Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
[This post contains information on the Diamond Compressor & Fred Briggs Diamante] Diamond make some real high-end stuff; the Memory Lane Delay, Halo Chorus and J-Drive are all top level (expensive!) pedals. My overall choice from the Diamond pedal range is the Diamond Compressor though. It gives a nice compression effect, not the super transparent … Read more
Here’s something I’ve never seen before in a Fuzz Face type circuit; adjustable gain darlington pair transistors made up of individual germanium and silicon transistors. The first transistor of each pair is a germanium device of around 50hfe (low leakage!) and the second is a silicon device of around 250hfe. The adjustable nature of the … Read more
Here’s a couple of images of the pedals that will soon be whizzing their way around North America as part of the first tourbox I’ve ever done! On the left is the “Psychadelia Fuzz”, a sweet overdrive/fuzz which can produce an awesome nasty octave/ringmod effect. On the right is the “Rangemaster MKII”, my take on … Read more
The second steel enclosure has been used – and here’s the outcome. I built a version of the Rangemaster I call the “MKII”. It uses a germanium and silicon transistor in a darlington pair to open up a huge amount of options. This has been done before as Pete Moore showed with his “RangePig” treble … Read more
A new fuzz design from myself. It’s silicon transistor based but with a difference. I’ve been playing around with the old Vox Tonebender circuit for a while and this is what sprung from those experimentsTaking inspiration from the Fred Briggs Fuzz I made a few years ago that used “piggy-backed” silicon transistors to emulate lower … Read more
So, here is the first pedal to be housed in those new enclosures I’ve had built. It’s a one off custom design by myself – a Fuzz hybrid that is capable of any tones ranging from a simple boost right up to full on octave/ring mod Fuzz meltdown. All hand built point to point on … Read more
Here’s a Wah Wah I’ve built. It’s based around the old Vox Wah (How can you tell!?) but it’s got a few cool extras: 1) Input and output buffers so you can use it with all your stompboxes without it playing tricks on you. 2) Adjustable “Blend” control which allows you to blend in some … Read more
Fred Briggs – Super OCD Schematic The Fulltone OCD has been an overdrive favourite for many years now. It’s got a really nice tone when your amp is set right (I prefer it with Marshalls I must say). Well, I’ve always thought about modifiying the basic circuit (which itself is based around the old Voodoo … Read more
Here’s the schematic: And here’s the last in my series of Fender / Vox / Marshall themed boosters/overdrives – The “E11even” (Spinal Tap reference intentional). It’s designed for those classic Marshall overdrive tones, plexi / jtm45 sort of stuff. It’s based around the old mosfet booster design I love with a few tweaks. The bias … Read more
Here’s the Face MKI schematic: I really like this one, it’s a booster/overdrive with a nice Fendery feel and voice to it. As you can see there are some values which you can alter on the schematic that allow you to tailor the tone to your exact needs. Firstly the supply voltage – the lower the voltage … Read more