I'm Chris and I just built the arbiter fuzz face clone from this site. I used the germanium transistors from smallbear, and the only thing I changed was using a 22uf cap in place of a 20uf cap in one spot because that's all I could find. I don't have a lot of soldering experience, so it's possible that something didn't make a good connection, my problem is this:
When bypassed, everything's fine. When I turn the pedal on (not in the enclosure yet, just carefully spread out on the floor) The sound gets slightly darker, but it's clean except for this loud clicking sound. Imagine you took a comb, bent all the teeth over with your thumb and then one by one let them snap back... but pretty loud through my amp. The fuzz pot just makes it click more, the volume pot slightly affects the volume, and also makes it click more (but the clicking is more bassy with the volume pot turned up, and more trebbly with the fuzz pot turned up). Did I make some common mistake? Please help a dumb guy out...
When I first started mod-ing my Dunlop FF I was doing it with the circuit board and pots and switch not in the casing. When I started removing components and testing it I'd get that "pop...pop...pop" sound. When I place the innards back into the FF casing, it still made that noise. So I then made sure that the input jacks where making 100% contact with the metal casing and the noise went away.
So, I think your effect just isn't grounded all the way. That's all. Tighten your input jacks. If there is paint in the way, clear the paint away. Remember, that's how FFs' are grounded.
