Welcome to the forum, Brian! You're one of the only people that I know that has a real Vox ToneBender. I think Stuart Castledine sold one on eBay a short while ago for over $300 and I think that the buyer used the "buy now" option. Just shows how incredibly desirable those pedals are! I'd still like to own an original of all the ToneBenders, but I think these days we can build the circuits so that they actually sound better than the originals...for a lot less! But then again...there's just something about being able to say "yeah, I own an original ToneBender MKII Professional (or insert your favorite ToneBender here)"
Does the Vox TB sound way too trebly through a Fender amp? I've been thinking about getting ahold of some OC76 transistors and putting one together, but I'm afraid that it's going to be a "super duper fuzzy treble booster" through my Twin. Maybe I'll just super tweak the Axis Face Silicon
I've never been able to use ANY British-made fuzz [Fuzz Face, Tonebender, ......] with a Fender amp [I mean the older, classic Fender stuff like Twin Rev., Supers, Pro Rev., etc]. I think they might sound better with an older tweed amp, though. As far as newer master-volume, higher gain Fenders..........I dunno, they might work. I think something like a Univox Super Fuzz would sound better with a Fender!
Hmm my Twin is definitely one of the newer higher gain versions. I've had a couple of Fuzz Faces and ToneBenders that sound pretty good through it. The only problem that I've noticed is that they have a tendency to "mud out" the tone unless the input and/or output caps are modified to suit the guitar and amp.
The stock Fuzz Face is one of the worst offenders when it comes to mudding out the sound. I always have to replace the 500K volume pot with a 100K, and I also reduce the value of the input cap to get rid of the woofiness.
The ToneBender MKII was actually the one that was a little too trebly...until I found out that there should be a 0.01uF capacitor from input to ground before the 5uF input capacitor. That definitely helps to tap off some of the highs so that I didn't need to change the input and output capacitors from their original values.
I imagine that the Vox TB would be quite...umm...bright through a Fender though I'm about to start experimenting with Axis Face Silicon Rev. 3 using some mods sent to me by Brett Robinson. First I'm going to try the low gain Silicon transistors...a PN2369A for Q1 and some "white face" 2N3904 that I got from Small Bear a while back. Those 2N3904 have lower gains than any other brand of 2N3904 that I've had. The one that's in there now has a gain of 125. I would like to try out some BD139 that Brett recommends, but I'd have to order some from Mouser...I'll eventually try them out though. Then I'll try some medium gain Silicon transistors...some BC-series that I have around and some 2N-series that have gains of around 200-250. Lots of fun to be had with the lowly Fuzz Face circuit!
Yeah, I remember that the resistors on the input jacks of the older Fenders had something to do with how the fuzz reacted to the amp......it's been so long since I've messed around with Fender amps that I forgot what the values were...!
