stupid pedal trick...the Scatterbox, npn ge shatterbox

[pinkjimiphoton]

the venerable, old school t-rex fuzz. the one that looks like it should rock,

but sounds like crap.

 

i took a long hard look at the circuit.

 

and found a mistake made back in the 60's.

 

fixed. doth not soundeth like poo.

 

well, i mean it IS fuzz....

 

 

here be video:

 

[video:youtube]

 

here be schematic:

 

http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt137/pinkjimiphoton/SCATTERBOX1SCHEMATIC_zpsda3fb5bd.png

 

i haven't revised the vero yet.

 

i discovered they fucked this circuit up... or at least i believe they did.

i discovered the swell control was what made this pedal sound like dog doo.

 

info, to the best of my ability to explain it, here:

 

relevant DIY stompboxes thread

 

imho, this thing sounds freaking great now. no more wimpy fuzz with huge useless gain boost.

the fuzz is nice and thick, you can turn it from kinda compressed and cleanish to a nice overdrive to a big muffish to a fuzzy fizzy buzz from the fuzz control, and now the boost is not only independent, but controllable and useful.

the boost alone sounds great.

 

all by moving one part. ONE.

i'm betting the peeps who built these either didn't figure it out, or didn't take the time to tinker, or more likely made a simple mistake on the schematic... maybe it was a friday afternoon job.

 

all i know is electric warrior's trace is right. i built it (well, an npn ge version with all the same values other than trimmers on the c's) and it sounded just as crummy as the original, and sucked in a generally heinous way once ya kicked in the boost, which was just too much volume, or sounded just more trebley.

 

not anymore.

 

hope ya diggit. i would love opinions on whether you think i may be right.

 

peace out

[Larryz]

Sounds great! has a little auto-wah vibe when you bend the strings too...

[pinkjimiphoton]

i think that may be artifacts from the audio compression, or all that lds i did at berkley back in the day..