Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
This is Moosapotamus’ take on the Vox Repeat Percussion tremolo. The Skippy keeps the character of the original, but with more control while covering a much wider range of tones. There’s also the option to use the modern 2N6027 instead of the vintage 2N2646. And you can plug in an expression pedal to control the … Read more
Haven’t done a tremolo in a while, so let’s remedy that with the original 4-transistor Colorsound Tremolo (the re-issue is the 3-transistor version). Originals used 2SC945 transistors (BCE pinout), but I’ve laid this out for more common NPN transistors with CBE pinout. You might want to use a C100k pot for the Speed control. Here’s … Read more
Continuing Jon Patton Week with a vibe/tremolo effect called the Blue Warbler. It features envelop control over the LFO and can be built with one or two LDR stages (layout below reflects the 2 stage version). Jon explains it best, so be sure to check out his build doc and demo below. It’ll be a little … Read more
Here’s another one of my Eagle creations. The Vibutron is a great sounding tremolo from Frantone that uses a ICL8038 to produce the LFO. Originals use a rotary switch for selecting the waveform, but as lvlark pointed out on the Tagboard Effects blog, a on/on/on DPDT switch can be used instead (check out his layout … Read more
Kicking off the week with a fantastic vibe box from Earthquaker Devices–The Depths. It gave me a bit of a fight to get the pots board mounted and as a result there are 5 jumpers O_O. But it sounds great and you should build it. Ahoy! Welcome to your new Depths Optical Vibe Machine! The … Read more
Here’s a great sounding tremolo circuit from Demeter–the Tremulator. It’s an optical trem, using a VTL5C1. That part can be replaced with an LED and a LDR (600Ω on/50M off) combo. Also, the diodes used in the originals are 1N5229 4.3v zenners, though you can use other zenners up to 5.1v. Here’s the schematic for … Read more
Here are some great new Tap-Tempo projects by Madbean. I prefer to add them all in the same post because they are meant to work together. You could use 1/8″ jack & plugs. You can find all info and his great (and cheap!) PCBs on his website here. The TapLFO is available from SmallBear here.
Here’s JHS’ Honeycomb Deluxe tremolo. Or something close to it anyway. It’s a modified EA Tremolo with an extra switch to control speed and a extra footswitch to switch between speed controls. Ian McDermott came up with a work-a-like for it, so this layout follows his schematic. This layout features board mounted pots and because … Read more
Merry Christmas Eve-Eve, everybody! Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday. Here’s an awesome tremolo circuit designed by DIYSB member DeadAstronaut. Cody asked me if I could do an etch-able layout since DeadAstronaut has sold out of PCBs for the effect. Check out the original thread on DIYSB for the schematic and more info. … Read more
Here’s a cool variation of the Vox Repeat Percussion tremolo from EQD. It adds some extra controls to the original circuit for more versatility and control. I had a hard time tracking down a schematic for this one and ended up just tracing the vero layout from the Tagboard Effects blog. So here you go … Read more