Analog.Man SunFace

[BlueSparkle]

Does anyone here have a SunFace perchance?

If you do, can you let us know what you think of it?

[Shadoweclipse13]

If you're wanting a fuzz face, personally, it's THE one to get. I had a BC109 Sunface with the Pink Floyd Time graphics and I probably shouldn't have sold it. It sounded killer. It did early Floyd as well as it did Hendrix, though I don't think Hendrix ever used BC109.

[doctorock78]

They rock IMO. I have 2 of the old NKT germanium ones and they will always be on my board. Forever and ever

[green_mario]

My friend in college was an electrical engineer who soldered the sunface boards for Analogman for his summer job. Really smart and awesome guy who got me into pedals/gear/building and fixing my own stuff. He had a lot of cool gear, but I remember him telling me if he could only have one pedal it'd be the sunface.

[MechaBulletBill]

If you're wanting a fuzz face, personally, it's THE one to get. I had a BC109 Sunface with the Pink Floyd Time graphics and I probably shouldn't have sold it. It sounded killer. It did early Floyd as well as it did Hendrix, though I don't think Hendrix ever used BC109.

I have a Black Acid with bc109s and lemme tell ya, it rips hard

[Shadoweclipse13]

I have a Black Acid with bc109s and lemme tell ya, it rips hard

Hell yes. I didn't get to do it often, but a BC-109 into a cooking amp is just heaven.

[Ursa Minor]

I really dig fuzz faces. But the thing is, they're so damn simple, why not make one?

[BlueSparkle]

Apologies for not updating this much sooner, but I ordered one some months ago from Mike. It was a short delay before it arrived.
He was also kind enough to sign it for me.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/zipzamzerpople/b361uu
The sound is phenomenal, as has been expressed here already.
Absolutely amazing. It's great into the valve amps. however It doesn't like my JC-120 (never intended to put it in front though) or the SS Fender head I also have as a backup, but it's awesome into all the valve amps / heads. It is clear to me why this is the case, and it proves my theory about analog signal chains into valve amps, versus SS amps.

It's 100% Schwang-ri-la.

Absolutely love it. should have bought it years ago.

[popvulture]

Cool! Late to this thread but I love them — I've got a white dot NKT one that I got close to selling in a desperate moment but thankfully held onto. I've also got an older big box Fulltone '69 that's pretty much equally as good, just a tiny bit different (little more tweakable, but maybe not quite as raw as the Sun Face). Honorable mention to a GuitarSystems FuzzTool, which isn't quite as great as the previous two but is damn close, and doesn't seem to get much (if any) attention out there in webbernet land.

[HH1978]

I have had three sunfaces, all fantastic sounding :

NKT 275 red dots : my favorite one, because it has a lot of sweet spots between fuzz and clean. It's on the darker side, so it works well in a trio, but can get lost in the mix with bigger bands.

NKT 275 white dots medium gain : a little brigther and gainier than the red dots. It has a beautiful sparkling clean, but the range of tones between fuzz and clean is not as extended. I tend to prefer this one with a tele, and the red dots with a strat or a JM. It also works a little better in a full band mix.

BC183 : I sold it but wish I had kept it, an think about getting another one someday. It was a whole different animal, brighter and meaner than the others. Great for soloing, but it doesn't clean up like a germanium one. So while I tend to keep the germanium one always on and adjust my volume knob on the guitar, I switched this one on only for lead tones on some songs.

I also have a sunbender (old version). The circuit is very similar to a fuzz face (at that time, they used the same PCB, not sure it's still the case) It cuts better than the germanium sunfaces in a full band mix, and works better with humbuckers too, but I don't like the sound as much as the others, so it has become a backup. It's only a matter of taste though. Also worth noting that it's the only one which I had temperature issues with.

I had the luck to order the NKT 275 while they were available, but if I was shopping for one now, I'd probably go for a standard version, as they get great reviews.

[popvulture]

Yeah I totally agree with you about the NKTs being great but not necessarily worth spending a ton of money on. Just because they're kind of drooled-over unobtainium these days doesn't mean that they're leagues ahead of the currently available germ versions. Pretty subtle differences.

I LOVE my Sunbender—it really does cut the best out of all of em. Definitely meaner, though, and super different overall. Also doesn't seem to have quite the range of subtlety over the guitar volume knob, or at least mine doesn't. There's a crazy amount of variation between 9 and 10, then below 9 not as exciting.

[LossyShades]

Christian Bland from Black Angels talks about his Sunface in this rig rundown (@3:15). He's got the BC108 but talks about the NKT275 he has as well. Love all the fuzz options he's got!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyLXOcu83Y

[jthomas]

I just got a NKT Red Dot yesterday on Reverb and I'm still playing with it. So far, I am impressed. Very impressed. I built a fuzz face clone from a General Guitar Gadgets kit awhile back based on the Fulltone 69 with some 40 year old Toshiba germanium transistors that my dad scavenged from something. It was pretty good but the Sun Face gives a more textured tone.