Nine Volt Nirvana Fuzz pedals have been around since the late 1990s, some of Joe Gagan’s designs were what got me interested in stompboxes back in the early 2000s. Now Nine Volt Nirvana is no longer around, luckily Joe drew out circuit schematics around for his pedals so that clever DIYers like yourselves could make your own.
Here’s the schematics for his coolest stuff:
Firstly the “Bronto Booster” – this one is a favourite of many gain freaks and does everything from straight boost through to great fuzz tones. Here’s a demo of the Bronto Boost in action:
The “Easy Face” was a really popular build in the early days of the DIY scene and was capable of creating some really cool Fuzz Face tones. The combination of a silicon transistor for Q1 and a germanium transistor in Q2 set the foundation for many boutique Fuzz pedals for the years that followed.
The “Sky Ripper” Fuzz was one of the first pedals I ever built and I’ve still got it around (Somewhere!). I built this one as I couldn’t find a schematic for the then uber-secret Zvex Fuzz Factory. It’s so tweakable it’s mindbending when you get into it. I think I spent three weeks playing this pedal solidly and I still didn’t find all the tones that it was capable of. When I built the Zvex Fuzz Factory a few years later it was a close match between these two as to which I liked best. I never really decided and I have both in my Fuzz collection. The Sky Ripper could almost count as a synth on it’s own!
So there they are, some of Nine Volt Nirvana’s best pedals. If you’ve got a stash of germanium transistors get building some of them (especially the Bronto Boost, the Easy Face and the Sky Ripper) – you won’t be disappointed 🙂