Friday, March 24, 2017
Way Huge Swollen Pickle Mk 2
For Fuzz Friday here's the newer and highly tweak-able Swollen Pickle from Way Huge. Like the Mk 1, originals use a MPQ3904 transistor array instead of individual transistors. Couldn't make that work this time around, so just stick with individual 2N3904s. Originals also have 2 of the controls internally, but what's the fun in that? All 7 pots are for external mounting and the whole thing will fit in a 1590BB with top mounted jacks fairly easily. Here's the schematic for reference. You'll notice a few values are a 10th of typical values found in a Big Muff (indicated by an * in the layout below). Not sure if it's a typo on the schematic or just the way Way Huge did it this time around. YMMV
I tried building one using that schematic a year back and noticed some odd values that didn't even match the mk1 pickle. This is basically an mk1 with extra clipping and eq, among other tiny changes.
ReplyDeleteI ended up buying a board from Fuzz Dog (they're great!) and sure enough, they are 10x the size of the ones on that schematic. Go for the 470k and 100k's first, is my advice.
Nice looking layout! Thanks for all your great work.
What a coincidence! Here I am, began making the Mk-1 pickle, parts on the board, not soldered yet and you post Mk-2 with 7 pots. I'll just ditch it now and move on to this. :) Thank you as always.
ReplyDeleteTag it verified man! This is absolutely the best muff, for bass at least. I was using Musket with blend but the Pickle Mk2 allows so much bass to pass and even boost on top, you can do without a clean blend for sure. From Blueberry like tubey overdrive to ultimate doom bass, this is it! Thank you so much!
DeleteSome notes:
1- You and AlexS were right. Indicated values are really x10.
2- I made the crunch pot a 470k audio taper(-ish) as in the schematic from a 1M pot by adding 2.7M(legs 1&2) and 56k(legs 2&3) resistors.
3- I think filter pot also requires some taper. Will experiment.
4- Very silent muff! Even without the noise-cancelling features of a guitar amp, you hear no hiss or radio mixing in ever connected via an interface to PC.
5- Try to match transistors to get close to the original array. Closest trannies I had was 3 325hfe and a 327.
Thanks for verifying and for the great build report!
DeleteOne thing I'd like to mention is that this isn't a straight forward muff to setup correctly. It offers the widest range of sounds of any muff I've tried but every knob affects all the others and can be very annoying to tune; kind of like a Floyd-Rose bridge. Ha! But once it's set right, it's awesome. You might want to write down knob positions of your fav sounds before going live with it. Just don't get disappointed right away and keep tweaking.
DeleteIs posible, death by audio Apocalypse??
ReplyDeleteHey legend, thanks for this amazing website.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to make this circuit my first build from this site and was wondering what diodes you would recommended?
I'd just stick with what's in the original and listed in the layout. You can always use sockets and then experiment with other diodes as well.
Deleteverified too! Used mpsa18, & resistors which market** should be x 10 kom. Very flexible variant of big muff!
ReplyDelete2n3094 are better!
DeleteLove it..... works great! Thanks.
ReplyDeletewell it works and have plenty of gain, muff etc. The only issue I have is the clipping diodes don't light up and the clipping pot does nothing. Is there any particular value LED's that I need to use?
ReplyDeleteFYI, used 10x value resistors and 2n3904 transistors. Am going to experiment with germanium to see what happens.
I have a problem, everything works correctly but it has little volume and little gain, any advice? I have tracked all the tracks and they are fine
ReplyDeleteI had something similar. I had reversed polarized 1uF from Filter 2. changed pins and all good
Delete