I tried splitting a fuzz face in half
In this video I did a little experiment that followed on from the Twin Boost chat: a Fuzz Face is basically two transistors (Q1 into Q2), so I wanted to hear what each one did on its own.
So I breadboarded a Fuzz Face, then took “taps” so I could listen to Q1 only, Q2 only, and both together. Messy bench, barking dog, cup of tea - the usual.
The basic idea
If Q1 and Q2 sounded usable on their own, I thought: maybe this could be a pedal
Both on = “kind of” a Fuzz Face
Either one bypassed = two extra flavours
I also said in the video: the one-off pedal I ended up making from this experiment was for sale if someone wanted it.
Breadboard stage
I got the fuzz face working (it was noisy - breadboards always are)
I had one classic “wired it backwards” moment and fixed it
Then I started pulling the circuit apart to listen to each transistor
What Q1 sounded like
Super interesting but kind of woolly / weird
On the B and E strings it barely fuzzed at all
Very “pickup/string dependent” and finicky in a cool way
What Q2 sounded like
This was the one I actually loved
It was cleaner, had a nice sustain, and felt like a single transistor boost stage with texture
It was also the main thing causing popping/fading/rebiasing weirdness while I was troubleshooting
Building the one-off pedal
I moved it onto stripboard and into an enclosure over two days. The hard bit was basically: a stock Fuzz Face goes straight from Q1 into Q2, but if you want each half to work independently you need extra coupling/switching stuff… and the circuit is so sensitive that every little change makes it behave differently.
Also: I accidentally wired the gain control backwards. Silly.
Where I landed
Both on together sounded fun, biting, cutting, but not exactly like a Fuzz Face (extra circuitry changes it)
It didn’t clean up nicely when rolling guitar volume down - it cleaned up a bit but stayed noisy
Q1 alone was velcro-y and strange
Q2 alone was my favourite: textured, clean-ish, “overdrivey boost” vibes
The actual takeaway
The big win was discovering how cool Q2 was on its own. That sound felt like something I could actually build on for a future Hamilton Effects thing.
And yeah - if someone wanted the weird one-of-a-kind pedal from this video, I said to message me.