32FZ pedals... formerly the Fuzz Architect

[Boogieman]

It's still got the original Panasonic battery in it (the same black/blue one as in Pepe's pedal). The battery is a couple of years past its use by date now. Should I bin (well, recycle) it in case it's a leak risk? Sorry, not super up to speed on what batteries are liable to leaking but don't want to risk wrecking the pedal

I make it a habit to remove the battery on any pedal that requires the use of battery, after I finished playing.

In case I forget, I have placed a dead and battery acid-etched Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer on top of my Korg rackmount tuner as a reminder. Whenever I turn off the tuner, it is right there to remind me to never repeat the same mistake again.

[BearBoy]

I don't usually leave batteries in any of my pedals, and always remove the ones that come with new Boss pedals straight away, but I've got a few fuzz pedals, the Fuzz Architect being one, that don't take a 9V power supply input so those pedals do tend to have batteries in. I've taken the battery out of my Fuzz Architect, and my 32TB2, this afternoon so will just have to faff about a bit more when I want to play with them

[laurie]

Hmmm... so would the consensus be that no need for an on/off switch? I use mine all the time - the pedal stays plugged into my home board and the switch is off unless I intended to bring the pedal into the chain. I leave the battery in place unless the pedal goes into storage.

[BearBoy]

I'd definitely prefer to have the on/off switch in a battery only pedal (e.g. 32TB2, Fuzz Architect, GHF). Much easier to stop the battery draining without having to unplug the input cable.

[Boogieman]

The on/off switch is great when I go jamming with friends. Our jamming place is about an hour's drive away, so I pack the 32FZ in my portable board with the battery installed and plugged to the next pedal in the chain. It also saves the trouble of plugging and unplugging the input cable whenever we take long breaks.

[bigtone23]

I do like an on/off switch on the battery only pedals.
The 32 Fuzz doesn't live on a board right now, but that switch will be useful when it does.

[laurie]

I haven't sorted out the labelling yet - the text you see is just mockup. I'll be laser engraving the labels with black fused titanium.

Anyway, this is the first complete pedal with the "production" features and look-and-feel. Only thing not fully complete is the lack of the retaining foam for the battery. Waiting on the order for the right thickness to arrive.

This one is hybrid Ge/Si. In the production version of the hybrid version I'll add a socket so that a Germanium transistor can be plugged in in parallel with the silicon Q2. The Ge transistor will be lower gain than normal for Q2, but having the low gain Ge in parallel with the correct gain Si as Q2 darkens it up and gives a whole new set of tones.
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2026-04-05 Ge Fuzz1a.jpg (148.71 KiB) Viewed 526 times

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2026-04-05 Ge Fuzz2.jpg (330.1 KiB) Viewed 528 times

[Pepe]

Interesting! I didn't know that you can use transistors in a parallel way.

[laurie]

Interesting! I didn't know that you can use transistors in a parallel way.

They won't strictly act "in parallel". When the Ge transistor is plugged in it will essentially become dominant because of the lower Vbe. This will lower the gain of the pedal and darken it.

[bigtone23]

Great looking pedal!
The curtains match the drapes!