Been quiet lately... too much DIY ?

[Harry Bissell]

Class...
I expect a report from all US members tomorrow following the holiday
weekend.
World class members... no excuse! Unless you had a national holiday,
emergency,
etc. Then a note from your mother (or wife) will suffice. Your
assignments are still
due on time...

your Teacher !!!

I've been
1) Building my MiniModular (about half done... want to wash it tomorrow
in ozone-safe
<don't worry, still toxic to humans...>  defluxer before putting in the
pots and polystyrene
caps. Spent a hour painting in the lines in the tiny little pots. Used
fluorescent red and a
5-0 paintbrush (left over from negative retouch... eh oldtimers ???)

2) Resurrection of my stereo hex fuzz (from the early 80's). Storage has
not been too
unlind... the bypass relays no longer work (contact corrosion) and there
is a big difference in the gain of my G-Vox pickup (low) and my old 360
Systems pickup (high) so I can
only get slightly into the fuzzes "face" right now. But early
"crunchies" indicate I have been
missing this too long.  What a sweet sound. Double stop bends... no IM
distortion. With
the "slight crunch" it has real nice sustain without the typical harsh
distortion.

3) So I need a new Hex Fuzz module.  I'm planning a Voltage controlled
Fuzz unit, with
sustain, volume, and tone all voltage controlled. It will probably
include an envelope follower (with compression on/off) and VCF, and
final VCA, driven by a separate compressed (on/off) envelope follower.
The idea is that the final VCA can act as a noise gate without killing
sustain too much.

So far I've got a 3080 driving a current to voltage output stage
(inverting) with clipping.
Nice fuzz... not too noisy. The 3080 is the direct preamp for the hex
pickup, but I'm thinking of trying an NE553X  (2, 4???) as a low noise
preamp stage fronting the 3080
(to drive the envelope followers...)

The idea is for a (single... double???) rack unit, with knobs to set the
fuzz parameters.
And a preamp output to go to P/V conversion at a later date. I have a
nice circuit that I'm using to get the pitch output reliably.

The "stereo" function was originally every other string left/right. This
svcked! So I used
low 3 - high 3 so you can use two amps (like a bass amp and a guitar
amp)... IMHO
Stereo outputs are not worth the extra circuitry. What do you think ?

Anyone have any favorite fuzz box ideas ???  Anyone want to play ???

BTW this is a "Guitar Synthesizer" module without VCO's. So don't tell
me to go to
alt.guitar.effects... eh ???

H^)  harry