Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
For #fuzzfriday, here’s an interesting take on the Fuzz Face circuit. It uses silicon PNP transistors, but is still a negative ground effect (so daisy chaining power supply is still ok). I guess Sean had a bunch of extra 2N3906s lying around. I took a few liberties with the power filtering and polarity protection, but … Read more
And improvement over the original English Channel project, the Run Off Groove Britannia is an adaption of the classic Vox AC-30 amp into stompbox form. Couldn’t squeeze this one into a 1590B with onboard pots, but it’s laid out for a 125B enclosure. Pots are right angle PCB mount type, mounted from the solder-side of … Read more
The Amber Drive is a slightly tweaked Fire Red Fuzz. Not a whole lot of differences between the two other than some value changes, but it’s enough to make this not as fuzzy as the FRF apparently. Here’s the drilling template for this one. It should also work for the Fire Red Fuzz.
Here’s a simple clean boost circuit built by JHS. It’s really just the Tim Escobedo Duente JFET boost with a fixed resistor instead of a trimmer. Because of that you probably want to socket that resistor (5.1k) and adjust to the J201 you use. Or you can just squeeze a 25k trimmer on there like … Read more
The HM-2 is the godfather of all other heavy metal distortion stompboxes. While it was first introduced in the ’80s, it’s still a highly regarded circuit for metal applications with its high gain and crushing lows, especially if you live in Sweden. Said crushing lows are thanks to the gyrator tone stack (not something you … Read more
Happy #fuzzfriday, everybody. The Mastotron is a heavy silicon fuzz and a variation of the Wooly Mammoth. It can produce a wide sonic range from 8-bit sounds to complete wall-of-fuzz tones. I’ve drawn this up to fit in a 1590B more conventionally than the Zvex way. You can use PCB-mount right angle pots, mounted from … Read more
Here’s a cool PT2399-based circuit designed by David Edgar (DIYSB member Earthscum). He describes it as, “kind of like playing in a sewer tunnel…” Here’s a link to the original schematic and discussion over on DIYSB. I noticed the schematic image in the DIYSB thread is now broken, so I’ve drawn up a new one … Read more
Got a bunch of CD4049UBE chips left over from building Red Llamas? Here’s something else you can do with them. You might need to play with the the value of the 8.2k resistor going to the drain of the J201 to make sure you’re getting to around 4.5v there. Also if you encounter squealing or … Read more
The Tremulus Lune was designed by Dan Green from Commonsound and is a fantastic sounding optical tremolo. It’s a very versatile trem, and has a very adjustable LFO section. The audio path goes through the TL072, and the LFO is created with the 4558. A VTL5C2 can be used, or you can make your own … Read more
Here’s an original design by Himmelstrutz Elektro Art, the Fetto. It’s a heavy overdrive/distortion circuit using 3 JFETs (probably 2SK170GR, but the names were sanded off the original traced by SoulSonic). These have DGS pinouts, so they’re not J201, 2N5457, etc. One of the unique things about this circuit is the number of removable jumpers … Read more