Seymour Duncan Tweak Fuzz Mods

[stilwel]

I know this pedal isn't highly regarded, for whatever reason, but I absolutely love it. I have 3 of them.
What's not to love about a silicon fuzz face clone with a pre-gain bass control? Plus SD did us all a favor by adding thru-hole pads next to all of the surface-mount parts. It's ripe for modding to any type of Fuzz Face you desire.

One I rehoused into a 125B enclosure (purple box) with no switch to put on my big Boss ES-8 driven board. I also did the "volume mod" to increase the output level.



One I plan to mod to EJ FF specs with some BC183 & BC183C transistors. I'll leave the Tweak knob in place in front as it's one of my favorite things about these pedals.

I've stripped the pedal housing and I'll be painting it with some Gold Hammertone spray paint from Home Depot. I'll probably go with a black mini-chicken head for Tweak and some smaller black hex (MXR-style) knobs for Gain/Volume. I've never been a fan of the large chicken head knobs as they get bumped out of position too easily.



The 3rd pedal is going to get seriously pimped with a second Tweak knob that is selectable via footswitch. I find myself going back and forth between a couple of the Tweak settings (2&3) so having this option at my feet will be really cool. I've also considered adding a couple of mini toggle switches that bypass the small Base-Collector caps on each transistor stage. I need to tack solder this in and see if I hear much of a difference before I commit to drilling more holes in the pedal.

Other possibilities are adding an external Bias knob and also the Zvex "Pinch" control from the Woolly Mammoth/Mastotron.

Here's how it will look with 2 Tweak knobs and 2 footswitches.

[Jero]

Cool! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
I have yet to play a Tweak

[stilwel]

Painted yesterday. Color and texture is in the ballpark so I'm happy.

[DhanoSuzuki]

I've seen this pedal around, and considered it due to the cheap price. So its a Si Fuzz Face basically?

I like how it seems so easy to mod. Its probably an easy pedal to turn into a Fuzz Face/Wolf Computer-esque oscillatey fuzz.

But just on its own, what makes it so good/bad? Is it worth having a vanilla version, or is its main draw the ease of modification?

[stilwel]

I like it as it is, which is why I have the rehoused purple one on my board. It's also a great mod platform to roll your own. The Tweak knob adds SO much extra tonal flexibility that isn't typically available in a Fuzz Face.

The trick with this pedal and FF pedals in general is they sound horrible directly into a super clean, bright amp. You have to either use a darker, slightly driven amp or use another pedal to darken and add grit. I use either an SL Drive or a TC Mojomojo for this. The Tweak Fuzz sounds stellar (to me) into either of those in front of my Hot Rod Deluxe or Blues Jr.

[Gone Fission]

Yep, some hate them, but they seem just like a pretty good, if not amazeballs, SI fuzz face with switchable input cap. I thought it actually sounded pretty great right into a solidstate Yamaha JX-30, which most consider pretty clean and sparkly. Biggest weakness for a lot of people is that it's below unity volume unless the gain is up, but you can swap in a couple resistors to boost the volume unlock the lower-gain fuzzy-overdrive zone.

I still like preset switchable bias settings as the extra tweak idea. I gather that Q2 bias point accounts for much of the difference in the current line of Dunlop fuzz faces, and heavily under biased and over biased settings can be fun, too.

[stilwel]

I finished up phase 1 of the double-tweak-mod tonight.
Works great and adds even more flexibility to an already cool pedal.

I'm going to add a couple of LEDs to show which Tweak knob is selected.

[stilwel]

Quick clip using the Tweak Fuzz this weekend.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMl82woCEXk[/youtube]

[Pepe]

What are you doing with MY guitar?! It really looks like my MIJ Fender Stratocaster - only that my pickup covers have an "old white" shade:



Sick mods you're doing there. I also have a Tweak Fuzz, but I like it as it is. Will you do the same with the similar looking Lava Box?

[stilwel]

Similar. Mine is Japanese too, but it has a big headstock. It's a CIJ '68 Reissue neck.



I bet the "Tweak" control is the same circuit as the "Rumble" on the Lava Box.

[AC128]

I quite like the Tweak Fuzz as well.
I also modded it, but it was pretty pointles tonally
Couldn't get non-SMD transistors to work, which is why I had to (sloppily) re-solder the original ones.
https://www.instagram.com/p/1YRp5bGhAl/ ... onpetersen

[Gone Fission]

I was impressed with how "right" my two sounded right out of the box with those smt transistors. The big thing to keep in mind for transistor replacement is that the circuit board labels as Q1 what every other Fuzz Face calls Q2 and in turn Q2 what all the others call Q1, so your "matched pair" with selectEd hfe need to be installed accordingly.

[stilwel]

I was impressed with how "right" my two sounded right out of the box with those smt transistors. The big thing to keep in mind for transistor replacement is that the circuit board labels as Q1 what every other Fuzz Face calls Q2 and in turn Q2 what all the others call Q1, so your "matched pair" with selectEd hfe need to be installed accordingly.

Yes, that and the thru-hole pads next to the SMT parts aren't the same. One is EBC the other is ECB. Sloppy layout. I modded one of mine with BC183 and BC183C transistors for the full-on EJ-FF thing. I had to do some transistor twister to get one of them in there.

[stilwel]

I scavenged another Tweak control PCB to build another double-tweaked Tweak Fuzz.
Now I have one for each of my boards.

I still need to drill some holes for LEDs to show which Tweak is active at a glance.

[AC128]

Yes, that and the thru-hole pads next to the SMT parts aren't the same. One is EBC the other is ECB.

aaand that's why I couldn't make it work...
I need to be more suspicious, apparently.

thanks for the info & the great pics!