Utility Face

NOTE: There's a shortage of 42TL019 transformers right now, so the pickup simulator option is limited until we get more stash.

Fuzz Face. That ubiquitous little box of delight. Love it or hate it, you can't ignore it. Why hate it? It can be a bit bass heavy, and it certainly ain't a delight to fit into your chain. Let's see what we can do about that...

Behold the Utility Face. Your chain-friendly, frequency-tweakable friend.

Optionally fronted with our Buffered Pick-up sim (which is switchable or hard-wireable), you can fool it into sitting happily anywhere in your signal chain. Other than saving a few £££, as it's switchable, why not?

Following that we have a few extra controls over your standard Fuzz and Volume. INPUT emulates your guitar volume knob, so you can take the signal entering the fuzz gubbins. GIRTH lets you dial in your ideal frequency range hitting the circuit. Wind it back for thin and struggling, up for more bass until it gets really too much.

MIDS adjusts the bias of Q2, doing the dirty on your midrange and altering the nature of the fuzz. You can change the way this works by fine tuning the internal bias trimmer for Q2. Have the pot working either side of the 'ideal' bias, only overbiasing or only underbiasing. There are no rules.

There's also the option of a voltage inverter, so you can use those sweet, sweet vintage PNP transistors and stick with standard power.

NOTE: DO NOT order the voltage inverter if you're going for silicon transistors, or you intend building with your own NPN germaniums.

The kit is supplied with vertical-mount pots which have round shafts, so you'll need set-screw fitting knobs.

Pot spacing is tight, so you'll need small knobs - 17mm or less diameter - if you're including the mids pot.

If you want the PCB without parts there's a link for that at the bottom of the page.

Partial kit: PCB, all board-mounted components, pots.

Full kit: As above, plus footswitch and appropriate daughterboard/components for your selected bypass type (see Downloads section for details of those), jack sockets, DC socket, battery snap, hook-up wire, LED.

Enclosure (pre-drilled) is available as an option with full kits, and will not take a battery. Knobs are not included.

Builds are only available with full kits including enclosures. Please choose appropriate knobs.

Inspired by: Fuzz Face

Difficulty: Medium

PCB size: 50 x 50mm

Knobs required: 5

Enclosure: 1590B

Direct Connect compatible (4-way)

Download the INSTRUCTION PDF