ilovefuzz.com

Hi,

I'm going to build a Tonebender MkIII clone soon and was wondering if any of you can recommend me any particular transistors (type, hfe & order)
The BOM lists AC122s or AC128s with Q1/Q2 hfe 60-80 and Q3 hfe 110-130. <- is that alright?

I'm going for a Black Keys Thickfreakness type of sound / gain.

Many thanks
Don

buy a big bag of transistors and just breadboard it. make sure you bias every transistor that you swap out when comparing the sound they make. I would imagine that a perfect tone bender has all the transistors set to clip at the same time. I checked ebay yesterday and everything has gone crazy in the past year. small bear prices have gone up at the same time as ebay. there are some places yet to find them cheaper but those will dry up soon. I prefer low leakage but that is something that is hard to shop for when people mostly just test Hfe. your probably not far off with your geuss on the gains you need but don't let that preclude you from doing something different.

thanks eatyourguitar.
luckily I managed to aquire a small collection of transistors with many oddball types, including some NOS Siemens ones.
I was going to use sockets and just swap them until I have that Eureka moment, but it seems I have to read up on biasing and figure out a way to go where I want it to.

thank you.

imho you need lowish gain for q1/q2 (40-60), medium gain for q3 (70-100), definitely audition them in the circuit to check for hiss/background noise when not playing.

thanks ghost_effects.
finally a use for my low gain transistors!

btw. about your pedals...

I think it is illegal to make then look THAT awesome on the inside...
stunning!

haha thanks!
yeah the darlington pair q1/q2 is the ideal place for low gainers that seemingly aren't much use!