Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
I realized after posting the Meathead Deluxe I hadn’t made a layout for the one-knob Meathead. Anyway, the Meathead is one of most well known 1-knob silicon Fuzz Face variants, thanks to the like of Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age, among other guitarist. Q2 is a BC182L, which has an ECB pinout … Read more
Here’s an interesting take on the Tone Bender Mk III. Original units were positive ground, so the perf side of the layout reflects that, while the PCB side is set up for daisy-chainable negative ground.
The Micro Amp is a classic clean boost circuit first introduced by MXR in the late 70s. It’s a great option if you need to stomp on something for solos. Pretty simple op-amp design that should fit nicely in a 1590a.
This was a request by Guilherme. It’s a FET adaption of the SLO 100 preamp originally done by OldMike and modded by Brymus. I’ve changed the resistors going from the power rail to the drains of the various FETs to trimmers. Here’s the schematic I worked from and it has a list of the voltages … Read more
The Ghost Echo is a nice little reverb unit, and uses the Belton BTDR-2H-L digital reverb module, as well as a PT2399. I’m not going to lie, this layout gave me some issues (at one point it made DIYLC crash). Even had to use a jumper (which annoys the heck out of me, as you … Read more
Here’s yet another Fuzz Face circuit as they say. This is basically the one-knob Meathead with a Filter control that pans between 2 different input caps, and an Attack control which is the standard Fuzz control on a Fuzz Face. Good sounding silicon fuzz.
In honor of it being Pi Day, I thought a Big Muff layout would be appropriate. While not an EHX Muff, the EQD Hoof is a BMP variant. It uses germanium transistors as well as LEDs in place of the typical silicon diodes in the 2 gain stages. It also has a Shift control, which … Read more
100 layouts! Thanks to everyone who visits the blog and a special thanks to those of you who have built and verified some of these layouts. The Dr. Boogie is a JFET-based amp emulator of the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Solo head, designed by ElectraTabs over on the DIYStompboxes forum. It creates a unique high-gain … Read more
The Karl is essentially a modified Tim Escobedo Tripple Fuzz, basing it’s sound around an NPN/PNP transistor network known as a “non-selective frequency tripler.” I modified the power section a little bit. The original has an unnecessary 47µ cap at 9v input before the 330Ω resistor which I eliminated. I also moved the anti-popping pull … Read more
The Improbability Drive is a knob-tweaker’s dream–equal parts, overdrive, fuzz, and science experiement, and gets its name from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This one was a bit of a challenge (I even had to use a jumper. Gah!). B3ar over on FSB requested a layout with onboard pots and switches. Couldn’t get the switches to … Read more