G
Greg_L
Banned
Ah, I see. Okay well we'll be here when you figure it out. I love a JCM 800. 
rayc
retroreprobate
NEW valve only FUZZ box from Australia. NO transistors he says.
The designer/builder has a Utub vid as well but it's rubbish - camera mic and hand held wobbliness.
FROM THE MAKER...
"This is an all valve fuzz stompbox, no transistors, fets or IC's anywhere. It does not pretend to be valve or tube-like sound as it is an all valve design , the REAL THING. I went looking on the web for an all valve fuzzbox, and short of paying half a killobuck for something that had op amps, transistors or fets in it was impossible to find. Plenty of ideas on the web, but after trying half a dozen favourite circuits none of them sounded just right or were symmetrical clipping. Those that were ended up flat topped like a transistor fuzz box not nicely compressed, or needed careful selection of valves to get it to work properly. So it was R&D time in the VALVE AMP BATCAVE. I tried all the twin triodes 12AU7, 12AT7, 12AX7, all with one or more problems. I tried an old but trusty valve clipper using a 6AL5 twin diode. That got some good results but was nearly impossible to drive with a simple triode stage. A favourite for low voltage operation was the 6ES8 a TV tuner valve with a lowplate resistance. This worked out rather well, but for some fiddly anode resistance values or having to buildsomething full of trimpots (did I mention I hate trimpots - more to tweek and just go wrong or fail). Stay with me here, the story is long and complicated BUT !!!! I eventually came up with the holy grail of fuzz box circuits, the most abundant valve in the world - the 6BL8 triode pentode. Yes, you can buy them NOS Philips or AWA made in Australia and really cheap at about $10 each. AH-HA !!!!! Where this is going? This fuzz box does not emulate or sound like anything else. It has its own unique sound qualities with an entirely Australian flavour, hence the name AUSSIE-FUZZ. If you have been around long enough to remember the 60's you will know about Moody, Goldentone, Strauss and a lot of other amps of that time. Many were variants of the Electronics Australia Playmaster 116 kit amp. I know because I built a hundred or so... Back to AUSSIE-FUZZ, one of the reasons these amps sounded so good was the use of the 6BL8 as a phase splitter and voltage amp. The pentode the voltage amp which made the sound kind of British and the triode as the phase splitter. Simple enough (BTW the other reasons they sounded good were the great output transformers made by Ferguson and A&R transformers). So that's where the design is right now - a nice pentode preamp followed by a triode output stage with buckets of gain, and it's all symmetrical. After trying 20 different valves at random in the prototype AUSSIE-FUZZ, there was very little difference in the way it behaved and sounded. This is all a good thing.
Features of the AUSSIE-FUZZ
1) Simple
2) low cost
3) no frills just great sound
4) rugged as heck (you could almost drive a truck over it and have it survive)
5) Roadie proof
6) comes with a quality analogue plugpack (no switchmodes here)7) cheap and readily available valves
8) high gain
9) symmetrical nice sounding clipping (more like a form of compression)
10) valve amp happy, input impedance is 100K output impedance is 100K
11) happily works alongside other stompboxes and FX
12) does not load down your guitar
13) bypass type stompbox
14) two gain controls INPUT and OUTPUT to give you lots of sound variations
15) high quality FR2 PCB
16) quality Rhoderstein resistors and EVOX capacitors (from Europe)
17) ALPS A2 pots
18) solid die cast box
Each Aussie-Fuzz takes around 3 hours to build, each one is hand built and fully tested for 3 hours to make sure it meets specifications. Special custom version builds are available including tone stacks, balanced DI outputs to a PA, or to use as a recording DI or guitar preamp, POA. Any questions about the Aussie-Fuzz or any of my products you can call me anytime at
Valvetron on 08-82703175 or 0414323099."
Could be bunk but I don't know - what are your thoughts?
The designer/builder has a Utub vid as well but it's rubbish - camera mic and hand held wobbliness.
FROM THE MAKER...
