Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
Here’s the original EHX Pulsar trem from the 70s (not to be confused with the modern Stereo Pulsar EHX manufactures today). It features Intensity and Speed controls as well as a switch to go between a hard and soft wavefrom. Original units often suffer from clock bleed from the LFO section. So I’ve drawn a … Read more
The Dr. Quack is Jack Orman’s improvement on the EHX Dr. Q envelope filter. Basically, there’s an added input buffer to increase the input impedance (which is kinda low in the Dr. Q) and offers better range control. Check out Jack’s blog post on the circuit for more information and a few mods.
In the late 70s, Mike Matthews and EHX took the Big Muff on a detour from the traditional 4 transistor circuit in favor an IC-based circuit. It sounds very similar to the traditional Muffs, with the tone control being a little more flat than the traditional mid scoop. The circuit uses two favorite opamps from … Read more
I know, this is the 3rd different BMP layout I’ve done, but this is the one I’m the most happy with. It will easily fit in a 1590B, it has board mounted pots, and said pots aren’t all in one row across the top. As with the other Big Muff layouts, you can build pretty … Read more
With the exception of the IC BMP (’77, ’78) you can theoretically build just about any version of the Big Muff on any other version’s layouts, but the values listed in this one are for the Tall Font Green Russian version. This one is smaller than the BMP layout I did with on board pots … 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
There are a lot of versions and subversions of the Big Muff. Many consider the Violet Ram’s Head to be the best, though many consider the Triangle, or IC, or Green Russian, etc. the best. YMMV This one has the pots hard mounted to the board, though depending on the enclosure you use, it may … Read more
Before Electro Harmonix made the Big Muff there was the Axis Fuzz. These were the same as the 2-knob Foxey Lady fuzz EHX made for Guild. Most schematics on the web say 100k pots for both fuzz and volume controls, but the unit Ron (theehman) over on the DIY Stomboxes forum traced used a B1M … Read more
Request. Everyone knows what it is so I’ll leave the description to Mike Matthews: The NYC original. Hendrix and Santana were among the first to get a piece of the Pi, and for over 40 years the Big Muff Pi has been defining the sound of rock guitar. Revered by contemporary guitarists and rock legends … Read more
Thanks to Miro for the excellent trace job he did on this. Hope you’re stocked up on 470nF caps. They were all polarised but I have shown poly for the caps with a 5mm pitch because I expect that is what most people will use. I have shown electrolytics for the two with only a … Read more