Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
I’ve had a couple of questions about these recently, and out of curiosity I decided to take a closer look. In 2024, Sola Sound released a few versions of a hybrid MKI, built by Dave Main of D*A*M. So what is it? It’s essentially a standard MKI circuit, but with the first two germanium transistors … Read more
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 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
Someone mentioned this in the comments recently (thank you ClassicFuzz), so I thought I’d have a look at the photos on Reverb. The Goldie is a MKI in a MKII enclosure from March 2022, likely to be inspired by this unit found in Germany – which is an absolute train wreck of work. … Read more
I purchased a sheet of phenolic board locally to make some MKI boards, as I didn’t want to pay $25 postage on a $3 board from the USA (postage to Australia is often a killer). I couldn’t find a template anywhere, so I reversed one from a product image online – I did make one … 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
A bit of a classic – the MK1.5 Tone Bender. Some great phots and background information here on Fuzzboxes.org and some great video demos below – who better than Ant Macari to talk Tone Benders. Note that some earlier versions carried a 500k volume pot, instead of 100k resulting in more bass – ultimately bringing it … Read more
Nice bit of MKII history on fuzzboxes.org The MKII might be the most popular of the Tone Benders, although personally I’m split between the MKI & MKIII. There’s also this interesting timeline on the D*AM forum. Not sure who made it, but it’s a handy reference (thanks ClassicFuzz). TONE BENDER MKII SCHEMATIC & VALUES TONE … Read more
This is a slightly different hybrid MKII than I have previously seen – this is a Sola Sound MKII built by D*A*M, referred to as the Black Fish Skin version by Macari’s Music. The PNP Silicon transistor is a PNP version of a BC109 / BC108. I couldn’t see the value of one resistor on the photos, so a safe … Read more
I’m sure there are more than a few layouts out there for the Tone Bender MKI on tag board – I’m sure a couple more will not hurt. These are based on the Zonk Machine tag board layout, and I’m planning on adding an extra tag or two to adapt it to a D*A*M FZ-673 and … Read more