Wampler Ecstasy
Here’s another great overdrive from Wampler, with a wide range of tones to choose from. It has a simple 2-band EQ and a DPDT (on-off-on) switch to go between smooth clipping, no clipping, and hard clipping.
Month: April 2015
Dan Armstrong Green Ringer
Here’s another Dan Armstrong effect. It’s part ring modulator (when playing chords) and part octave (when playing on the neck pickup, high on the fretboard with the guitar tone control down). For the clearest octave effect, match the diodes as closely as possible for forward voltage. It might also be worth matching the 47nF caps … Read more
Run Off Groove Umble
The Umble is the result of Brian Tremblay’s (ROG) adaption the the mythical Dumble amplifier into a FET-based distortion box. I’ve drawn the layout for on board right angle PCB pots and added a 1N4001 diode for polarity protection. Should fit nicely in a 1590B. Check out the ROG article for more info.
Krank Distortus Maximus
This was a request. It’s another 386-based distortion, similar in theory to the DAM Sonic Titan. Transistor-based “preamp” section which is amplified by the 386 “power” section, follwed by a 3-band tone stage on the output.
Dan Armstrong Blue Clipper
Here’s a quicky for your Saturday. The Blue Clipper was one of the small effects units by Dan Armstrong that plugged straight into your guitar output jack. It uses one side of a JRC4558 to produce a basic distortion effect.
Marshall ShredMaster
Here’s another one from Marshall’s great pedal line from the early 90s. When it was released it was considered a high gain distortion, though probably wouldn’t be categorized as such today. It was made famous by Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead and covers more than just shredder territory.
Jen Fuzz
Jen was an Italian manufacturer in the 60s and 70s that produced their own line of effects in addition to OEM stuff for other brands like Gretsch and Vox. This fuzz effect is essentially a Fuzz Face with an emitter follower up front and clipping diodes on the output. It produces a treble-heavy fuzz with … Read more
Free the Tone HB-2 Heat Blaster
Got a request for this one. Basically a Tube Screamer with a few mods and some extra switches to cut highs and lows. The original has 2SC185 transistors, which have BCE pinout. I’ve laid this out for the more typical CBE pinout. Like you would in a Tube Screamer, try 2N3904, 2N5088, etc for the … Read more
DAM Sonic Titan
The Sonic Titan creates amp-like distortion through the use of a JFET preamp stage, followed by LM386 power amp stage. The JFET stage creates the clipping and the LM386 amplifies the signal generated by the JFET. Original units use a 2N3819 JFET with DGS pinout, so I’ve also included an layout for DSG JFETs like … Read more
Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer
The TS808 layout I post a while back has always bugged me. It’s a real tight squeeze in a 1590B and I wanted a Tube Screamer layout with onboard pots. Well, I finally drew one up and I like this one. It’s laid out for the TS9, but all it takes is 2 resistor swaps … Read more