#ac128

In the last entry, I discussed my motives and possible mods and tweaks of the Fuzz Face-circuit. This part will be about the process of screenprinting a pedal and the right choice of transistors in the Fuzz Face-circuit.

Screenprinting

My standard procedure of painting enclosures is the use of decal-paper (also called waterslide-decal). For this project, I wanted try something different: Screenprinting. I’ve getting into the method of screenprinting in the last months, producing sacs to ship my pedals in, and also some bags. The reasons for screenprinting a pedal rather than using decal-paper has aesthetic and practical aspects on the up- and downside.

Screenprinting (once you’ve mastered the process) is a convenient and fast process for the mass-production of pedals. Earthquaker Devices from the USA screenprint all of there enclosures (at least as far as I know their massive catalogue). In Germany, KMA Audio Machines are a great example for the incredible use of screenprinting on pedals with beautiful results. In the last few years, the supply of colored enclosures from different sources has been growing continuously, resulting in an incredible variety of colors and therefore nearly unlimited creative possibilites in an acceptable price-range. Meanwhile, companies like Siebdruck Versand or Siebdruckland produce products and tutorials for screenprinting textiles at home, which can easily be applied to pedals as well.

The downside of screenprinting, compared to the use of waterslide-decals, is the massive amount of preparation and time. In most cases, preparing and exposing the frame isn’t really worth the effort for one pedal. Also, the process has to be very exact and doesn’t allow much tolerance. For example, I had to recoat and expose the frame three times to get it right, which takes about two hours each try. A “mass-production” (I’m talking about batches of 20+ pedals here) with reliable, high-quality results needs some trial and error and a steady hand. So far, I’m happy with my first success that you can see above. Another aspect that limits the possibilities of screenprinted pedals is that photos, photorealistic motives and motives with more than one color are much harder to do than with decal-paper. You’d need some skills in the photo-editing software of your choice and the look won’t be that of an actual picture. With decal-paper, you’ll be able to make pretty much any design, even the ones that you could do with a screenprint. It doesn’t really work the other way around. Nevertheless: Once mastered, the looks and haptics of screenprinted pedals are significantly different and are more preferable to some people.

Transistor matching

This section will deal with the right transistors for the Annapurna Fuzz and the process of selecting appropriate types from my stock. I will also write about how different people tend to match these together.

As I mentioned in the last post, I bought a bunch of different transistors and very old ICs a few years ago. Lots of these are germanium-type, which got this project rolling in the first place. The transistors used in the Fuzz Faces that were built over the years were mostly used because of practical reasons a company can face: price and availabilty. The two main-types definitely are three NKT275 and AC128. Analogman, who’s been building a boutique-pedal based on the Fuzz Face for years now, actually gives some information on the different transistors and their tonal qualities on his website.

The semiconductor industry was new back then, and had not developed the technologies that let us make cheap, reliable, identical-as-peas-in-a-pod devices like we have become accustomed to.  R.G. Keen on the quality of germanium transistors

The important thing about germanium-transistors is their inconsistancy. No one transistor is like the other regarding their electrical values. Also, these values tend to change with variing temperatures. This means, that your pedal could sound totally different in your cool rehearsal space than on a sunny open air stage just because the temperature changed by 10°C. These facts make the right choice of transistors a hard one. And there are different approaches how to select the proper combination of transistors. As R.G. Keen writes in his article on the Fuzz Face-circuit:

Don't get too hung up on the exact numbers - they'll change in a second anyway as the device heats or cools. Look for low leakage, and approximately the right gains. The right *real* gains are from 70 to about 130. Within that range, people report the best sounds. Some people prefer equal gains, others prefer having a lower gain of 70-100 for the first transistor and 90 to 130 for the second.

