ilovefuzz.com

Have any of you guys heard of this company? i was on tour in asheville, and i stopped at this place called smashing guitars, where this dude Dave and i hung out for a while and shot the shit about pedals. Turns out he is one of the owners of the company Endangered Audio, and he showed me some of the things he and his partner built. One was the Trans-Tone Fuzz, and one was the Gristleizer. I didn't get to play the trans-tone because i spent a while playing with the gristleizer and by the time i got around to even thinking about trying it, i had to leave. The gristleizer is one of the most insane pedals i've ever played. It's like a tremolo, but, on drugs. check it out.

http://www.smashingguitarsasheville.com/

Does anybody know if the transtone is awesome? i need a good fuzz to get me that 60's maestro sort of tone, which is how he described. I have some money on tour, and i will totally order it from him if i find out it is in the vein of what i'm lookin' for.

But for now, i'm in austin, and there's malekko in every guitar shop ever, and i'll be damned if i don't get a 616.

The Gristleizer as in the Roy Gwinn design? There should be plenty of schematics and info about that one floating around if you wanna build one Wiz, think it was a 70s design... made famous by Throbbing Gristle (hence the name)

Anyway back to the Transtone... well from the description it's just a silicon version of the ToneBender MkII & Maestro Fuzz combined... the designs aren't too dissimilar, it'll probably sound pretty good, a bit harsher and less 'tubey' than the original but still like a good vintage fuzz, just not 'quite' the same as a germanium one.

Don't think I've ever seen them. I will have to get one of the gristleizer kits for sure.

what if i change the trannies to germs?

Wizard wrote:what if i change the trannies to germs?

Not necessarily as easy as that... depends if it's positive or negative ground... while you could get some NPN germaniums if it's negative ground they're harder to find, more expensive and usually not as consistent as PNP germaniums (Usually used in positive ground effects)

You'd have to change the orientation of all the electrolytics if you wanted to change the grounding and the battery and LED orientation and if it uses a DC jack, you'll no longer be able to use it with your standard DC power supply, you'd need a special one.

If it uses a positive ground circuit just flipped to negative ground (not the best way to do things anyway) then you can just change it to germaniums yes and if it's already positive ground you can just change it to germaniums.

Basically... it's not worth the hassle... either just use it as a silicon pedal as it is which could be pretty awesome or just build a germanium pedal from scratch.
(If this is for gigging germaniums aren't always great anyway, they're very temperate sensitive and a too hot or too cold a day can make the pedal sound like utter crap)

you may also need to re-bias the circuit if you switch it to germaniums.

Scruffie wrote:(If this is for gigging germaniums aren't always great anyway, they're very temperate sensitive and a too hot or too cold a day can make the pedal sound like utter crap)

there are some simple modifications you can add to get around this... add a reverse-biased germanium diode from the base to the emitter of the first transistor in the circuit. it should help a lot...

smallsnd/bigsnd wrote:you may also need to re-bias the circuit if you switch it to germaniums.

Scruffie wrote:(If this is for gigging germaniums aren't always great anyway, they're very temperate sensitive and a too hot or too cold a day can make the pedal sound like utter crap)

there are some simple modifications you can add to get around this... add a reverse-biased germanium diode from the base to the emitter of the first transistor in the circuit. it should help a lot...

Yeah i've heard about that trick before and while I haven't personally tried it (I live in England, it's always cold! ) I have heard it can lead to undesirable results... however as I say I haven't personally tried it and that's mainly speculation so it's probably fine, although I think i'd go for an optical based temperature compensation however that's a lot more complicated route to go down than just a simple diode and not without its own problems.

And yeah, forgot to mention re-biasing... but I think that just adds to the reasons why you shouldn't try and just swap the transistors.

well, looks like i'm not swapping trannies.

i'm gonna get it soon.

Scruffie wrote:I have heard it can lead to undesirable results...

i use the diode stabilization all the time and haven't have any issues so far!

They've got a delay out now, too.

http://smashingguitarsasheville.com/...6-analog-delay

http://www.youtube.com/v/4F4677qrtwc?fs=1&hl=en_US

those look really great. i love the design and their little logo...

though i hate marketing...
"is packed with never-before-seen features and functionality."
the only thing that seems especially unique is the "echo" knob, but there isn't even all that much information about what the control does aside from "imparts a glittery, lo-fi halo of high frequency harmonics and noise and is reminiscent of an analog tape echo."

smallsnd/bigsnd wrote:those look really great. i love the design and their little logo...

though i hate marketing...
"is packed with never-before-seen features and functionality."
the only thing that seems especially unique is the "echo" knob, but there isn't even all that much information about what the control does aside from "imparts a glittery, lo-fi halo of high frequency harmonics and noise and is reminiscent of an analog tape echo."

I guess you can get some sense of what it does from watching the video. I wish they would do a video with guitar.

it's like putting delay in your delay so you can drone while you drone. i've never seen an "expand" switch on an analog delay before. that's kinda neat. not $375 kinda neat but, kinda neat.

Do you guys think the Gristleizer is worth the price ($379.99)?

It looks/sounds rad but I'm not sure its worth the price of admission.

theshoegazer wrote:Do you guys think the Gristleizer is worth the price ($379.99)?

It looks/sounds rad but I'm not sure its worth the price of admission.

I have to admit to very little interest in the Gristleizer. I don't think I especially need what it does.

I am more interested in the delay and being analog, having from what I can tell a pretty high build quality, and having some unique features it looks to me to be worth $375.

Just another note but the Smashing Guitars/Endangered Audio crew are friends with the good people from Blackout Effectors.