Building A Shin-ei Fuzz Box From Scratch

[TimTheSloth]

Apparently you can buy the things remotely cheap but eBay seems to be way overpriced on them and I'm kinda insterested in getting into building my own pedals and stuff, plus this thing looks insanely easy to build. I have a little electronics experience (took a electronics class in high school and replaced 2 sets of pickups now) and I have a friend who has a little more experience than me. I have the schematics and pictures of the actual guts of the real thing, it doesn't look complex at all: http://members.fortunecity.com/uzzfay/fy2/fy2.html

I have two main questions:

1) Where can I buy all the parts necessary? EDITTED EDITTED EDITTED. I live in Irvine CA if anyone happens to know a place near-by... I wouldn't be opposed to buying online but I'd rather get it as soon as possible (without having to pay for quick shipping), plus have a place I can go should I forget a part or something. Does Fry's have all of the parts I need?

2) Does anyone with experience doing things like this have any tips or advice? Things I should watch out for? I'm also thinking of modifying it to run off of a power supply, which I'd imaging wouldnt be much more work.

Any answers or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

MODERATORS NOTE - Take this as a warning, DO NOT use derogatory terms for anyone, regardless of if they frequent this forum or not. Next time i see this you'll be on vacation for a couple weeks. Try me.

Edited July 25, 2005 by rhoads56

[guitarmonky55]

ive got quite a few successful pedal builds under my belt, so unlike my lowly pitifuly lacking experience in luthiery areas, i can give advice here

1st off i would say, DONT buy your stuff from radio shack, you will pay way too much for mediocre parts.

frys is good but still going to be a tad more than you will pay online. they do have hammond aluminum boxes for a good price, so you cant argue with that. dont even bother with their semiconductors though, its a headache and a half to work out which nte replacement you have to get.

my suggestion, even though you say you would rather buy locally, is to order from steve at www.smallbearelec.com. his business is run with the intention of providing all the parts needed for guitar stompbox makers, and his prices and service are unbeatable! pretty much everyone in the DIY community goes to him for their stuff, especially when in need of more obscure parts like older NOS germanium trannies and such.

good luck with the fuzz, and dont forget to put a blue led indicator in for that extra cool effect

[TimTheSloth]

ive got quite a few successful pedal builds under my belt, so unlike my lowly pitifuly lacking experience in luthiery areas, i can give advice here 

1st off i would say, DONT buy your stuff from radio shack,  you will pay way too much for mediocre parts. 

frys is good but still going to be a tad more than you will pay online.  they do have hammond aluminum boxes for a good price, so you cant argue with that.  dont even bother with their semiconductors though, its a headache and a half to work out which nte replacement you have to get. 

my suggestion, even though you say you would rather buy locally, is to order from steve at www.smallbearelec.com.  his business is run with the intention of providing all the parts needed for guitar stompbox makers, and his prices and service are unbeatable!  pretty much everyone in the DIY community goes to him for their stuff, especially when in need of more obscure parts like older NOS germanium trannies and such.

good luck with the fuzz, and dont forget to put a blue led indicator in for that extra cool effect  

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Blue LED eh, sounds cool. I'll definately check that site out, the main reason I don't want to do the online thing is I don't have a place to ship to at the moment. I talked to my friend (his dad is an electrical engineer) and we may be able to get some parts from his dad's company or direct from McMaster Carr. Thanks for the advice and encouragement.

[TimTheSloth]

P.S. Sorry for the harsh words rhoads56, I have some issues with that store but I will honor your policies.

[lovekraft]

You're not likely to find those discontinued Japanese 2SC536F transistors at Radio Shack or Circuit City, or anywhere else locally for that matter, but you can probably sub a pair of 2N5088s or 2N5089s for them, and those should be available somewhere in the greater Irvine area. Try to find an old-fashioned electronics/amateur radio store that doesn't specialize in cell phones, computers and household appliances - they might even be able to help you find what you need if you're unsure.

