Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
I saw this pop-up today at Macari’s and thought I’d check it out. It’s a silicon fuzz face variant used as the fuzz board in one of the old Colorsound fuzz wahs – which is not completely unlike the Colorsound Fuzz Box one knob fuzz (which I used for the layout). It’s a great sounding, … Read more
Just a Rangemaster with a rotary switch for selecting input capacitors – it uses some odd parts, as this is what was available in my local electronics store – the 5 lug tag strip in particular, a regular Rangemaster is on 6. It’s also a slightly odd rotary, but it was all that was left … Read more
The Earthquaker Devices Spires green channel is a variation of one of my favourite fuzz circuits – the Rosac Nufuzz. It’s a progression of a fuzzrite from the original designer, but it has a tone control on the output sweeping between a small and large cap to provide a thin to thick fuzz sound. There’s … Read more
I almost didn’t post this one, as it’s really really close to the Hot Silicon Fuzz – but I was curious after seeing the post on FSB and I haven’t done a regular / still in production circuit for a while. Josh Scott says that sonically it’s an approximation of his favourite seventies MKIII Tone Bender, … Read more
An interesting combination of the boost from a Big Muff and a bazz fuss from Lemon Amps LEMON AMPS HAMMER FUZZ – VERO LAYOUT The designer shared the schematic on FSB, so hopefully he won’t mind it being posted here. Very nice of them to share their work – there’s a few other posted as … Read more
GEC is the General Electric Company of England, not the one from the U.S.A. These are occasionally branded as Mullard. Full write-up on GEC / GET transistors can be found here GEC GET 102 – 114 GERMANIUM TRANSISTOR DATA Type V Max Hfe P Max (mW) I Max f (Mhz) GET102 30 … Read more
Brimar transistors were made by Thorn and were also commonly branded as Mazda. A full write-up can be found here The AC113 is an audio frequency amplifier or driver type germanium transistor. AC113 GERMANIUM TRANSISTOR DATASHEET TRANSISTOR EQUIVALENTS Being a fairly generic audio amplifier, they’re listed as being similar to a number of common amplifier … Read more
Following on from the previous post, this is the D*A*M version of the Colorsound Fuzz Sound. Thread on the D*A*M forum can be found here. Basically take a D*A*M Fuzz Sound, and change the Fuzz pot to an internal trimmer. Unlike the regular Park 2 knob with a large 25u coupling cap between the darlington … Read more
Request for Phil – one tag board layout for the Park 2 knob fuzz sound. I generally prefer to keep the links below the board, as it looks neater. I don’t mind linking two adjacent lugs on top, as you hardly notice it. One suggestion for this. The D*A*M Colosround Fuzz Sound has a few … Read more
I only came across the Hofner Preamp quite recently, despite seeing some other builders making point-to-point style germanium preamps based on this circuit – the prime example being the R2R Electric preamp. There’s a good write up here, but in summary: Back in the day before guitar amps were affordable, and TV was a thing, … Read more