Fuzzface

[Driver Blues]

What's the difference between all the Fuzzfaces? I've got a red "Dallas Arbiter England" that belonged to my brother and I was wondering how this one stacks up with the rest of the bunch?

 

[jeremy]

depends on what year its from for one thing. the big red ones should be germanium, but im not sure what transistors they use. there isnt much to a real fuzzface circuit, and there are lots of versions out there that sound different. some are brighter, some have more gain, some clean up better with the volume on the guitar, some sound smoother... if you open it up you should be able to tell what transistors are in there

 

[GuitarStv]

The fuzz face is a really simple circuit, where every component can change how it sounds. Especially with older ones, component drift (as well as sloppy tolerances) makes them sound different from unit to unit.

 

[ehdwuld]

Josh Scott at JHS has a video about just this

I think it's this one

https://youtu.be/DUUl0Y1qvuM?si=EuGJZYBpTva8NbfM

 

[Chistopher]

It's also worth noting that on the older FF's, capacitor tolerances were 20%, pot tolerances were 30%, and resistor tolerances were 10%. And that's when they were new. Probably not so much the newer ones, but each individual can sound very different than another one in the same product line. Germanium FF's even change sound depending on the ambient temperature

 

[GuitarStv]

Yep, temperatures really noticeably change the sound of a germanium fuzz face.

 

[jeremy]

for sure. a bias knob helps a fair amount but they definitely sound their best between 65-75 F

 

[idsnowdog]

You can easily increase the output of a Fuzz Face by 50% by changing the position of two resistors. https://www.muzique.com/news/increase-fuzz-face-output/