPDT with the capacitors, you can remove the 5uf input capacitor?

i'm looking at this to help with a science fair project. what if i replaced the pots with photoresistors? imma try that. ngl that pedal would be a trainwreck to use

Covers the main mods on a FF. I'ld like to add one remark about the input cap. Just as the output cap increases or decreases bass through, the input cap does just that. The percieved mids are what remains. It is not boosting mids though. Passive components only take away, they "shave off". Of course with a high gain device, enough signal remains. Still, it is interesting to mention that a very very tiny cap value will give a very thin shrill signal since it takes away so much it even takes away the mids as well. At 0.05µf one will have a treble booster style of tone shaping and will have nothing of muddy flabby fuzziness whatsoever. Lower than that is way beyond pleasant imho. Volume roll off effects on the other hand will accentuate what is done in the cap which means low guitar volume will have a thin sound. Those "flubby to clean" guitar volume effects are so connected to a fuzz face that I would not go low on the input cap.

Do you know some good literature to understand these circuits and how they work?

He kept a serious face in the entire time. Didn’t raise his voice. Pretty great to see that from a father

If using a pot to blend between the input caps, what level would you suggest for the pot? Does it even matter?

Great video. Does the -9v simply mean swapping over you positive and negative wires from your psu?

I have a hard time understanding how the potentiometers are wired when they are in the line going straight to ground, as the, "Attack" one is in this scheme. It would seem to me there is nowhere or nothing to wire to the output of the pot..? Could someone help me?

Hi, Im putting together a arbiter 1st issue board "FUZZFACE" Im using all the standard resistors Can i put a 50k trimmer under the board from the 8.2 resistor to the collector of the transistor to adjust the voltage. my goal is to have the top of the board look unmodified. will that trimmer work out. please help me with this thanks

the blend pot on the input sounds awesome - would you then take the two outs from the caps on either side and solder them both directly to the base of Q1?

Kool!

fun with kley,kids,and klones! lol

Why does lowering the uF capacitor cut the bass?

Why is the polarity of the 5 uF cap this way. Must it not be the other way around, plus at the base?

Actually, it's a Tonebender but the 2 transistor version is called fuzz face. It doesn't have the 3rd tranny interaction so it responds different enough to warrent it's own sub genre. They were all basically invented by the same 3 or 4 people working together at the same in the same room. Fuzz face came out first actually but was originally the 3 tranny version known as Tonebender. I believe I read it's actually the circuit that broke In the console. Just without 99.9999% of the original console boards parts. The TB 1.5 is a special unit. It actually predates the mk1 TB. It was found by a curious player and it's said it wasn't a FF but it wasn't a TB so the 2 tranny 1.5 is it's own special thing. 1 company made all of them until the smiley face came out, which is a stripped down Tonebender, enough so that it gets it's own category under dirt pedals. Get longer taper pots with extra turn radius, change the pot taper, try all of them, install a left handed version of each style. Install them backwards and go up 75-250 higher pot values if you wanna pull new tones out a Fuzz Face and get the circuit to do new things. Put an inductor cap in there. A cap will work as a resistor as well. Some old harmonic Percolators came with an input resistor and no cap or cap after. Mostly just a resistor to the tranny. Such a wonder circuit... Both of them!! Love the kid being a kid in the back ground.... Don't apologize for it.... Ever!!

thanx for sharing.. title would be..how to hush children .. Greetingsfrom Peru.

Just made up a fuzz face kit pedal bit disappointed won’t work just hums when connected 🙁

I only have +9v, what should I do?

Is the kid OK Kley? She didn't cut her tongue?

That is a mu (Greek letter) not a u, of course.

i wonder why he didn't edit out all the children's play noise. and also, tweak the audio setting

who gave the kids the plastic bags? :D great video thank you!

i didnt get the circuit analysis very well it could be more detailed for newbies like me.

Does the cap on the fuzz pot have to be a 25uf? I have all the components but that one!

KLEY DE JONG, Any kinds of modifications I can do to to a fuzz face pedal to get a variety and a bunch of different kinds of glassy tones? Does SRV guitar sound he is playing in a metal can? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AGPx-ekqZEo.html I'm not sure when turning down the volume pot on the guitar (NO treble bleed circuit since SRV never added one ) it changes the impedance of the guitars output impedance to the Fuzz pedals input impedance and this is what is cause this Texas Glassy metallic tinny resonance SRV tone. So it can be an impedance mismatching or impedance degradation that is cause the fuzz pedal to be a "specialized frequency EQ pedal" and not a fuzz pedal. Have you compared the schematics from the stock 60's fuzz face and dunlop fuzz face pedals against the Cesar Diaz square face pedal to see why it only happens when using the Cesar Diaz square face pedal and "does not" happen using a stock 60's fuzz face or dunlop fuzz face pedal. When I turn my strats guitar volume down on a stock 60's fuzz face or dunlop fuzz face pedals it only will give a clean hendrix the wind cries mary clean tone or little wing clean tone. It "does not" give that Texas glassy metallic tinny resonance SRV tone Here is a youtube video of a guy using a Analog Mans Sunface pedal with his strat volume turned down ( no treble bleed circuit added in ) and its creating that Texas Glassy metallic tinny resonance SRV tone. The EE designer question is to narrow down what really is causing a fuzz pedal to create a Texas Glassy metallic tinny resonance SRV tone 1.) is it the fuzz pedal input impedance? 2.) is it the transistor types and part numbers? 3.) is it the front end capacitor values and resistor values? 4.) Or what really is it? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C6LEjf3S8tY.html

That was hilarious with the kid . Good info too.

where is the switch?

Baby was not impressed with the variable resistor mod. 😊

Think of the children sound as distortion

Edit, dude.

Great video, +1 for screaming children

I am confused because I never see pots on these schematics, but... fuzz faces (and most pedals) have pots

Can you wait to when the kids are sleeping? It's a shit to learn somenthing with this mess...

You're "Kid-ding" me, Right??? I'd try this again without the background distraction.

Had to turn it off... should have edited all of that nonsense out. Kids are great though.

This is by far the biggest train wreck of a video I have ever wasted my time on.