Octina Octave Fuzz
Tom, I thought you hated octave fuzz?
It is true that I haven’t gotten along with octave fuzz in the past, but things changed a couple of years ago. In a video on Instagram I saw that Sarah Lipstate was using a vintage Univox Superfuzz with Iggy Pop. It looked and sounded killer and I had to try one out for myself. Some internet research showed that the Univox Superfuzz is the same as the Shin Ei FY-6, and I already own a Wattson FY-6 reproduction. So I started messing around with it and grew to love its thorny and raspy nature. Around the same time I also started to get really into the fOXX Tone Machine that a friend lent to me.
As I played these fuzzes more and more I wished there was a way to get the “hint of octave” swizzle of the Superfuzz as well as the all-out octave-up harmonic of the Tone Machine. I also really like the Tone Machine’s base fuzz tonality and texture with the octave switch off. Was there a way to get it all in one box?
The answer for me were the fOXX Tone Machine transistors. I bought a batch of modern PN3565’s and immediately the base tone flavor of the fOXX was right there. Okay, how to get the octave up? This part is long and convoluted and involves a Lynchian dream as well as inspiration from my son’s poetry school assignment. Let’s cut to chase so that people don’t think I’m insane: After many dead-ends and borrowed gear I realized that a piggy-backed NPN/PNP push-pull transistor configuration should work in the circuit, was it really that easy? Not really.
After MUCH experimenting I finally did find a way to make it smoothly transition from No Octave to Hella Octave. This was accomplished by changing the bias of both of the piggy-backed transistors in real-time. Turning the Scramble control from counter-clockwise to clockwise takes the Octina on a journey from raw fOXX Tone Machine fuzz, to Fuzzrite, to Superfuzz, to pure Tone Machine octave up. As well as many interesting stops in-between.
One of those stops, right around 2:00 on the Scramble control causes the Octina to go a little unstable, and feedback is lurking behind every note. In a few prototypes I dialed it-out and made it more behaved. But the more I played with this instability the more I liked it. So I decided to leave it in, just beware that ~2:00 on Scramble can get loosey-goosey.
Speaking of noise, the Octina is a tiny bit noisier than most of my previous designs, but that is the price you pay for all of those increased upper harmonics and transistor abuse. Some of my favorite settings are in the 10:00 to 12:00 range of the Scramble, especially where you get octave swizzles moving through chords. It creates really cool movement on sustained chord stabs. Also it responds really well to guitar tone knob and pickups changes. Flipping to the neck pickup, or turning down the tone on the bridge, really emphasizes the octave up harmonics, much like an Octavia. Lots of fun!
The 3-way Texture Toggle switches in/out diodes in this configuration:
- BAT41 Silicon Diodes
- Blower (Straight PN3565 Transistors)
- 1N4148 Silicon Diodes
These diode/no diode selections change both the character of the fuzz as well as the octave emphasis, so be sure to experiment.
Sorry I know this is basically a novel, but the Octina has been brewing for a few years now and there's a lot to say.
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