Third Age Amps wrote:
Huh. Well that seems kind of shady. Sell a kit that, with it's core component, is unusable....
That is hardly a fair assessment of BYOC and its products. If your kit contained a poor quality germanium transistor, all you have to do is contact
sales@buildyourownclone.com and they will quickly get a free replacement out to you. Germanium transistors are notoriously variable in performance, not to mention quite sensitive to changes in ambient temperature. This is "nature of the beast" stuff. The upside, of course, is that when they perform well, they produce that warm, woolly fuzz tone that silicon transistors just can't achieve.
The other possibility is that the issue is being caused by some other factor in your build and not the Ge transistor. You can easily check this if you have a low to medium gain silicon transistor available to substitute for the Ge tranny (you'll need to match up the pin-out to the socket, of course). If the noise disappears or drops substantially, then you'll know that the Ge tranny is the culprit. If not, then it's time to look elsewhere in the build.
We would be happy to look over your pedal if you would post photos--it never hurts to let a couple of other pairs of eyes take a look-see. If you do this, please make the shots large, well-lit, and well-focused, and include both sides of the PCB and all of the jack and switch wiring.
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