Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
A great sounding and cheap Big Muff made in China by Moen which I believe is a clone of the now defunct Righteous Tones Sonic Mayhem. I bought one of these before I got too heavily into DIY and it got plenty of use despite me also having a Skreddy Pink Flesh, so it’s definitely … Read more
Basic info about a Madbean original: The BaconBits Booster is a simple op-amp based booster powered off a split rail supply. It can be used as a stand-alone boost to drive the front end of a tube amp or another effect such as an overdrive. The BaconBits utilizes an input buffer which feeds into a … Read more
There’s very little point in building a 1:1 clone, as you can score the original unit for peanuts as used. Possibly even cheaper than what the parts alone would cost you to build one. But instead of going through a painful bypass operation on a Boss box and having your way with the circuit, you … Read more
Request. Everyone knows what it is so I’ll leave the description to Mike Matthews: The NYC original. Hendrix and Santana were among the first to get a piece of the Pi, and for over 40 years the Big Muff Pi has been defining the sound of rock guitar. Revered by contemporary guitarists and rock legends … Read more
Slightly modernized layout for a forgotten classic. Transistor pinout is per the transistors you most likely have already. Original has C369s, which are rare and have a different pinout. There’s added series polarity protection and for the clipping diodes, you may use what you like the best. Schematic i have doesn’t specify which are used … Read more
Request. This is based around the Runoffgroove LM386 Ruby, but with an IC preamp, into a 12AX7 section, and then into the LM386-N3 power section. Sounds pretty good in the clips which you can hear at: http://www.sophtamps.ca/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=39 This needs a 12VDC supply, so if you’re using an unregulated one like the one mentioned in the … Read more
Wanted to do a quickie, so this seemed like a suitable circuit and we didn’t have it on the library yet. Not a lot of info around.. One could play around with the value of that 10µ cap to see how 22µ or even a 100µ affects the tone. Maybe even make it switchable. Either … Read more
Ran into a schematic of a preamp on-board circuit found in Blade brand guitars. The original called for LM4580 dual opamp, other channel unused. So i drew this layout for a single channel chip and added volume control, power filtering etc. You could try on a number of single opamps to see which sounds best … Read more
Haven’t counted, but i believe we have fair number of Tubescreamers and derivatives listed here. And here’s one more. Tweaked with couple of mods to low frequency response and gain. Switchable diodes etc. The boost switch is a stomp and with 2PDT you can use the second pole for a LED. I’ve omitted the 27K … Read more
I think Mark would have squeezed this in a bit more compact size, but i got it “down” to 21×29. So super brave folk may aim for 1590B, but rest of us may want to give this a go with 125B or 1590BB instead. Layout is based on a schematic which was provided with the … Read more