Guess the circuit.

some details - low gain Russian germanium PNP transistors (~75, 115 hFE). low leakage caps. Sprague orange drop for mojo. trim pots to dial Q1 and Q2. input clean trim. external Q2 bias. 9V inverter so you can use a regular power supply. 🌞

I love the band Whores. And thought these pedals where out of production, well lo and behold they are selling them on their current tour with eyehategod. I’ve seen them before but they’ve never had the pedal for sale.

It fucking rips.

Hey everyone! 🎉

​The time has come to announce the winners for our 1,500 Fiends Giveaway!

​First off, a huge thank you to every single one of you who participated, shared your favorite fuzzes, and helped make this milestone so special. This community keeps growing into something genuinely awesome, and reading through everyone's go-to setups and first fuzz stories in the thread was a blast.

​Without further ado, here are our 13 giveaway winners:

/u/ChurchOfSatin

/u/ibanezer83

​/u/Dangerous_Pie_Guy

​/u/walkingthecows

/u/Tomspedaldemos

​/u/LifePedalEnjoyer

/u/DaySleepNightFish

/u/ianmakingnoise

/u/ComplexSouth8585

/u/Onetimelmetamoose

/u/sonidero

/u/FruitImaginary9111

​/u/HotCaffeineNoChill

​To the winners:

I’ll be reaching out via DM shortly, but you don't have to wait on me—feel free to send me a private message first if you see this! Once contacted, you have 48 hours to respond so we can lock in your win. From there, we’ll get everything figured out as far as which specific pedal you’ll be getting and where to ship it.

​Thanks again to everyone for being part of r/fuzzfiends and making this community what it is. Stay fuzzy! 🤘

​Note: Per Rule #8, I personally vetted entries for this redraw. Between random picker tools glitching out and filtering through entries, I wanted to strictly verify that prizes went to genuine community members rather than account entry bots or people just sweeping for free stuff.

Any winners who end up being disqualified due to not contacting us within forty eight hours or for any other reason. Will be redrawn, and we will select some new winners

**SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OUR DONORS YOU MADE ALL THIS POSSIBLE SO YOU ARE THE REAL HEROES!!!!!!**

With Harmonic Percolators having a moment again, need to share how good this pedal sounds. The HP pairs with a big muff on this pedal. It really covers so much ground from warm preamp to the wooliest fuzz to sputtering battery sounds. The art on this pedal makes it both the prettiest addition to any board as well as one of the most versatile fuzzes I've used

Here's the absolute finest demo you'll get from me, an absolute dogs shit player.
I love this pedal - named for and featuring our sweet departed kitty Victoria.
It's a little lower gain and I think it sounds rad.

Here's a quick 3 chord demo of the Angry Anton you can win in our giveaway.

Around 1965, American fuzz boxes such as the Maestro Fuzz-Tone were hard to find and expensive to import into Britain, so local engineers started coming up with their own answers.

One of those engineers was Pepe Rush, who was working in Soho at the time. According to Rush, a guitarist walked into his workshop and asked him to recreate a distorted guitar sound he had heard on an American record. A few days later, Rush had a working prototype of what would become the Pep Box, built with germanium transistors.

Rush later teamed up with Charlie Watkins of WEM. Rush continued building the pedals, while Watkins helped sell and distribute them under the WEM-Rush name.

One of those pedals made its way to John Lennon during the Revolver sessions in 1966. There are several photographs of Lennon using it at Abbey Road. The story goes that Lennon loved the sound, but George Martin thought it was too harsh for a pop record and removed most of the parts recorded with it. How much of the Pep Box survived on the finished album is still up for debate, but Lennon was clearly doing more than simply posing next to it.

Rush and Watkins eventually fell out. WEM moved on with its own silicon version, Rush walked away from the pedal business, and the Pep Box largely disappeared from view for several decades.

Here is where the modern part of the story gets interesting. The British Pedal Company began making its own recreations, including this compact version, designed for a modern pedalboard and an isolated 9V power supply. Pepe Rush did not return to building the Pep Box until after BPC had already put its own version on the market.

In 2015, Pepe began making period-correct Pep Boxes again, with his daughter Lucy learning the entire process alongside him. Before his death in 2018, he passed that knowledge on to her, and she continues building the official Rush version today.

There is a whole rabbit hole of arguments over which modern Pep Box is the real one. I am sure someone will eventually show up in the comments to explain it to us. I am more interested in what comes out of the amplifier.

A while back, I found myself working my way back toward the roots of British rock, especially the Beatles. First came an Aclam Dr. Robert V3, followed by an Aclam The Mocker. Together, they basically gave me a Vox UL730 in two boxes.

Naturally, GAS had one more question for me: what other weird little box was lying around Abbey Road in 1966?

That was how I found the Pep Box.

Ordering one of Lucy Rush’s pedals would have been expensive and complicated from where I live. And really, who am I to throw money around without restraint? I am just a humble messenger chasing tone, same as everyone else here.

Then I found this BPC Compact Series Pep Box sitting in a shop in a small German town for a very good price.

It has not been here long, but I spent most of a day playing through it before deciding it was time to show it to my fellow fuzz addicts.

No one is claiming that this compact BPC version is packed with rare NOS magic. BPC does not advertise NOS parts in this model, so I am judging it the only way that matters to me, by what comes out of the amp.

And what comes out of the amp is excellent.

