Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
I was a little surprised when someone requested this, as I assumed that I would have already done it given my love of vintage size vero and Tone Benders. Anyways, here’s the short circuitboard version of the MKII Tone Bender. What’s this short circuitboard business? It’s thought to be the transition from the MK1.5 Tone … Read more
The Top Gear Fuzz is a rare English Fuzz Face variant from the late sixties / early seventies. It’s a fairly awkward build as it’s on a tiny piece of vero, floating between the two pots. There seems to be a couple of versions floating around (like all a lot of vintage circuits). I have … Read more
I saw this pop-up today at Macari’s and thought I’d check it out. It’s a silicon fuzz face variant used as the fuzz board in one of the old Colorsound fuzz wahs – which is not completely unlike the Colorsound Fuzz Box one knob fuzz (which I used for the layout). It’s a great sounding, … Read more
The El Diablo… A Dave Main creation, part Sola Sound MK1.5 Tone Bender / part Vox Tone Bender – hence the MK1.75 moniker. And why El Diablo? apart from the colour, this thing sounds mean as hell. They appeared to use a couple of different transistors for Q2, but the OC75 remains up front – … Read more
Still on the Vox thing at the moment – just a little Distortion Booster using a variation on the Colorsound fuzz box layout. It’s the red box version, here’s the thread on FSB with the schematic etc. Like so many vintage effects, there seems to be a few versions of the circuit. VOX DISTORTION BOOSTER … Read more
This is a nice simple one, and a slight variation on the Colorsound Fuzz Boxes that I’ve been building lately. Basically a silicon fuzz face variant, which is a progression from their original booster that just had an on/off switch. VOX DISTORTION BOOSTER | 0.15″ VERO LAYOUT And if you’re wondering what’s going on with … Read more
While I was working on another fuzz face layout (the Sonus Jimi Mod 1968), I thought I might do a quick adaptation for the Vox Tone Bender, as there was room for the additional resistor. Quite fond of the Vox, so I’ll probably build this once I’ve finished my current project. Usually I like to … Read more
A request from Mikko, who had very kindly done all of the tracing work – very nice job by the way, and photos below. It’s a Fuzz Face from Sonus using NKT MT57 germanium transistors, with an external bias pot and a couple of different component values (Jimi mods) – 2k fuzz pot and … Read more
This is one of the more recent Sola Sound MK1.5 Tone Benders built by David Main. MK1.5 TONE BENDER: THE DIRTY HIPPIE MOD – OC75 ONLY This has two additions to the regular circuit. A 10n cap to ground on the input and a 47k bias resistor on the base of Q1 to help … Read more
Some notes for later from a recent Vox Tone Bender build. Mainly wanted to jot down the placement of the pots and switch, as this layout is quite tight in a 1590BB – there’s no room for error. I probably should have made the layout a row or two shorter, but I just liked the … Read more