Doug Hammond - The Brick (Percolator based)

Stompboxes circuits published in magazines, books or on DIY electronics websites.
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axiss
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Post by axiss »

Gotta say I'm no Albini fan and no Percolator fan too. But that video comparing it to the Barge Concepts clearly shows that, whatever the Percolator is famous for, the Barge Concepts doesn't follow at all.

On the other hand, I love Doug's Brick, have already played a lot with that circuit and every single variation seems to bring more interesting things up. Great drivey/fuzzy sounds in there. :thumbsup

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jakerandall
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Post by jakerandall »

axiss

what is your favorite version that you have built? What transistors are you using?

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DougH
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Post by DougH »

axiss wrote:Gotta say I'm no Albini fan and no Percolator fan too. But that video comparing it to the Barge Concepts clearly shows that, whatever the Percolator is famous for, the Barge Concepts doesn't follow at all.

On the other hand, I love Doug's Brick, have already played a lot with that circuit and every single variation seems to bring more interesting things up. Great drivey/fuzzy sounds in there. :thumbsup
Thanks!

I'm no fan of that scene either and only heard of Albini after hearing about the Percolator first. I first heard about it on Tonefrenzy before I heard of Albini, and I was always curious about it. The Brick was just an attempt to solve (somewhat) the mystery of the Perc, nothing more and nothing less. As to how it compares to a real Perc, don't know, don't care, maybe I lucked into something better, who knows? All I know is it was useful, different, and interesting enough to build after I tried it on the breadboard. It's nice because at low gain it's more of an "overdrive" whereas at high gain it's more of a "fuzz" and it interacts nicely with the guitar volume control.

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axiss
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Post by axiss »

jakerandall wrote:axiss

what is your favorite version that you have built? What transistors are you using?
I like an hybrid version of the Brick, using a high hFE germanium transistor as the PNP device (I've got some Raytheon-made from an eBay vendor). Try also some 2N3565 as the NPN silicon guy (available from Steve Daniels at Small Bear). The diodes seem to be critical there, gotta try lots of them to find the right ones. It doesn't sound good without the clipping stage, IMHO.
You can get nice results also with a booster in front of it, although you'll probably lose some touch sensivity (and volume clean up).

Depending on your choice of transistors, you'll probably want to do some filtering along the circuit to tame some harsh harmonics.

There are some mods to do if you want to push it more to its "untamed fuzz" side.

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Post by soulsonic »

I seriously had no idea Albini even used one until recently. You can get his tone with any number of different guitar/amp/pedal combos. I have a Teisco Spectrum with bad pickups that pretty much sounds like that no matter what you play it through. It's a good tone to have if you want people to hate you.
"Analog electronics in music is dead. Analog effects pedal design is a dead art." - Fran

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