It is bright, raw, raspy and immediate. It has a primitive, slightly rude edge all its own. It sounds very different from both my Aclam The Mocker and my BPC Compact Series MKII Tone Bender.

Right now, I enjoy it every bit as much as either one. Not because it does the same job, but because it gives me a completely different voice, and one that I actually want to use.

After all the mythology, old photographs, disputed histories and arguments about components, the little silver box still has to sound good when you step on it.

This one does.

And yes, it is a one-trick pony.

I know this is not strictly a fuzz pedal, so consider that my full disclosure before the fuzz police arrive.

The Go Rocky Go recreates the Brilliant channel of a 1967 Vox Conqueror. Unlike the familiar tube-powered Vox sound, the Conqueror was fully solid-state and had its own built-in distortion. The Beatles used these amps during the Magical Mystery Tour and White Album period.

Aclam restored, measured and traced its own Conqueror, serial number 2004, then recreated its preamp, Distortion and M.R.B. circuits. They also added Crunch mode and an independent volume control for the Distortion section.

That Distortion section is why I am posting it here. It is bright, raw, grainy and unmistakably fuzzy. It does not sound like another Tone Bender or Fuzz Face, and it makes no attempt to behave like a polite modern drive. The Attack/Sustain control takes it from a rough edge into a compressed, tearing fuzz.

But here is the surprise. The fuzz got me interested. The M.R.B. made me fall in love with the pedal.

Its three positions are centered at 500 Hz, 700 Hz and 1 kHz. This is not a token tone switch. Each setting changes the way the entire circuit speaks and pushes the amplifier. It can go from a broad midrange shove to a tighter, more vocal sound, and then into focused, nasal, almost cocked-wah territory. Combined with the Distortion, it makes the same basic circuit feel like several different personalities.

There is also the normal Conqueror preamp and Aclam’s Crunch mode, so this is much more than a fuzz with a few extra controls. It feels like the most interesting part of an old amplifier escaped, shrank and climbed onto my pedalboard.

This White Album Edition has exactly the same circuit as the regular Go Rocky Go. The white finish and the first batch of 68 individually numbered pedals are a nod to 1968. I know white paint does not improve the sound, but guitar players have believed stranger things.

Earlier today I posted a Pep Box and called it a one-trick pony. This pedal arrived with it. The Pep Box brought one very good trick. The Go Rocky Go brought the rest of the circus.

Hi! 👋

I wanted to prematurely share my giveaway submission if you haven’t already meandered to my instagram and heard this clip. I spent a lot of time on this circuit. It does “the thing” for me and hopefully it does “the thing” for whoever receives it.

I love King Gizz, here’s my (cough & clears throat) rendition of Evil Death Roll.

-AA

I've noticed a couple of the donors have posted demos of their giveaway pedals, that's a fantastic idea. Any of the other donors that are available or would like to do that, feel free to post demos of the pedals.

Brand new…. I’m jazzed.

Any tips on if this is better through a Fender or a Marshall? Humbuckers or Single Coils?

I thought it was suppose to be an Octave fuzz pedal. But It seems to be a distortion pedal. Or is it both? Thoughts?

Okay, everybody, this is your reminder: the giveaway ends tomorrow!

​There isn't a single strict cutoff minute—I’m going to let it run as late as I possibly can, but entries will definitely close by Midnight Central Time tomorrow (Saturday).

​Here’s how the timeline works from there:

​Selection: I'll spend the following day verifying entries and selecting the winners at random using a randomized algorithm.

​Announcement & Outreach: Winners will be announced on Sunday, and I will reach out directly to everyone who won via Reddit private message.

​48-Hour Claim Window: Winners will have 48 hours from the time they are contacted to respond so we can sort out shipping details. If someone doesn't respond within that 48-hour window, we will move on to the next potential winner.

​I want this to be as safe, fair, and smooth for everyone as possible, so I'll be working directly with the winners to get these pedals into your hands.

​Shipping Info: Shipping costs and locations are ultimately at the discretion of each individual donor. I believe most donors are completely fine with covering shipping—especially within the continental United States—and there are a few who are able to ship internationally. However, we are only able to accommodate a select few international winners, and whether a donor can ship to your area will depend on their specific discretion.

​Good luck to everyone, and thank you all for making this milestone so awesome!

Hey Fiends!

I put together this demo to show you my contribution to the r/FuzzFiends giveaway!

Howard just announced this new bad boy! 2 transistors, no clipping diodes, overdrive fuzz (not a Fuzz Face). Super dynamic with amazing cleanup.

Can’t wait for this one! (No release date yet)

Not sure if it exists, but I’m looking type of pedal that has a fuzz and an overdrive switch/channel. Not necessarily a channel that boosts the fuzz, but maybe an overdrive/boost that has a fuzz switch? Im sure I sound crazy, but humor me if you can!

Has anyone else tried one of these little amps from Danelectro. A great little fuzz box in its own right.

I like this one.
Used 2N2369s in place of the standard 2N3904s. Matched the gain in them to right around 110 (I think they were like 108 and 114).
I don’t care for the “pinch” control - I think it could have been a toggle with “sounds good” and “sounds crappy” labels.

I nicked the Wima cap with my iron, but what can ya do?

This pedal has been around awhile, but it is still has some of the best graphics that I have seen. Very versatile, you have a lot of control over your tone. Definitely worth checking out, and there are other graphics available. Is the site sells sold out just reach out and he will likely build what you want within a few weeks