As R.G. Keen mentions here, the key values for a good Fuzz Face-transistor are the gain/hfe and the leakage. To measure these, I bought a transistor test-kit on ebay (Search for GM328). But to a large extend, your ears are the best instrument at your proposal to decide if a transistor is actually fit to be used. The combination that I chose as my favorite includes an ASY11 as Q1, and a Telefunken AC122 as Q2. Here’s what I measured from my favorite combination (see pictures below): Q1: ASY11 / hFE: 49 / leakage: 160uA Q2: AC122 / hFE: 96 / leakage: 280uA

The gain is quiet low in comparison to the Keen’s proposal while the leakage is in an accpetable range. These are actually the transistors/pedal you can hear in the soundsample from the last entry.

What can we conclude here? For my part, I decided to go with a combination of measuring and listening to find the best matches for the Annapurna Fuzz. I have at least seven different types of germanium transistors here with various gains and leakages. In a first step, I measured every single transistor and wrote down the hFE- and leakage. The next step will be a test in the (to be build) prototype-pedal. I will only build as much pedals as I find good combinations, so let’s hope for the best.

What’s next?

Transistors au germanium de récupération

Un jour, en faisant des fouilles dans un grenier familial, j’eus la chance de tomber sur une radio qui portait le nom de “9 transistors“. Je m’empressai de demander à son propriétaire qui n’en avait que faire de me la concéder. Ce fut chose faite. J’ouvris alors la bête et découvrit à ma grande stupeur que les 9 transistors étaient des transistors au germanium… Récupérer de vieux transistors au…

DEATH (noun) – the end of the life of a person or organism. She slid the match against the rough surface of the side of the box, watching the orange flame light up in front of her, thin trail of grey smoke causing her blue orbs to travel upwards towards the sky, watching the smoke disappear against the nighttime air before dropping her focus back to the flame. Closer and closer it grew to her finger before finally hitting it, causing her to drop the match, the flame burning out as the remnants hit the ground. This was it. This was the moment her entire life would change. Everything she knew was about to be gone. Sucking in a deep breath, Vidalia glanced at the tent in front of her, taking a lingering moment to study the detail of the red and white fabric, the light stains from miles of travelling and countless performances – she could only imagine the stories it would tell had it been a person, the things it had seen. Some of her own best memories had been within the walls of not only that tent, but the others that surrounded the grounds that were temporarily called home. Just as some of her best memories had been had there, so had many of her worst. Her stomach ached as she looked down at the baby boy wrapped within her arms, sleeping soundly against her chest and bound to her by the soft fabric of the baby carrier. Was she really about to do this? Did she really have a choice? “I love you Noah, I really do.” She whispered. “I’ll keep our son safe.” Plucking another match from the box, she closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath before reopening them, staring at the unlit match. No more lies. No more hits. No more blood. No more hesitation. Striking the match against the box, she watched the flame instantly light, nodding her head slowly, she lowered herself slightly, dropping the match forward into the gasoline she had poured all over the tent. Waiting for the flame to grow, she repeated her actions again. Then again. Then again, before tossing the entire box into the now blazing flames, ridding herself of final pieces of evidence. Stepping back from the flame, she wrapped her arms around her son, pulling him closer despite him already being pressed up against her, blue orbs staring into the flames as the moments passed slowly. She did it. Soon enough he would be gone, and she would be free.

Noah Leon Chance.

Her first funeral, the most traumatic funeral, a funeral that would only be the start to all the rest that she would attend, the funeral that would haunt her dreams to this day. Juniper could remember it as if it were just yesterday. The smell of death -despite the morticians attempts to hide it-, the smell of ten thousand perfumes, the feel of a stranger escorting her from the asylum to the funeral home. All for something /she/ did. Mrs. Karen Jenkins and Acacia Soleil’s funeral, held on the same day. Two different souls, one same disaster, a thousand different eyes. 

