I played a bunch of fuzz faces today

lukedlb

DrCornelius said:

I've just bought the Sonus fuzz face and should have it plugged in and fuzzing away by the weekend. If I remember I'll stick some clips online if anyone is interested 

Bravo, sir. Patrizio is a good builder and the new ones come with 9 volt powe and bias. I prefer the germanium but I have the silicon too which is slightly thinner on the bass and has the secret tone control thing. I wonder if other silicon fuzz lovers have discovered it too. 
I also have the octavium. The axis fuzz is pure bold as love/Spanish castle magic but does not clean up due to the octavium circuitry. But it's certainly worth having. 

dano

Blue Silicon mini fuzz face on my board. Lovely piece of kit. 

suspiciousminds

pj310 said:

@shaunm Great playing bud! I'm assuming you have your fuzz into a crunchy base tone? That's where I found it excelled, when I played through it anyway.

@suspiciousminds where did you get your hands on the transistors from, and how hard a build was that?

@DrCornelius that would be great thanks!

Think they came from germany but tbh the build was quite easy.

DrCornelius

So my Sonus BC108 arrived and I managed to plug it in last night for 25 mins before I had to go out.

Honest first impressions are I'm not sure it's for me !  It's got a bias control which to my ears dulls the fuzz and increases the lower frequencies the further clockwise you turn it, going the other way it gets a bit farty and hissy so I have been leaving this at 12 o'clock .

I quickly tested it with my SG a Suhr classic S and an old Tokai Strat and in each case I got a fantastic sound out of it with the guitar volume rolled off to 8 - very Hendrix .  When the vol is maxed out though the tone suddenly shifts with lots of low end.

My son loves that sound and prefers if over his Muff so it's horses for courses I guess !

I will try and get some sound clips sorted over the weekend in case anyone is interested.

lukedlb

Use the Bias to correct any movement in the transistor due to temperature, humidity, bad vibes. Don't think of it as a tone knob. 12 o'clock should be the correct position, though the bias does give you some alternatives.
I discovered this by chance but it may well be common knowledge though i've never seen such a posting. Silicon transistors have this secret: put your volume at 10 and your tone at zero. something really special happens. at least it does on my strat. as the tone drops, it does what you expect... until it reaches zero when everything goes full on.
unfortunately, this isn't true with germanium.
the 108 sounded great for later hendrix tones but i have to admit that matched against the germanium it loses (the germanium retains a solid (not fat) bottom end). however, i'm going to put it back on my board and try it out again. fuzzes are strange beasts. some days they just sound naff and i have to put it down to atmospheric and emotional conditions. it has to be played with and the amp adjusted accordingly.
btw, the standard order of fuzz then univibe has nothing on vibe then fuzz (then boost/od, etc).

pj310

@lukedlb thanks for that account mate, some very interesting stuff there!