Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
This cool little effect was originally housed in a small box that plugged directly into your amp (which you then plugged your guitar into) and later on some of Vox’s higher end guitars. You’ll need to track down an obsolete 2N2646 unijunction transistor for Q1, but they can be found on eBay or Small Bear. … Read more
This one was a request. It’s another layout for Jordan BossTone, but with onboard pots. Because of the onboard pots I was able to add an anti-popping pull down resistor on the input. Q1 is NPN silicon (so 2N2222 or 2N3904) and Q2 is PNP silicon (2N2907 or 2N3906). The pot centers are 1.2 inches … Read more
Here’s another MOD effect. It’s a simple reverb using the Belton Digi-Log Mini Reverb Module (the BTDR-2H-L), which you can mount directly to the board. The DPDT switch referenced in the layout is the on/off stomp switch if anyone is confused by that. Here’s the schematic and a sound sample for reference.
Last post of 2014. Happy New Year, everybody! Here’s the early 80s DOD FX55 Distortion, without the original switching circuit so you can wire it for true bypass. The original used a TL062 dual op-amp, but the 2nd half of it wasn’t in the signal path all, so I went with the single TL061. The … Read more
Haven’t done a layout with board mounted pots in a while, so here’s the Lovepedal Black Magic. It’s a LM386 based distortion that tries to get achieve the “Brown Sound.” I added polarity protection and put the LED resistor on the board as well.
Here’s Run of Groove’s take on the DIY classic EA Tremolo. I’ve laid it out so that the rate indicator LED can also be used as the on/off indicator. Here’s how you’d wire the LED to a 3PDT switch as the on/off indicator.
I’ve seen a lot of different PCB layouts online for this effect, but all of them had at least one jumper on the board. Jumpers aren’t the end of the world, but I know for me, if I’m going to go to all the trouble of etching a PCB, I don’t want to mess with … Read more
The Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor has become a staple among the DIY community. Original units plugged straight into the guitar, with no external controls except for an on/off switch. This layout has the level control offboard, but the bias is a 10k trimpot, but could easily be wired offboard as well. And you should … Read more
Here’s Wampler’s Plexi-Drive, another Marshall-in-a-box pedal. The original unit uses a 470µ capacitor for power filtering, which seems like overkill to me. I’ve replaced that with a 100µ cap that should do the job just fine. Some build reports on FSB say that the 15k resistors from 9V to the drains of the J201s might … Read more
One of the many Plexi-in-a-pedal options out there, the Marvel Drive has parallel input stages allowing you to create your own blend between the normal “channel” and the treble “channel.” Gearmandude can show you better than I can try to explain it: