funkyhair143 Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 Alright does anyone know where to buy a couple of Germanium AC128s? Is there anything equivalent to that thats more abundant? And would a AC188 work in a "fuzz pedal" circut? Thanks guys:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomrulez Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 get Ac128's from here: http://markhindes.easywebstore.co.uk/searchresults.aspx?searchterm=ac128 I think he is out of stock at the moment, they would work in a home made "fuzz pedal". I saw your sneaky edit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkyhair143 Posted October 20, 2008 Author Share Posted October 20, 2008 hehe woops fuzz pedal then and i just found this on mouser http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=JV7lzlMm3yKR3liu%2fAHJeA%3d%3d not sure if that would work or not? Its a NTE158??? any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomrulez Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 Well all the best fuzz sound's come from germanium transistor's, all I know is to stick with what sounds best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkyhair143 Posted October 20, 2008 Author Share Posted October 20, 2008 alright one last question then ill stop anoying you :] http://markhindes.easywebstore.co.uk/contentitempage.aspx?contentid=104400 those are ac128s right? im just not sure cause you said they were out of stock and those are in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomrulez Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 Yeah they will do fine, the ones at the top of the page I posted were out of stock and I didn't look down the page, my bad. Those ones will be perfect though, remember to get a couple as none of them have the same sound so mix and match them until you get the sound you like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grinning Death Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 I doubt anyone really experimented with any other p-n junction grp 3, 4 5 etc... semi conductors. Just the usual sheepy guitarists following whatever their particular champ used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkyhair143 Posted October 20, 2008 Author Share Posted October 20, 2008 Id experiment if I had more money and new more about elctronics, all I really know right now is how to read the schematics but I dont really know like why the parts are that way or how they make the sounds they make. hell that'd be fun to just play around and find some new sound out of the blue by just messing around with the components Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_man361 Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 i think i played with some 2N3904 transistors, iirc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen_2 Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 Going off on a slight tangent, am I the only one who finds it a bit funny that the "New Old Stock" germanium transistors used in Fuzz Factories have "Zvex" printed on them? It's almost like Zach Vex travelled back in time to the 60's, ordered some components with his name custom-printed on the cans, and then jumped back to the year 2000, just in time to design them into a boutique fuzz pedal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil. Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 im going for those replacements on mouser personally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomrulez Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 Going off on a slight tangent, am I the only one who finds it a bit funny that the "New Old Stock" germanium transistors used in Fuzz Factories have "Zvex" printed on them? It's almost like Zach Vex travelled back in time to the 60's, ordered some components with his name custom-printed on the cans, and then jumped back to the year 2000, just in time to design them into a boutique fuzz pedal. That's one of the effects on the new ZVEX Time Bender Pedal, custom built for esparoba1. It allows the user to go back in time to learn muse songs before they are even written. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citizen_2 Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 im going for those replacements on mouser personally. According to the Mouser datasheet, those 158's have much lower gain than the AC128's used in the FF. Typical is quoted as 90 with a min of 60 and max of 175. Zvex reputedly uses components with gain in excess of 250. Whether this is accurate or not I can't say and I don't fancy unsoldering any of mine to measure 'em. The NTE components will almost certainly produce an output, but whether it'll sound "like an FF" will be interesting to see/hear. This is in part because no two FF's seem to sound exactly the same anyway, something that must be down to gain variations in the germanium transistors, as everything else on the board should be pretty consistent from unit to unit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomrulez Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 According to the Mouser datasheet, those 158's have much lower gain than the AC128's used in the FF. Typical is quoted as 90 with a min of 60 and max of 175. Zvex reputedly uses components with gain in excess of 250. Whether this is accurate or not I can't say and I don't fancy unsoldering any of mine to measure 'em. The NTE components will almost certainly produce an output, but whether it'll sound "like an FF" will be interesting to see/hear - in part because no two FF's seem to sound exactly the same anyway. I think the reason no two FF's sound the same is because no two germanium transistor's sound the same, that's why people swear by them as germanium's add character to the pedal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackplug Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 Well all the best fuzz sound's come from germanium transistor's, all I know is to stick with what sounds best. I prefer silicon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkyhair143 Posted October 22, 2008 Author Share Posted October 22, 2008 I really like the sound of Germanium fuzz boxes/distortion. I have a BOSS DS-1, I know thats not very good to begin with, but it sounds almost lifeless compaired to a old germanium based fuzz where they add some character to the sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil. Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 hey, sorry to bump this. I'm back looking for some sort of an alternative to this. I'm building a fuzz, and ordering parts from mouser.com , however, they dont stock AC128's. They have a cross reference match, NTE158, but someone said before that it wont be near as good. Can anyone suggest a decent alternative (or several) that might be on mouser.com. thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teej212 Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 they sell a128s on ebay, just check it out nice prices too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haze015 Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Well all the best fuzz sound's come from germanium transistor's, all I know is to stick with what sounds best. I really like the sound of Germanium fuzz boxes/distortion. I have a BOSS DS-1, I know thats not very good to begin with, but it sounds almost lifeless compaired to a old germanium based fuzz where they add some character to the sound. try swapping the diodes for leds for starters, makes a massive difference to the DS1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gillianreynolds Posted May 20, 2011 Share Posted May 20, 2011 Looking for some pairs or AC128, or SFT363E PNP Germanium transistors for a couple of Arbiter Fuzz Face builds. Thanks in advance for any help. ----------------------------------------------------- Thanks hotels in lisbon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil. Posted May 20, 2011 Share Posted May 20, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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