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TAFM Internal Bias

Ginsly

Ginsly

Apr 1, 2010
187
20
#1
I picked up a Team Awesome Fuzz Machine last January, and have been loving it! The high-gain settings are great, but I've been using mine as more of a fuzzy overdrive. I have a more recent model that seems to only have one internal trimpot - I believe it controls the transistor's bias, but I wanted to ask you guys about it before I go messing with it. What are your experiences with how the trimpot changes the sound?
 
#2
I would certainly send Brian at Smallsound/Bigsound an email. He is one of the coolest guys ever. He will get back to you very quickly and gladly answer any questions you may have about it. I got mine from a guitar player that had it all wacked out, and Brian actually had me send it in and he set it all up for me at no cost. Very cool dude indeed! One of my very fav pedals!
Hope that helps some.:cool:
 
#3
Thanks Tigerbass! I actually did write Brian when I first got it, and you're right - he's an incredibly cool guy. He even had some kind words to say about my band, which really made my day. He mentioned that the internal bias changes eq response, sustain, noise, etc, but I was wondering if anyone here has actually played with it at all. I'm a little scared to mess with it!
 
#6
Ah-ha-ha.. okay, fair enough. I think it's a pretty reasonable question, though. I use a Wattson Superfuzz, and adjusting the trimpot on that makes quite a big difference in the sound.
 
#8
Ginsly said:
Ah-ha-ha.. okay, fair enough. I think it's a pretty reasonable question, though.
Click to expand...

totally. i tune them to work well with the gear i have at hand in hopes that it will work well with all the other combinations of gear out there... :ninja: obviously that's not possible, so you may find that changing it up will suit your rig better.

the trim that's currently in there won't make a HUGE impact on the sound - it's on the subtler side. there are 2 things to note:

1. it's a multi-turn trimpot so it takes a bunch of turning to make significant change in the sound. if you lose the spot you have now, it may be difficult to find it again, but honestly there aren't really any *bad* spots on the trim (older tafms had 2 trims, but the other one DID have some crummy areas in the range so i set it via fixed resistor now)

2. knowing when you're at the end of the trim's travel isn't so easy. i'm used to them so i can simply feel it, but otherwise... there's a subtle little clicking sound and feel once you've reached the end of it's travel - don't keep turning or you could damage the trim.
 

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