Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
Stumbled across this one and it seems pretty cool. It’s like an Escobedo Punch-in-the-Face sandwiched between two opamp gain stages, and is very similar to the Carl Martin Crush Zone. Wide range of gain and tones on tap as well. Pots are board mounted and it’ll fit in a 1590B.
The Catalinbread WIIO is a Hiwatt amp emulator specifically going for the sound of Pete Townsend’s Hiwatts on the Live at Leeds album. (Throwing this and a Univox SuperFuzz in the same box would be a must if you’re a big fan of the Who…) The topology of the circuit (cascaded MOSFETs) is similar to … Read more
Found a trace of this over on the Tagboard Forum. It appears to be a highly modified Fuzzrite with an added gain recovery stage and a lot of value changes. The Saturation pot increases the output cap of the first stage, and the Fuzz pot is a pregain control. Originals use PN2222 transistors for Q1-2, … Read more
Stumbled across this schematic and it’s like CJ’s Shoot the Moon and the EA Tremolo had a baby (Though I think this predates the Shoot the Moon…)–the audio path is like the Shoot the Moon and the LFO from the EA Tremolo has been adapted to pulse an LED. Use a 5mm diffused yellow LED … Read more
The originals used a now nearly unobtainable SAD512D chip, but the wizards on FSB converted it to work with an MN3007. Now that those are also hard to get a hold of, I’ve laid this out for an MN 3207–which is almost the same as the 3007, just with a slightly different pinout for power … Read more
An oldie, but a goodie (I assume–Jack designs good stuff). It’s a unique high gain design with a 3-band EQ. In Jack’s own words: It was made by combining the following circuit fragments: input gain stage is the Muffer, followed by the IC gain stage of the Fat Gnat, a tone control from the Fender … Read more
Here’s another Devi circuit for Fuzz Friday–the Ruby. It’s essentially 2 Electras (sans clipping diodes) stacked. In Devi’s own words, “The Ruby is like a Tone Bender, but way classier and secretly more misogynistic.”
Here’s a simple bass preamp circuit derived from the Sunn 200S using JFETs. It’s pretty similar to the Bassman Preamp, but with the EQ section at the end of the circuit instead of the middle. Original S200S amps didn’t have the Mid control, but it’s kind of necessary IMHO. Bias the JFETs to 4.5v and … Read more
Haven’t done a Devi circuit in a while, and I keep stumbling across them, so here’s the Dark Boost. It’s essentially an Electra circuit without the clipping diodes and a Pre-Gain control. Apparently works pretty well on bass too.
Here’s a newer version of the Marvel Drive from Ramble FX. Did the first version of this circuit a couple years ago, and decided to update the layout with board mounted pots and the Presence pot. I believe the only difference between V2 and V3 is a switchable internal LT1054-based voltage doubler in the V3. … Read more