"This is an all valve fuzz stompbox, no transistors, fets or IC's anywhere. It does not pretend to be valve or tube-like sound as it is an all valve design , the REAL THING. I went looking on the web for an all valve fuzzbox, and short of paying half a killobuck for something that had op amps, transistors or fets in it was impossible to find. Plenty of ideas on the web, but after trying half a dozen favourite circuits none of them sounded just right or were symmetrical clipping. Those that were ended up flat topped like a transistor fuzz box not nicely compressed, or needed careful selection of valves to get it to work properly. So it was R&D time in the VALVE AMP BATCAVE. I tried all the twin triodes 12AU7, 12AT7, 12AX7, all with one or more problems. I tried an old but trusty valve clipper using a 6AL5 twin diode. That got some good results but was nearly impossible to drive with a simple triode stage. A favourite for low voltage operation was the 6ES8 a TV tuner valve with a lowplate resistance. This worked out rather well, but for some fiddly anode resistance values or having to buildsomething full of trimpots (did I mention I hate trimpots - more to tweek and just go wrong or fail). Stay with me here, the story is long and complicated BUT !!!! I eventually came up with the holy grail of fuzz box circuits, the most abundant valve in the world - the 6BL8 triode pentode. Yes, you can buy them NOS Philips or AWA made in Australia and really cheap at about $10 each. AH-HA !!!!! Where this is going? This fuzz box does not emulate or sound like anything else. It has its own unique sound qualities with an entirely Australian flavour, hence the name AUSSIE-FUZZ. If you have been around long enough to remember the 60's you will know about Moody, Goldentone, Strauss and a lot of other amps of that time. Many were variants of the Electronics Australia Playmaster 116 kit amp. I know because I built a hundred or so... Back to AUSSIE-FUZZ, one of the reasons these amps sounded so good was the use of the 6BL8 as a phase splitter and voltage amp. The pentode the voltage amp which made the sound kind of British and the triode as the phase splitter. Simple enough (BTW the other reasons they sounded good were the great output transformers made by Ferguson and A&R transformers). So that's where the design is right now - a nice pentode preamp followed by a triode output stage with buckets of gain, and it's all symmetrical. After trying 20 different valves at random in the prototype AUSSIE-FUZZ, there was very little difference in the way it behaved and sounded. This is all a good thing.
Features of the AUSSIE-FUZZ
1) Simple
2) low cost
3) no frills just great sound
4) rugged as heck (you could almost drive a truck over it and have it survive)
5) Roadie proof
6) comes with a quality analogue plugpack (no switchmodes here)7) cheap and readily available valves
8) high gain
9) symmetrical nice sounding clipping (more like a form of compression)
10) valve amp happy, input impedance is 100K output impedance is 100K
11) happily works alongside other stompboxes and FX
12) does not load down your guitar
13) bypass type stompbox
14) two gain controls INPUT and OUTPUT to give you lots of sound variations
15) high quality FR2 PCB
16) quality Rhoderstein resistors and EVOX capacitors (from Europe)
17) ALPS A2 pots
18) solid die cast box
Each Aussie-Fuzz takes around 3 hours to build, each one is hand built and fully tested for 3 hours to make sure it meets specifications. Special custom version builds are available including tone stacks, balanced DI outputs to a PA, or to use as a recording DI or guitar preamp, POA. Any questions about the Aussie-Fuzz or any of my products you can call me anytime at
Valvetron on 08-82703175 or 0414323099."
Could be bunk but I don't know - what are your thoughts?
rayc
retroreprobate
Here are the bits that didn't make it into the main vid...
N
notCardio
I walk the line
What ever happened to Sadie? She was adorable. It was like always starting and ending the vids with puppies.
rayc
retroreprobate
Sadie? The cleaning lady?
G
Greg_L
Banned
I don't know dude, sounded pretty great in that vid. Doesn't really sound as over-the-top as most fuzz pedals, but it drives into breakup pretty nice. Keep in mind he's also using a pretty killer amp.
N
notCardio
I walk the line
Brett Kingman (the guy in your youtube vid) used to start and end his demos with his little girl introducing the videos.
N
notCardio
I walk the line
I don't know dude, sounded pretty great in that vid. Doesn't really sound as over-the-top as most fuzz pedals, but it drives into breakup pretty nice. Keep in mind he's also using a pretty killer amp.
Yeah, pretty much everything he does sounds great. I've watched a ton of his videos. He's made me want to buy so much shit it's ridiculous. My only gripe with him is that he almost always uses a boutique guitar with boutique pickups into a boutique amp. And he can't stop adding delay. They are very thorough demos, though, and he often puts up both a long and a short version. And he'll do it with different guitars, and in the case of amp-in-a-box pedals he'll do it in front of an amp and straight to the computer.
G
Greg_L
Banned
Well there wasn't much boutique about that vid unless I missed something. An SG, a Strat, and a JTM45 clone. Pretty standard, but quality stuff.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
well, I look forward to hearing what you've done with it when you're able to post a clip.Lt bob.
In all fairness i recapped mine and installed orange drops.
But with regard to my earlier comments on that amp ..... I was referring to 1484s that have not been rebuilt to make them sound good.
Recapping and replacing cheap caps with good ones is hardly 'maintenance' on the amps.
But I hope you'll eventually find a way to record it so we can hear.
And it's NOT to prove anything ..... this is the tone thread and, as greg said, it's non-judgemental ...... we're all very curious about amp tones here.
