ilovefuzz.com

I always thought I was mostly a Muff person,
but after recently watching a history/comparison video...
I really wanna try a ToneBender.

Has someone tried the Musikding/GuitarPCB Sriracha Fuzz?
Is it still Bendery enough what with being center negative silicon?


Or is the center positiveness & germanium temperature sensitivity not that big a deal,
or at least a deal you have to... deal with if you want to go an a real ToneBender...?


Why is Boss doing a MKII,
when at least to my ears & judging from YT only
the MKI & MKIII is much more interesting?

Why do I keep thinking I want to check out (fuzz)pedals,
when maybe I should really buy a cute little monkey
and learn to play the barrel organ?

TL;DR:
you guys rock
& the new header is awesome!

When Joe Gore did his “Fuzz Detective” video on various germ fuzzes, the Mk II did interest me a whole lot less than the Mk III and IV, which is contrary to general internet babble. The Mk II had a proto metal thing going that wasn’t fuzzy in a way that interested me, but you would get why it would be popular for non fuzz brethren.

Joe’s builds for that video we’re just the schematics without tuning, and the Mk I and its variants don’t shine in that video, though you get some hints. The cottage industry of Mk I builders does a bunch of appealing variants. If I had a bunch of disposable cash I would be collecting those.

isnt mk2 the one that became the fuzz face?

it depends on the individual unit, and i suppose on the circuit topology. i have a Tone Reaper which was great other than that the output was so high that i couldn't use it except in the lowest 5% of gain. i now have a Mk II which i don't love; it's too toppy and fizzy for my taste.

I've built about a hundred of them in various forms over the years, so you could say i'm into em. Here's the last one I did, a MkII with AC125 transistors:

qersty wrote:isnt mk2 the one that became the fuzz face?

They share similarities, but its got a whole extra gain stage up front. What's commonly referred to now as the Mk1.5 Tone Bender is the most similar to a fuzz face topology. Dave Main of D*A*M had a good simple synopsis of the differences in a recent Guitarist mag article. Click the pics (not mine) to make em bigger:

I had a Twin Bender from Ramble FX for a bit last year...it’s a good entry point to benders. You can switch from two to three transistors (basically from a MK1.5 to a MKII) and you can mess with the bias, which I don’t believe was a feature of the original MKII. It was a lot of fun.....but I sold it to help myself pick up an Arcane Analog Buzzaround clone which I don’t think I’ll ever be able to part with.

Would love to try a MKI someday.

We all were until Boss announced the TB-2, I think.

Also: "ugly design, ugly font, ugly Chinese company", etc.

qersty wrote:isnt mk2 the one that became the fuzz face?

No, the MKII is basically a fuzz face with a range master in front of it.
There's a 2-transistor Vox Tone Bender and the mythical Tone Bender MK1.5 that are basically the same as fuzz faces, but most of the I/II/III/IV benders are 3-transistor circuits.

I'm a fan of the MKII (it's super rad!) and it lends itself really well to silicon versions. The EQD black ash sounds phenomenal, as does the Farm Mourning Dove.

the_bright_undead wrote:I had a Twin Bender from Ramble FX for a bit last year...it’s a good entry point to benders. You can switch from two to three transistors (basically from a MK1.5 to a MKII) and you can mess with the bias, which I don’t believe was a feature of the original MKII. It was a lot of fun.....but I sold it to help myself pick up an Arcane Analog Buzzaround clone which I don’t think I’ll ever be able to part with.

Would love to try a MKI someday.

Buzzarounds are awesome.

No, the MKII is basically a fuzz face with a range master in front of it.

well, that explains why it's so toppy compared to the Tone Reaper.

They can be, for sure. The tone reaper also has a big muff tone stack on the end of it if I recall correctly, so it's going to be voiced pretty differently.
Both the Black Ash and that Farm silicon MKII are a lot less shrill than some of the more traditional germanium/led zep TBMKIIs I've heard. Really nice medium-gain fuzzos.

i think i need a MK I. my favorite TB user is Mick Ronson, so there you go.

mcatano wrote:Buzzarounds are awesome.

dubkitty wrote:i think i need a MK I. my favorite TB user is Mick Ronson, so there you go.

love Mick Ronson!
isn't the early Jeff Beck - Yardbirds stuff an MKI sound?
I'm always torn on Jeff Beck. But I love this:

[youtube][/youtube]

oh, yes.