Project overview
Based on the first version of the Fuzz War by Death by Audio, a seven-gain stage monster nothing related to the current production model Fuzz War II, which has a much more Big muff inspired circuit.
For this project, we designed the Fuzz control as a regular potentiometer, instead of a trimpot like in the original unit. Also, we included in this project a bias control cause we all know how fun is to experiment with starving fuzzes!
Don’t forget to check the additional notes on the Tone stack Section.
Introduction
When talking about the Fuzz War by Death by Audio ™, there is a lot of controversy in the DIY community and the players. Everybody knows that the Fuzz War II is a super dirty Muff-inspired circuit, but there’s not that much information regarding the original version of this saturated and dirty fuzz. That’s why we took on our hands the task of replicating this amazing circuit piece by piece, and after analyzing many units and schematics, here we have the final version of dirty saturated fuzz.
Spoiler alert! No effort spared when giving you the best-sounding projects in your hands. You get the pcb with the matching documents to build our take on the first version that is no longer in production.
By analyzing the schematic you can tell there’s nothing related to a Big Muff but the Tone control. This is a seven-gain stage monster!
Fully saturated fuzz is the main territory of this pedal. So the answer to the question: “Does it doom?” hell yeah!
Also great on bass but we recommend adding a blend board to keep the low end alive.
Controls
- Fuzz
- Volume
- Tone
- Bias (Trimmer)
For further analysis on this circuit take a look at this thread on Free Stomp Boxes Forum.
For any technical questions regarding this build don’t forget to check out our Facebook Group and our forum at Free Stomp Boxes.
Death By Fuzz I 2v0 – Building Docs
Death By Fuzz I 1.1v – Building Docs
Death By Fuzz I 1.0v – Building Docs
Death By Fuzz I 2v0 – Drilling template
Death by Fuzz I 1.0v & 1.1v – Drilling Template
2 reviews for Death By Fuzz I
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Jonathan Hernandez (verified owner) –
I’m so glad I built this. I have a clone of the more recent Fuzz War and it’s nice, but the mids are too scooped for my taste.
This version is much more versatile. It has plenty of mids and highs and the tone knob is more of a high cut. There are notes on making the tone knob more flexible but I like this layout. I like the addition of the bias trimmer. It doesn’t do all that much but it’s definitely noticeable. I made it an external pot because I love knob tweaking.
Graham (verified owner) –
Great sounding fuzz, I’ve built a couple of the v2 version from another PCB site and always been curious about this one. It’s massive and over the top all the way, exactly what I was hoping for!
I’d advise trying to match the transistors to all be in a similar gain range, mine were around 350 hFE. Went for the 220nf cap in C7, tried lots of others from 4.7nf to 680nf but that was the best for my ears!
I’ve done a demo video also if you want to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az7fB5dV0tE