Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
Here’s an overdrive I stumbled across while browsing the Free Information Society site. It was designed by Jake Nagy and was quite popular in the DIY world at while back. Here’s what he had to say about it: Blue Magic is a very low to medium grit, tube-like, overdrive pedal that is based on a … Read more
The ROG Eighteen is an overdrive/distortion circuit based on the classic 18watt Marshall amp of the late 60s. It uses JFETs in place of tubes, like many other ROG amp-based drive effects. J201s are specified, but socket and try some other JFETs (2N5457, MPF102, etc.) The Volume control will probably act more like a gain … Read more
The ReezaFRATzitz is a high gain overdrive/distortion circuit based around a CMOS chip, most likely a CD4069N or 74HCU04. This layout reflects a modded version by FreeStompboxes member thn.technik with added Bass and Mids controls. Here’s a link to his schematic and build pics. You might be able to squeeze it into 1590B, but you’d … Read more
Here’s a light-medium gain overdrive designed by RNFR from the Apocalypse Audio blog. Here’s what he had to say about it: I thought I would build something that would turn on the guys that were into the lighter side of things- something different than my usual wall of fuzz tones. With the MLOD, you can … Read more
Here’s a cool vintage fuzz circuit from the mid 60s–the WEM Pep Box. It’s probably best known its use by John Lennon during the Revolver sessions. There are two versions of this effect, the first using germanium transistors and the later using silicon. I’ve drawn up layouts for both iterations of the circuit, as there … Read more
Here’s a really simple “transparent overdrive” circuit that was a must have a couple years ago. People compared it to the Klon and Timmy drives. Originals use paper in oil caps, which some claim sound better than modern film or ceramic caps. That’s a debate for another time though. I’ve drawn it up so you … Read more
Here’s a weird one for you–the Shin Ei Octave Box. It’s apparently an all analog clean octave down effect. I’m not going to pretend to understand how it works, but there are a lot of transistors. Originals used 2SC644 and 2SC666 transistors, which I think were in the massive TO-3 package. I’ve drawn the layout … Read more
Here’s a cool delay designed by Nocentelli posted over on FSB. Here’s what he had to say about it over there: Here’s a variation on the deep blue delay; two PT2399 chips and a current mirror delay pot give around 2200ms delay, although beyond 700ms gets pretty lo-fi. There are two points where a momentary … Read more
Here’s the classic Boss DS-1 Distortion, used by many greats like Kurt Cobain, Joe Satriani, and Steve Vai, just to name a few. This one has been modified to eliminate the typical Boss flip-flop switching so it can be wired for true bypass, but it retains the input and output buffers. Schematic can be found … Read more
For this week’s #fuzzfriday, I present the Frantone Peach Fuzz. Got a request for this one. Quiet circuitry and classic fuzz and overdrive tones. It seems to be the circuit the Danelectro Cool Cat fuzz was based on, and that thing sounds great (it was one of my first pedals when I started playing). Original … Read more