Bottom Feeder Fuzz - (use up those low-gain germanium transistors)

[effdub]

Nothing at all revolutionary here. I just wanted something to use up all those shitty low-gain germanium transitors I bought in lots on eBay.

It's just a Fuzz Face, folks.

Gains should be pretty low (like <40 hFE).

I'm not totally sure why I selected 100K for the bias pot. I recall that's what was on my breadboard when I tested this, but that's about all I can remember. 

[effdub]

Forgot to mention:

This thing won't sound all that much like a Fuzz Face since the effective gain of pseudo Q1 and Q2 will be waaaaaay higher than the traditional values.

With a darlington pair, you basically multiply the gains of the individual transistors to find the total effective gain. Actually, you multiply the gains and then add them, like so:

[arockalypse]

yeah, this kind of thing is super gainy.  i've tried two darlington stages one ofter another before, but never a DC coupled design like the FF.  you could lower the gain by adding a resistor from Q1's E to Gr, or lowering the 100K feedback resistor.