Juniper could remember the feeling of everyone’s eyes on her, judging her. Some, anyways, mostly the rich. The poor, the Jenkins family, they didn’t judge her. They let her visit with peace, show remorse on her young face, give her sorry and sorrow and be accepted. Her family on the other hand, cast her out, refused to let her in the room to see her sister’s casket. Curious blue hues wanted to see, make sure they were both actually dead like everyone was mourning, but both viewings were closed caskets due to the damage from the fire. 

Though she was the reason the two were dead, no one ever thought to see how /she/ felt. Upon leaving the funeral home, she was kicking and screaming. A cop had to pry her from Mrs. Jenkins casket and carry her out to take her back to the asylum. Why was she damned to such a place? It was all an accident, even her sister. She didn’t mean to, she refused to believe that she was that kind of monster. Was she a murderer? A killer? Her future would be the judge of that, and even then, who knew. But no matter what therapists, psychologists, nurses, or doctors stated, she claimed innocence. Juniper Soleil would scream it from the top of her lungs.

Now? She could tell you that Mrs. Karen’s death was indeed an accident, but as for her twin sister? That was a completely different story. 

After leaving the asylum, Juniper got into some deep shit, shit that involved her dark side more and more. Though, she tried to keep it at bay. She tried stepping away, taking drugs, nothing worked, nothing helped her cope. The only thing that did was one being, that being soon met death as well. Juniper convinced herself that her death was her fault just like the rest, just like everyone that she loses. She sees them all as her fault, even if she had no hand in them. 

Voices from her depressive psychosis and mild schizophrenia taunted her daily and nightly, she never caught a break and you could see it in her eyes every day that you spoke to her. Death causes a huge inner battle within Juniper that no one could understand or experience themselves. Something beyond grief, beyond normal emotions.

As each body added up, hers tried to do anything and everything to cope. Different drugs, stronger ones than what she found as a teen, alcohol, obsessing over work. Nothing ever helped. She could never cope and she was convinced that she never would find a way. At one point, she figured ‘why not just die? Why not end it all?’ To which, she committed suicide to try and cope, to try and end the constant torture of nightmares and grief. It was a failed attempt that has still left her a little confused to this day. 

Everybody dies. No one lives forever. We’re not vampires cursed with the curse of forever. We’re monsters, though, mingling with life and death, testing the balances of what we were given in this world. When we’re younger, we think everyone lives to be 100. Disease, murder, suicide… it’s all foreign to us. We genuinely believe that we all just live to be old, untouched and unbruised by tragedy. We don’t realize how wrong we are until we’re older. Life begins to weigh heavy on us, burying us under its heavy claw. We surrender. We know it’s inevitable eventually.

The first death Bowie faced was that of the man he thought for so long, Richard Parker. He suffered a heart attack in his office, died right there, but Bowie felt nothing when he died. For most of his life, Richard had both physically and emotionally abused him. He had such high expectations of Bowie, ones that weren’t met. He’d been born rebellious, much like his Russian mother, so prim and proper wasn’t in his blood. He couldn’t wait for him to be in the ground.

He didn’t even attend the funeral.

His mother died. Before her time. In cold blood she’d been murdered at the hands of the monsters that tormented him in Sloane, head pushed under her bath water until she stopped struggling. In the safety of her own living space. He got his revenge. It came in the form of the bitch who’d ordered the hit hanging from the rafters of his old warehouse, the one he worked out of. The one where monsters went to die. Next, he found the son of the man who did the dirty work and killed him right in front of his father, before killing the man himself. Watching her go into the dirt had been the hardest thing to endure for Bowie, and he's endured a lot.

Pain, for him, stayed on the inside.

Then there was Vigor.

His uncle. The brother of his mother. The one family he thought he had left. Vigor had been there for him through it all, had protected him through everything. He’d picked Bowie out of the dirt more times than he could count on both hands. The man took a bullet for him. If it hadn’t been for him, he would still be alive. Thanks to the Blackcoats, he was gone. Gone from his life. The only blood Bowie had left was some bitch tormenting Sloane because she needed to be locked in a looney bin. He thought he was crazy.