Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
From Retro-Tone Junkie: This is a very cool and underrated offering from the king of nasty vintage fuzz. This one is Kent branded but has the shin-ei stamp inside. It is widely known that the wah in these is less than desired. This is definitely not a funk machine and you will not channel your … Read more
Well as promised I’ve taken the and made layouts for 7 of some of the most desirable vintage wahs. You’ll notice that they all look damn near identical, and that’s because they’re all based on the same circuit with some component differences. So instead of doing my usual description for each, I figured I’ll let … Read more
For #FuzzFriday here’s the Univox Super Fuzz (again) with a modified tone stack. I’m in the middle of building this one and wanted more control over the tone than just the on/off switch of the original. This stays true to the tone of the original, but with a bit more control.
This is a rare Japanese Big Muff clone made by Shin Ei. It is a clone of a triangle Big Muff, however it has some substantial differences to the triangle Muff layout we have here on the site. The 47n caps in the clipping stages here vs the 1uf caps in the clipping stages … Read more
Here’s a weird one for you–the Shin Ei Octave Box. It’s apparently an all analog clean octave down effect. I’m not going to pretend to understand how it works, but there are a lot of transistors. Originals used 2SC644 and 2SC666 transistors, which I think were in the massive TO-3 package. I’ve drawn the layout … Read more
This circuit is most known for being manufactures and sold by Univox, but was designed by Shin-Ei as the FY-6 and licensed to several manufacturers including Ibanez, Teisco, Kent, Companion, Apollo, and several others. The Super Fuzz has been used by many guitarist since it was first made in 1968, including Pete Townsend, J Mascis, … Read more
The epitome of buzzsaw fuzz tones, the Shin Ei Companion Fuzz has become a highly sought after fuzz box. The one drawback to the FY-2 is the tone stack between the Fuzz and Volume controls. Besides not being controllable, it drops the volume of the effect below unity. I’ve drawn up a stock layout, as … Read more
Here’s a layout for the stock Univox SuperFuzz. I probably should have drawn this one first and then the modded one below, but it was actually easier to take the modded layout and reverse it back to stock.
Here the Univox SuperFuzz with the mods done by FSB member derringer. It replaces the stock tone switch with a pot, as well as a few other useful mods. Socket the 2 ceramic caps going from the base to collector on Q1 and Q6 and try some different values (I’m guessing in the 100pf to … Read more