Comments on: Leaky Transistor Buffer

By: admin

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:58:40 +0000

Great! I’m glad you got it working!

regards, Jack

By: Anton

Anton — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:34:18 +0000

Ugh! Do I feel like an idiot. I realized that this is positive ground and won’t work properly in a negative ground circuit. I took it apart and rebuilt it using the proper schematic (negative ground) posted here at the beginning of this post. And, it works perfectly.

By: Anton

Anton — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:53:18 +0000

Okay, I found part of the problem. I soldered in the transistor the wrong way, so, I removed it and put in a AC128. Unfortunately, I’m still having problems. There is an increase in volume but still no sound with the fuzz engaged, and it is still scratchy. I’m stumped.

By: Anton

Anton — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:06:26 +0000

I used a russian ge with a forward bias of 80 and little to no leakage, but, I have issues. The wah will work before the amplifier but sounds very low in volume and it sounds scratchy when the wah is rocked back and forth. The wah is fine without the buffer. In front of a fuzz face, with the fuzz face on, no sound passes? Bizarre indeed. I’m going to go back to it and if I wired something wrong. Does the leakage and bias matter with the device?

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:06:35 +0000

Great circuit agree with the “green” comments above. Does anybody have a good gain control and tuner/mute mod to add to this circuit? If not, I’ll see what I can come up with.

By: Robert Edwards

Robert Edwards — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:23:52 +0000

Hi – I like this very much although I haven’t tried it yet, but I was wondering if it would be possible to add a collector resistor equal to R4 to give a balanced output to XLR, or to give the choice of in or out of phase signal ?
Thanks so much, Rob

By: Puiksxiq

Puiksxiq — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:55:28 +0000

Thanks!,

By: amz-fx

amz-fx — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:47:22 +0000

You should try some Ge transistors in the buffer positions of your compressor… it will add some nice ‘flava’

For those who don’t know, Robert makes some great custom guitar fx pedals. Check them out at:

Keeley Electronics

regards, Jack

By: Robert Keeley

Robert Keeley — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 11:34:07 +0000

Nice work Jack! Saving the world by keeping components out of the ground! In some way this should be submitted to Nuts and Volts or some other publication as a Green Buffer, or the start of Green Circuits! Keep the lead out! Great idea, best of luck.
Robert

By: admin

admin — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 00:18:46 +0000

I did some tests with several leaky germaniums in this buffer and got response over 100k Hz!

http://www.muzique.com/news/index.php/?p=46

-Jack