Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
Before I completely rip this Vox AC4 apart and rebuild the amp on tagboard, I thought I’d try swapping the output transformer (OT), just to see if it made any difference to the sound of the amp, as I’ve read conflicting views online. Cutting a very long post short – yes it did make a difference, … Read more
One of the most common complaints about a Fuzz Face is the low output level. For such a famous circuit, the usual output tricks do not seem to be especially well documented. The good news is that none of them requires changes to a standard layout. The key thing to understand is that the usual … Read more
While cleaning up some old posts, I thought I might turn back on one of my old favourites – the Univox Super Fuzz. Here are some common mods on LTspice. STOCK SUPER FUZZ SCHEMATIC TONE POT MOD It’s a nice simple one and the most common mod. The tone switch is replaced with a pot … Read more
If you’ve read any recent posts, you may have noticed that I’m experimenting with discrete opamps – specifically replacing standard opamps with simplified discrete opamps – I’ve only played with the Joe Davisson diode compression opamp so far (with some success). While I was checking out DIY Stompboxes, I saw Rob Strand was experimenting with the Boss discrete opamp … Read more
I’d already done the Blues Breaker in this format, and it sounded pretty good, so I thought why not try the MI Audio Crunch Box, as it’s a high-gain derivative of the Blues Breaker. They have a similar topology – the Crunch Box has the soft clipping diodes removed and hard clipping LEDs added after the … Read more
I’ve had some success with the Joe Davisson diode compression discrete opamp on some other circuits (namely the Cornish SS-2), so I thought I might try a Blues Breaker – it works… sounds good. Apart from the lack of IC, there are a couple of other minor mods to a stock Blues Breaker, mainly a larger input … Read more
So given the Lightspeed and Southland are basically the same circuit, I thought I might add a switch to swap between the two. The switch does three things; Switches the hard clipping diodes in/out Changes op-amp gain (to account for the hard clipping diodes) Changes Drive pot resistance While they use different op-amps, they’re both … Read more
I was looking at the Diamond Compressor schematic the other day and thought it looked interesting and possibly something that could be simplified – it turns out it can be simplified. Of course, someone had already done this. Jump over to the La Revolution Deux for details, AKA Fred Briggs’ blog. I used a TL074 instead … Read more
This is the standard Disaster Transport Jr, with the tails mod, and another that I just found that adds a kind of chorus effect to the delay, with just an additional resistor. A Disaster Transport layout seems fitting, as there’s been widespread flooding where I live, so kind of appropriate for the weather. Here’s the link to … Read more
After recently finishing a mojo size / vintage transistor Tone Machine that has been sitting on the bench for way too long, I decided to do a regular layout, as the practicality of some of my other layouts for the Foxx is probably not for everyone (maybe even me in retrospect). So I’ve done a standard … Read more