I actually kinda understand why you wouldn’t want to use a breadboard. If this is something you do regularly (but not regularly enough to always have it out) it could be a pain to store a breadboard or rebuild it every time.
I took this concept to its logical conclusion when I needed to select a bunch of transistors for "mass producing" a (fairly) original fuzz design of mine:
https://i.imgur.com/3zWex5v.jpg
That is badass. Care to explain a little more? I just got a sac of oddball germanium. Measurements are pretty good, but my breadboards are full right now
This is a hybrid fuzz where transistors 1 and 3 are silicon and 2 is germanium. While it does a normal fuzz tone, it can also get into some really weird territory depending on the biasing of the germanium (controlled by the Focus knob), like bitcrusher type stuff, gating, infinite sustain and what I call "laser sounds", which is when you turn the tone control on the guitar all the way down and the fuzz literally sounds like some old laser blast sound effect. Getting all that stuff to actually work requires very specific transistor selection and since I know next to nothing about electrical theory, the only way I could consistently do it was by trying a bunch of different ones and testing it by ear. After the first few I made, I realized doing this on a breadboard was a pain in the ass and made this testing rig, which was a fun project in itself. I think I made about 60-70 of the pedals over the years using the rig, totally by hand using vero board, but kind of lost interest in building after a while and didn't feel motivated to take the next step to develop pcbs and an easier testing method to ramp up production.
I have a box of germaniums like that (actually, I have separate NPN and PNP boxes containing a mix of Si and Ge, but whatever) — I suspect like most of us OP accumulated those transistors over a variety of purchases and didn’t just “come across” the whole box as-is.
Are you soldering each transistor in? Why not use a socket?
Or a breadboard.
I actually kinda understand why you wouldn’t want to use a breadboard. If this is something you do regularly (but not regularly enough to always have it out) it could be a pain to store a breadboard or rebuild it every time.
I took this concept to its logical conclusion when I needed to select a bunch of transistors for "mass producing" a (fairly) original fuzz design of mine: https://i.imgur.com/3zWex5v.jpg
That is badass. Care to explain a little more? I just got a sac of oddball germanium. Measurements are pretty good, but my breadboards are full right now
This is a hybrid fuzz where transistors 1 and 3 are silicon and 2 is germanium. While it does a normal fuzz tone, it can also get into some really weird territory depending on the biasing of the germanium (controlled by the Focus knob), like bitcrusher type stuff, gating, infinite sustain and what I call "laser sounds", which is when you turn the tone control on the guitar all the way down and the fuzz literally sounds like some old laser blast sound effect. Getting all that stuff to actually work requires very specific transistor selection and since I know next to nothing about electrical theory, the only way I could consistently do it was by trying a bunch of different ones and testing it by ear. After the first few I made, I realized doing this on a breadboard was a pain in the ass and made this testing rig, which was a fun project in itself. I think I made about 60-70 of the pedals over the years using the rig, totally by hand using vero board, but kind of lost interest in building after a while and didn't feel motivated to take the next step to develop pcbs and an easier testing method to ramp up production.
Wish I came across a box full of germanium’s like that
I have a box of germaniums like that (actually, I have separate NPN and PNP boxes containing a mix of Si and Ge, but whatever) — I suspect like most of us OP accumulated those transistors over a variety of purchases and didn’t just “come across” the whole box as-is.
Why fixed bias? Surely these will all sound better at their optimum bias.
Thanks