Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
A classic Boss overdrive – the one that started it all for Boss guitar effects, originally sold from 1977 to 1985. This is one of the later designs that does not use the quad opamp. Kind of curious that after this, many designs used the Boss version of a discrete opamp that can be seen in several … Read more
A classic – the Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer. It’s a very simple feedback-based compressor using JFETS as variable resistors, driven by a single diode acting as a half-wave rectifier. This makes it pretty snappy to play, unlike an optical compressor which is traditionally a bit slower and smoother – not that there’s anything wrong … Read more
A nice simple one – the DOD 250, which is a Distortion + variant. Or is it the other way around? Either way, it’s a classic. DOD 250 OVERDRIVE PREAMP – VERO LAYOUT DOD 250 OVERDRIVE PREAMP – SCHEMATIC DOD 250 OVERDRIVE PREAMP – VIDEO DEMO
FUZZ FACE VARIANT SCHEMATIC, INCLUDING MK1.5 & VOX TONE BENDERS The schematic includes room for components not present on a standard fuzz face, as some variants have additions. I thought I’d keep it relatively simple and not venture into circuits with input blends or the various trimmers substituted for resistors (at least for now … Read more
After realising I had the “right” transistors for this, I thought I should have a crack at a Vox Tone Bender. I’ve done a generic vero layout with room for mods, with some common values listed – I guess the most obvious is the external bias pot, which could be replaced with a standard 8k2 resistor. The D*A*M … Read more
Haven’t done a tag board build for a while – so here’s a classic. INTERFAX HARMONIC PERCOLATOR HP-1 – TAGBOARD LAYOUT Being tag board, I’ve used 1/2w resistors and axial caps. You could use something more practical (smaller), but if that’s what you want to do, I would recommend using a different layout, as this is … Read more
After doing a layout for the Nordland Overdrive, I thought I would compare the differences to the designers original Nobels version. Apart from some insane power filtering / protection and LED circuitry, there’s a couple of small changes. Traced schematic for the Nordland is here, on Aion FX Hard clipping diodes to ground, instead … Read more
Updated Foxx Tone Machine layout on 0.15″ vero. This was inspired by the Aion mods – if you are unfamiliar with the Aion Vulcan, it’s a Tone Machine with a modded EQ section (which is great) and an additional bypass option on one of the diodes – also a cool addition. I’ve tweaked a few … Read more
What more can be said about an opamp Big Muff? ELECTRO-HARMONIX OPAMP BIG MUFF – VERO LAYOUT VIDEO DEMOS
The Marshall Shredmaster is a somewhat classic distortion, even if it has a cringe worthy name. I don’t think I would have even looked at this back in the day as a result of the name. Shredding is not my thing. I think it’s fair to say that Radiohead using the Shredmaster has certainly helped … Read more