OLC Whisker Biscuit Fuzz - Build completed

[stilwel]

Has anyone built one? I'd love to hear your opinions of it. How do you like just having the two controls (volume/Tone)...but no Fuzz/Drive knob?

Has anyone installed a switch to turn on/off the 47pF caps mentioned in the notes?

http://www.olcircuits.com/olc_whiskerbiscuit.html

BTW....I LOVE the tone in the Pumpkins clip.

[Jero]

culturejam (builder here & at fsb) sells nice pcbs for them. Sounds pretty good. Mine was a dual with a SHO, which was badass. I didn't mess with the caps in that one, but I still have another board...maybe I'll put one together and add the switch.

[stilwel]

I just ordered a Whisker Biscuit kit. Will post clips when I get it all assembled.

[stilwel]

My WB kit arrived yesterday. Might work on it this afternoon. I'll update when I get it finished.

[stilwel]

I'm really, REALLY digging the Whisker Biscuit. As with most fuzz pedals, my Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster loves this pedal. The Range on the Tone knob is incredible, and very useful in nearly all positions. Starts out fat and midrangey, ends up super-scooped on the other end. I've seen some posters asking about how to mod it for more output, but it seems to have plenty of output level for me. I'm running it at <50% on the Vol knob. It's Big-Muff-like, but sounds utterly different than my Little Big Muff. I like the contrasting tones between the two of them.

My only gripe is that it's pretty freakin' noisy. I need to see if I can re-route any wires inside it to reduce that, but I suspect it might just be a noisy pedal. I'm running it off of a PP2+ so it's not a ground loop.

Pics & clips to come!

[greeny23]

i've built one, it was a little noisy though.

sweet tone from it.

[Teej212]

you could easily add a 'sustain' pot if you wanted. just make it like a gain pot in between the buffer stage and the clipping stage

[culturejam]

If you want to quiet it down, switch the transistor to MPSA18 or 2N5089 and adjust Q2's collector resistor up around 100K-ish. I've built a few that way and they sound pretty much identical but with no noise.

[The4455]

I've finished the populating the pcb, I need to paint my enclosure and wire ut up and stuff, so I'll post here asap.

[stilwel]

If you want to quiet it down, switch the transistor to MPSA18 or 2N5089 and adjust Q2's collector resistor up around 100K-ish. I've built a few that way and they sound pretty much identical but with no noise.

Good to know...thanks I'll look into that!

[stilwel]

BTW...I'm gonna print up a custom sticker to put on this pedal.

I'm going to call it "BIG MURPH ∞" (that's the infinity symbol there) in honor of my good friend Murphy who recently passed away from cancer.

[stilwel]

Many...many tracks of layered guitar using Little Big Muff and OLC Whisker Biscuit pedals.
Guitar is my Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster.

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/stilwel/quiet-smashing-pumpkins-cover[/soundcloud]

[The4455]

I posted this in the Let us see your DIY projects thread, but here it is anyway. Mine is kinda quiet compared to other pedals that I have, is there a way to fix that?

[hclapp219]

Many...many tracks of layered guitar using Little Big Muff and OLC Whisker Biscuit pedals.
Guitar is my Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster.

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/stilwel/quiet-smashing-pumpkins-cover[/soundcloud]

Sounds awesome!

[stilwel]

I posted this in the Let us see your DIY projects thread, but here it is anyway. Mine is kinda quiet compared to other pedals that I have, is there a way to fix that?

Quiet as in lacking output volume? Mine is WAY loud. I run the volume down around 11 o'clock or so.