Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
Soulsonic’s Folk Driver is a design I would have covered earlier – I just forgot I hadn’t included it! It’s a really great little low gain overdriver that Soul came up with after Bjorn of BJF presented a challenge to create a “Honeybee” overdrive work-a-like. Here’s a quick description by Soul himself: “Hi everyone, as … Read more
So, I’ve got one of these and I’ve got to admit – I agree with the advert – it’s ugly as sin but it does sure cook an amp nicely, but it could be better. It’s the Dean Markley Overlord Tube Overdrive pedal. Using a REAL 12AX7 vacuum tube it creates realistic tube overdrive and … Read more
Germanium transistors – be them the work of God or the evil creations of Satan – people still love them for their Fuzzy goodness 30+ years after they went out of production and general use. So, lets say you’ve managed to get hold of some germanium transistors, they look all right, nice and shiny, but then you … 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
Here’s some interesting youtube videos for you. First up – a couple of videos on how to build your own Tone Bender MKI replica: Echoplex restoration:
*This page also has a schematic for the Fred Briggs Rangemaster* So, we all know there are many vintage treble/bass booster designs out there that were developed in the 1960s which were designed to give your tube amp the extra kick it needed to get some lovely tube saturation. Even with the huge number of modern … Read more
Nine Volt Nirvana Fuzz pedals have been around since the late 1990s, some of Joe Gagan’s designs were what got me interested in stompboxes back in the early 2000s. Now Nine Volt Nirvana is no longer around, luckily Joe drew out circuit schematics around for his pedals so that clever DIYers like yourselves could make … 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
Here’s another one of Tim Escobedo’s great “circuit snippets” – the Tytewadd Fuzz. As you can see it’s reminiscent of his Syrupp Booster: Using that top jfet as a simple current regulator bangs up the gain in the circuit and allows this single transistor gain stage to create some epically big fuzz tones. I had a play … Read more