BlackHatSound - Vintage Fuzz with NOS Transistors and Bias Control

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This is a variation of my 183Sound Fuzz with an added external bias control. 

A high octane fuzz with more grainy, vocal, on edge tone reminiscent in tone of the Mk1 Tonebender ('Tonebender' is a trademark of Solosound Ltd -they are also awesome) 

This unique fuzz uses a matched pair of super rare vintage 'New Old Stock' ME4003 TO106 cased, 'Blackhat' transistors from the 1970s, creating a pedal that sounds full, musical and full of force. Its a very pick sensitive fuzz, letting your guitars character show through, there are many usable tones when dialling back the guitars volume control. There is also thunderous bass available with the bass switch in the up position and the tone has enough mids to be heard in the mix, but not to many to sound muddy. The bias control can go from smooth and flowing Gillmor tones, though voltage sag on the front of the note and a gated finish, think Neil Young buckling his Tweed Deluxe, spitty, saggy, huge and glorious, to the nasal Fuzztone in the intro to the Rolling Stones Satisfaction.

While it sounds killer with any guitar, however this circuit really lifts humbucker type guitars adding lots of pick attack and presence.

The bias control has a very smooth sweep and acts more like a contour or filter, until the last 20% where the tone starts to gate and break up, at this end you will find some very convincing FZ1 Fuzztones - especially with the bass cut activated.

This pedal has chewy broken tone in the lower register, still keeping plenty of the huge bass these pedals are known for as you play further up the neck, the notes clear and get sweeter but still keep their 'cut' in the mix. It also cleans up fairly well from your guitars volume pot , however the note decay does finish slightly more gated. If you need to take out some bass there is an output cap switch that will limit the bass (a little), this pedal is also great to use with a bass guitar too, as the low frequency headroom is insane with the bass cut on full.

In all if you like your Fuzz messy and squelchy but still with plenty of tight bass this is the pedal for you.

I build these fuzz pedals in my garden workshop in Northamptonshire UK. This includes painting, drilling, and acid etching my design onto the enclosures. Constructing the entire circuit ‘Point to Point’ only using the components, theres no boards or circuit traces to dilute your signal purity. I finish the entire pedal to a standard that I think looks as good inside, as it sounds on the outside. It might be covered up but when you’re in that moment you KNOW the mojo you have under the hood.

Please be aware, these are totally hand built and so there might me some slight cosmetic variation between each pedal. The acid ecthing process produces a gunmetal patina on the enclosure with will vary from pedal to pedal. This is most noticeable on the sides and imparts a unique character to each pedal. Tonally, I play each one to make sure they sound as good as the first one, before signing off, no tone generator, no gadgets – just a telecaster and my ears.

Please note, all my silicon pedals have a boss style 2.1 center negative DC jack only, there is no battery snap. Silicon transistors are not sensitive to DC supply type unlike their germainium counterparts.