Someone WILL say if they like or don't like a tone but it's all tone opinions ..... nothing more.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
well, I look forward to hearing what you've done with it when you're able to post a clip.Lt bob.
In all fairness i recapped mine and installed orange drops.
But with regard to my earlier comments on that amp ..... I was referring to 1484s that have not been rebuilt to make them sound good.
Recapping and replacing cheap caps with good ones is hardly 'maintenance' on the amps.
sounds pretty good ..... what do they sell for? A 10 dollar tube and 3 hours of labor ..... ought to be reasonably priced?
G
Greg_L
Banned
Hey Boob, don't you have an old Ross Flanger? If so, can you do so clips with it when you get a chance? I wanna hear some jet engine from it if you can. 
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
yes I do and yes I will.Hey Boob, don't you have an old Ross Flanger? If so, can you do so clips with it when you get a chance? I wanna hear some jet engine from it if you can.
I'll try to do it tomorrow night.
It's an amazing flanger
G
Greg_L
Banned
Awesome, thanks. I'm looking for that just right flanger, and I'm thinking an old Ross might be it. Every other flanger I try just sounds too...metallic, mechanical, I don't know. I just want a smooth, sweeping jet engine type sound.
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
one of the way cool things it'll do is you can selct a part of the sweep you like and manually just leave it there ..... a flanger version of the 'cocked wah'
G
Greg_L
Banned
Awesome. Looking forward to hearing it.
rayc
retroreprobate
Lt. Bob - it's not cheap - AUS$199 which is rather ridiculous in my opinion.
Aussie-Fuzz all valve Guitar Pedal - Specials
ZSeems to make much of the simplicity and then boutique the price to sillyland.
Aussie-Fuzz all valve Guitar Pedal - Specials
ZSeems to make much of the simplicity and then boutique the price to sillyland.
Tadpui
Well-known member
It's expensive to make small runs of pedals, or pretty much any product. The per-unit price is sky-high when you're not producing hundreds of thousands of units. Admittedly, that has put me off of many boutique brands in the past, but recently I've been willing to pony up for something if it's simply a sweet piece of gear. I can't live with Boss pedals forever, you know
That demo does sound pretty sweet though. That pedal is a bit of a one-trick pony, but versatility isn't really something that we look for in single-purpose pedals. The tones that the guy got with that fuzz are pretty impressive: big, fat, hairy...just like I aspire to be myself. And I'm 3/4 the way there!
I've been playing with a JHS Firefly Fuzz for a few months now, and I'm struggling with it. It's a little too mid-scooped for my tastes. It has a bias knob, which alters the voltage going to the "whatever" circuit (I'm no EE expert...). That bias really interacts with the volume and EQ, making for a complicated relationship between the 3 parameters. I kind of like that aussie pedal for its simplicity. If you like what it does, then just turn it up. If you don't, pick another pedal. I can get behind that kind of thinking. Sometimes pedal designers get a little carried away with promises of versatility, and lose the benefit of simply plugging in and making sweet noise.
E
ecc83
Well-known member
I would love to see a schematic with some voltages. If no SMPSU* is used it must I think use low voltage "starved plate" operation, a practice usually said to give poor results and nothing like "proper valve sound". If if DOESN'T use low voltages I don't see how it is not bloody lethal!
If it uses valves why an input Z of only 100k and a 50k OPZ is going to cause cable loss of HF, the dreaded tone suck!
"Symmetrical" seems an odd term? The circuit AFAICT is not and a symmetrical waveform contains mostly odd harmonics when one thing MOST people in the guitar/audio/amp world agree on is that these are harsh and Asymmetrical circuits generating mainly even harmonics are best.
But! If it sounds good and it is safe(!) the price seems reasonable to me.
*Properly designed SPMSUs are quiet (and or the kit designed to filter crap) as anyone with a computer recording set up can attest!
Dave.
rayc
retroreprobate
The box is open at 26 secs. I don't know anything about the contents.
Further down in the comments was: "Tech speak: P/Supply is 6V unregulated at 800ma (analogue power supply only - typical switch modes are too noisy) It measures 9v no load. The Aussie Fuzz comes complete with its own (separate) power supply."
I assumed it was starved plate but I don't know what specs mean for that.
How does the above translate for doh folk like moi?
Still pricey - does sound good though.
Further down in the comments was: "Tech speak: P/Supply is 6V unregulated at 800ma (analogue power supply only - typical switch modes are too noisy) It measures 9v no load. The Aussie Fuzz comes complete with its own (separate) power supply."
I assumed it was starved plate but I don't know what specs mean for that.
How does the above translate for doh folk like moi?
Still pricey - does sound good though.