OT(?) germanium transistors

[Paul Perry]

At 12:32 AM 5/10/00 -0400, Ed Anderson wrote:
 I am wondering what gives germanium transistors their different sound.  
>I know that germanium 2n270 and 2n261x transistors showed up in several 
>effects boxes- so are there many older synth designs that used 
>germanium transistors?  
>
As someone who is occasionally asked to clone old germanium based fx 
guitar fx units, I'd like to know if any of the ingenious know how to
'build' a mock Ge drop-in from discrete modern parts.
A modern transistor usually has 5 times the gain, so there should be some way
to nobble it & smooth off the knee. Anyone?

In fact, en\ven better would be a 'synthetic transistro' curciuyt wher you
could 
dial up the characteristics with pots.. old fx (like Electroharmonix) often
vary wildly depending on the individual transistors used. A 'synthetic' 
tweakable transistro wd be a great tool for us FX builders.

paul perry Melbourne Australia