NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

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tune_link
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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by tune_link » Tue Apr 28, 2020 8:21 am

The Earthquaker Hoof is a Si/GE hybrid Muff. Just wanted to put that out there. As someone who heavily uses one I wonder what order the stages are in vs the pedal you all are discussing here. I've never used a Tonebender but have always loved the sound of them in demos I've seen. I have had MANY big muffs and variants though. I know very little about the inner workings of pedals so this has been fascinating to me.

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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by HH1978 » Tue Apr 28, 2020 1:43 pm

Hello,

The order of stages in the Hoof is : silicon (input stage) > germanium (first clipping stage) > germanium (second clipping stage) > silicon (recovery stage).
Other differences I can spot from schematics (provided that the one I found is correct, I don't have the pedal to verify) :

- clipping diodes in stage 2 and 3 (Hoof) vs only stage 3 (Deadman)

- clipping diodes are 3mm red LEDs (Hoof) vs 5mm white (Deadman). LEDs in general have a higher forward voltage than silicon (and even more so than germanium), so they break up later. They also have a steeper curve, so the clipping sounds kind of 'harder'. Among LEDs, red have the lowest forward voltage, white the highest. 3mm LEDs tend to compress the sound a bit more than 5mm ones.

- some coupling caps are smaller in the Hoof (100nf vs 1µF), which would probably cut more bass from the signal. But the odd transistor bias in the deadman seems to change the frequency response quite a bit, and cuts some bass too. From what I can guess from the resistors values and the use of 2n1308 transistors, the Hoof is biased much more like a traditional BM.

- 2n1308 transistors are usually higher gain than 2n1306, but it depends how they are selected, since germanium transistors can be all over the place. They also have a higher frequency response, but I doubt this would make for an audible difference, as both type go far beyond audio spectrum limits. 2n3904 are higher gain than 2n3565, though they may be considered as lowish gain for silicon.

- The tone stack is different. The Hoof has a traditional muff tone stack, but with different cap values and an additional mids control. The Deadman has the simple (but odd) tone control I posted, which seems to act mainly as a bass cut.

- The Hoof uses a 50K sustain pot, instead of the more usual 100k.

I have all the parts, including the transistors, so when I'm finished with experimenting on the Deadman circuit, I'll try the Hoof on the breadboard.

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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by tune_link » Wed Apr 29, 2020 4:19 am

HH1978 wrote:
Tue Apr 28, 2020 1:43 pm
Hello,

The order of stages in the Hoof is : silicon (input stage) > germanium (first clipping stage) > germanium (second clipping stage) > silicon (recovery stage).
Other differences I can spot from schematics (provided that the one I found is correct, I don't have the pedal to verify) :

- clipping diodes in stage 2 and 3 (Hoof) vs only stage 3 (Deadman)

- clipping diodes are 3mm red LEDs (Hoof) vs 5mm white (Deadman). LEDs in general have a higher forward voltage than silicon (and even more so than germanium), so they break up later. They also have a steeper curve, so the clipping sounds kind of 'harder'. Among LEDs, red have the lowest forward voltage, white the highest. 3mm LEDs tend to compress the sound a bit more than 5mm ones.

- some coupling caps are smaller in the Hoof (100nf vs 1µF), which would probably cut more bass from the signal. But the odd transistor bias in the deadman seems to change the frequency response quite a bit, and cuts some bass too. From what I can guess from the resistors values and the use of 2n1308 transistors, the Hoof is biased much more like a traditional BM.

- 2n1308 transistors are usually higher gain than 2n1306, but it depends how they are selected, since germanium transistors can be all over the place. They also have a higher frequency response, but I doubt this would make for an audible difference, as both type go far beyond audio spectrum limits. 2n3904 are higher gain than 2n3565, though they may be considered as lowish gain for silicon.

- The tone stack is different. The Hoof has a traditional muff tone stack, but with different cap values and an additional mids control. The Deadman has the simple (but odd) tone control I posted, which seems to act mainly as a bass cut.

- The Hoof uses a 50K sustain pot, instead of the more usual 100k.

I have all the parts, including the transistors, so when I'm finished with experimenting on the Deadman circuit, I'll try the Hoof on the breadboard.
That was incredibly interesting to me. Again I have zero knowledge on the inner workings of pedals but by this point by point analysis it sounds like they would sound very different from the components used even though the concept of the pedals might be similar. I truly wish I had a way to hear fuzzes other than youtube as I find a lot of them sound wildly different depending on the guitar and amp used in a given situation. Fuzz is probably my favorite type of effect just in general. Thanks for the in depth response!

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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by fuzzjunkie » Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:21 am

The Deadman has the simple (but odd) tone control I posted, which seems to act mainly as a bass cut.
That would actually be really useful for switching between single coils and humbuckers.

Usually a bass roll off would be pre-gain, like in a Rangemaster, but then you lose some volume and distortion because bass frequencies drive that. This one is off Q3, and looks like the topology of a Buzzaround or Tone Bender MK-3. Those pedals blend in some clean bass signal with the fuzzy and are known for a deep, tight, bottom end.