[TimTheSloth]

You're not likely to find those discontinued Japanese 2SC536F transistors at Radio Shack or Circuit City, or anywhere else locally for that matter, but you can probably sub a pair of 2N5088s or 2N5089s for them, and those should be available somewhere in the greater Irvine area. Try to find an old-fashioned electronics/amateur radio store that doesn't specialize in cell phones, computers and household appliances - they might even be able to help you find what you need if you're unsure.

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Thanks for the heads up. I'm gonna head down to a place I know of that may have what I need or where I can get it, if they can't help me I'll call around. Seems there are a few places in the area that say "we can get you anything" so I'll have to put them to the test with the discontinued transistor

[Paul Marossy]

there are a few places in the area that say "we can get you anything" so I'll have to put them to the test with the discontinued transistor

You'll probably get an NTE replacement part, not the original. On the whole, I have had good experience with NTE parts.

[lovekraft]

They might be available surplus or as pullouts - they were very common in Japanese-made home electronics of the pre-chip era, like stereos, TVs, etc. I can't get a read on how important they are to the sound, but they were evidently used in several fuzzboxes of note, including the Gretsch ControFuzz, so they may be worth hunting down.

[TimTheSloth]

They might be available surplus or as pullouts - they were very common in Japanese-made home electronics of the pre-chip era, like stereos, TVs, etc. I can't get a read on how important they are to the sound, but they were evidently used in several fuzzboxes of note, including the Gretsch ControFuzz, so they may be worth hunting down.

←

Right. I think they actually are very important to the sound (there really isn't much else in the box). The sound of this pedal is pretty unique, it's the pedal Colin Greenwood of Radiohead uses on his bass in the songs "Exit Music (for a film)" and "Myxomatasis". It's super thick, sticky, grungy fuzz. It sounds like 60/70s biker film fuzz.

Lovekraft, I was wondering how you got the part number 2SC536F for the transistor, it seems like a couple places fairly nearby may have it. I do see that is says C536 F7G on the transistor itself, maybe you derived it from that?

Thanks for all the help so far guys, I truely appreciate it.

[lovekraft]

You got it - on those Japanese transistors, the "2S" is assumed (since they all start with that prefix), just like "2N" transistors from the US are often only labeled with the last 3 or 4 digits and whatever code suffixes apply. I have no idea what the final 7G in that designation means, but I would assume it's a date code, an OEM identifier or something like that (probably quite important to the manufacturer at the time, but meaningless for our purposes). The "F" is a variation designator, and is more likely to be important, since minor design updates may have made this particular version ideal for this application. It's also quite possible that these were simply the cheapest universally available units at the time - manufacturers are a lot more likely to choose components based on availability and price than any special sonic qualities.

Edited July 26, 2005 by lovekraft

[Primal]

I would personally go with Mouser.com for the components and Stewmac for the switch. As for the case, I dunno.

[TimTheSloth]

Thanks for all the advice, I've got all the parts necessary except the switch and the box. Any recommendations? The one primal linked to looks nice but it's expensive!

Edit: Actually I just checked out the www.smallbearelec.com that GuitarMonkey linked and it has quite a few relatively cheap options, I will probably go with them once I figure out which switch I want.

Edited August 2, 2005 by TimTheSloth

[jamesj]

As little as the actual parts are..... Do you think it would work as a "built in" feature on my next project guitar?

[Paul Marossy]

As little as the actual parts are..... Do you think it would work as a "built in" feature on my next project guitar?

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Sure, if you have a little room in the control cavity, there is no reason why you couldn't...

[jamesj]

As little as the actual parts are..... Do you think it would work as a "built in" feature on my next project guitar?

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Sure, if you have a little room in the control cavity, there is no reason why you couldn't...

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I am going to make a seperate cavity, I want to put in something thats "different" I would really like to put a "talk box" in it but I have no Idea how to build one of those.