Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
The Hudson Electronics Broadcast is a great little pedal – while now overshadowed by the Dual Broadcast, which has the high and low gain settings on a foot switch with individual level controls, it’s essentially the same under the hood. I never thought a lo-cut pot would be so useful until trying this pedal. It … Read more
One of the pedals that put Death by Audio on the map – the Supersonic Fuzz Gun. It has been reported as quite hit and miss depending on the exact type of transistors used, so best to breadboard or prepare for some experimentation. 2 x MPSA06G and 1 x BC517 (Q3) are reportedly a better choice … Read more
The Ghost Effects Lunar Incantation is part Mosrite Fuzzrite and part Rosac Nu-Fuzz – what a combination… time to break out some NOS low-gain silicon transistors? Maybe not. BC108s will be fine; probably anything with lowish gain that’s NPN silicon will do. Ghost Effects recommend 150 to 300hfe, with the second transistor having a higher … Read more
This is an early two knob Guild Foxey Lady, which is very similar to a silicon Mosrite Fuzzrite. However it’s different to other schematics I have seen online – I traced this from the circuit shown below – it’s easy to make out part values, excluding the pots and transistors. I left some room for power … Read more
I had a few of the FETS leftover from the Spaceman Saturn V Harmonic Booster, and I saw the layout over at Perf and PCB Effects Layouts, so I thought I might try one of these. The Spaceman Effects Atlas III is another booster, following the theme of rocket engines in naming (nice). The switch is … Read more
And on the eighth day… well not exactly that long ago, but close – and yes others came before, but it’s hard to not acknowledge the Arbiter Fuzz Face as being a giant of vintage fuzz, a design icon if you like, with possibly the most widely recognised enclosure ever made. It’s hard not to like a Fuzz … Read more
This is the Ghost Effects take on the WEM Project V – the Warmjet V. The name is a combination of the original WEM Project V, and the Brian Eno album, Here Comes the Warm Jets, which the pedal was allegedly used on and supposedly remains a favourite of Brian Eno (according to the internet, so it must be … Read more
Univox Unidrive boost with Aion FX mods The original Univox Unidrive was a straight boost, with a bit of dirt – it was a large rocker pedal with preset gain levels on a rotary switch, and the rocker controlled the output level, not unlike a regular volume pedal, but with the increased level of a booster. The don’t … Read more
This is a very simple little circuit from Dead Astronaut, which has a little bit of Big Muff happening in the clipping section on Q2. Maybe not enough to tag it as being in the Big Muff family, it’s certainly a second cousin. While it might be simple, the Dead Astronaut X Fuzz is a fierce little … Read more
The Lovepedal Fuzz Master is a silicon Fuzz Face with a blend control on the input shifting between two capacitors to increase/decrease the frequency range at the input stage. It uses silicon PNP 2N3906 transistors with a standard power supply – so if the layout looks a little odd, that’s what’s happening. V+ goes to the … Read more