Does it sound like the bass is being cut out completely? Or more like there is bass, but it’s mostly the top end that is fuzzy? I used to have a Gretsch Expandafuzz that mixed the clean signal with the fuzz signal and then there were 3 tone controls to govern that. It was kind of an Op Amp Big Muff sound (I still have that one) with more tonal variation.

My favorite setting was to dial the bass back and up the mids and treble. Then the low end was almost completely clean and the highs would be fuzzed. Playing low on the 5th and 6th strings would be a slightly crunchy overdrive with a fuzzy edge to the sound, but on the 1st-3rd strings it would be straight up wasp in a jar fuzz with almost no bass at all. Or just the opposite and have a deep, fuzz bass sound, and then the treble is just slightly overdriven.

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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by HH1978 » Wed Apr 29, 2020 3:53 pm

Does it sound like the bass is being cut out completely? Or more like there is bass, but it’s mostly the top end that is fuzzy?
The EQ of the pedal does not only depends on the tone knob setting. The fuzz knob also plays a major role. With the gain cranked, there's an avalanche of high and hi mids frequencies, wich brings the bass behind, and make the pedal sounds really nasty, but at the same time still tight and articulate. When you bring back the gain to 9, you get much more bass to come through, but it stays tight enough. That's really something I had to figure out on the breadboard. With a 'normal' big muff bias (around 4v on Q3 and Q4 collectors), you don't get this effect. With Q3's collector somewhat starved (around 1.8v), it behaves in a totally different way.

As for the tone control, it really seems to cut some bass, though I'm not certain what it actually does. From the schematic I traced, I would say that when the signal goes through the 30K resistor, it's likely to cut some treble. When it goes on the other side, it seems to go through a high pass (the 12nF), then a low pass filter (the 5,6nF and the 33k resistor to ground), unless I read it wrong (I'm by no means an engineer, just a DIY enthousiast). The pot mixes the 2 different paths.
It's not exactly the same topology as in a Buzzaround or a MKIII, I think.

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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by zsound » Tue Dec 22, 2020 2:33 am

Hi, i'm would like to build this pedal but I don't have much knowledge in electronics and i don't speak english perfectly (i'm french), can you share the schematic?

Thanks :)

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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by trabigwe » Wed Jun 14, 2023 6:28 am

Hi there,

A little thread reanimation :whistle:
I'd like to build this circuit, but so little informations toward the net.

Is it possible to see the full schematic, please ?

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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by trabigwe » Wed Jun 14, 2023 6:30 am

HH1978 wrote:
Sun Apr 26, 2020 3:58 am
I was misleaded when I traced the circuit because I expected a BM tone circuit. It appears it's something different. Does this schematic make sense? And if so, what does it actually do?

Image
BTW, is this tracing of the tone stack confirmed?
Because it's really unusual, and I can't find anything like that.

I tried to mod an homemade BMP with this tone stack, but it doesn't sound anything like described by HH1978.

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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by trabigwe » Wed Jun 14, 2023 6:36 am

HH1978 wrote:
Wed Apr 29, 2020 3:53 pm


From the schematic I traced, I would say that when the signal goes through the 30K resistor, it's likely to cut some treble. When it goes on the other side, it seems to go through a high pass (the 12nF), then a low pass filter (the 5,6nF and the 33k resistor to ground), unless I read it wrong (I'm by no means an engineer, just a DIY enthousiast). The pot mixes the 2 different paths.
It's not exactly the same topology as in a Buzzaround or a MKIII, I think.
This schematic don't match your description: to do so, the 5.6nf cap should be connected between lug 3 of the pot and ground, as seen on usual BMP tonestack.
With 33k resistor and 5.6nf cap in parallel to ground, it can't sound like that.

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Re: NPD : Lateral Phonics Deadman fuzz

Post by C.C.EFFECTS » Fri Dec 15, 2023 7:05 am

trabigwe wrote:
Wed Jun 14, 2023 6:36 am
HH1978 wrote:
Wed Apr 29, 2020 3:53 pm


From the schematic I traced, I would say that when the signal goes through the 30K resistor, it's likely to cut some treble. When it goes on the other side, it seems to go through a high pass (the 12nF), then a low pass filter (the 5,6nF and the 33k resistor to ground), unless I read it wrong (I'm by no means an engineer, just a DIY enthousiast). The pot mixes the 2 different paths.
It's not exactly the same topology as in a Buzzaround or a MKIII, I think.
This schematic don't match your description: to do so, the 5.6nf cap should be connected between lug 3 of the pot and ground, as seen on usual BMP tonestack.
With 33k resistor and 5.6nf cap in parallel to ground, it can't sound like that.
I’ve had an unit for a couple of days and I traced the schematic.

HH1978 is right all the way except for one thing : the last 2 transistors (germanium) are reversed : EBC vs CBE.
The Tone stack is the good one. It acts as a high pass filter.

You can see a comparaison test video betweet my clone and the original on my Instagram C.C.Effects.

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