Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
Hope everyone’s having a safe and healthy Fuzz Friday. Found out the Black Ash had been traced and figured I’d draw up a layout. I figured it was a pretty straight Tone Bender Mk II clone, and it is with a simple tone control tacked on just before the volume pot. Was slightly surprised that … Read more
Like many, I find myself working from home for the foreseeable future due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of my time so far has been trying to accomplish my day job in sweatpants and help my wife do hers (aka, kid wrangling), and I haven’t had much time to build anything. But yesterday I did … Read more
Sneaky Fuzz Friday you probably didn’t see coming! And on Valentine’s Day too boot. See? I still love you guys. Here’s Bjorn’s Pink Purple Fuzz, a hybrid JFET, silicon, and germanium transistor fuzz. Schematic and discussion on FSB here. And don’t forget about the sale going on over on the store. “Val20” at checkout gets … Read more
Update time! Check out the video:
It’s New Years Eve and time for the last layout of 2019 and I’m pretty sure it’s the 800th on the blog! So here’s the Mostortion. Why is it called that? The CA3260E opamp at it’s core is MOSFET based. Unfortunately, this chip has been discontinued, so building a straight clone may be a little … Read more
Happy Fuzz Friday, everyone! Last fuzz of 2019. Here’s an interesting fuzz circuit from Way Huge based on the Tone Bender Mk. III. It uses PNP silicon transistors, but is a negative ground effect. Schematic available here.
Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone gets ample time to get some soldering done over the holidays. Grind Customs had a lot of really great projects, but their site hasn’t been up in ages and it seems they’re gone for good. Their De Profundis delay was very well regarded and they offered an add-on modulation board, … Read more
Always a fan of the MXR Distortion+/DOD 250 as you all have probably figure out by now. Here’s VFE’s take on the classic circuit. Bunch of extra controls and mods including soft clipping, along with bass and tone controls. Schematic here for reference.
Here’s a pretty interesting distortion from Seymour Duncan. 2N3906 transistors for hard clipping and a two band gyrator EQ section. Originals I assume are all SMD and use MC33178 ICs, which I believe are equivalent to the LM833, but other dual opamps should work fine. Schematic here. Should be able to squeeze it in a … Read more
Here’s a sweet bass fuzz based on the Univox Super Fuzz for Fuzz Friday. Original units used 2N3707 transistors with BCE pinout, which I’m guessing most people don’t have in their parts stash. So I laid it out for CBE transistors (2N5088s or BC549Cs should work just fine) and it will fit nicely in a … Read more