Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
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
Just a reference for me – this is specifically for this layout mounted above the pots. MKI TONE BENDER OFF-BOARD WIRING PLAN The final soldering of the board to the pots has not been done yet – that will be done when it is mounted on the actual enclosure lid, as opposed to the dodgy piece … Read more
I guess this is where it all started – The Glenn Snoddy Fuzz-Tone. I modified an existing MKI layout on the larger vintage size vero for this, sized to fit in a wedge enclosure. Initially, I was going to do the original layout used, but it was a bit of a mess – as was the practice … Read more
The Sunn Buzz is an odd little fuzz from the mid-to-late sixties. It’s silicon and runs on a single AA battery (1.5v) with a topology vaguely similar to the Fuzztone. The design was fairly questionable – the fuzz box had to be plugged into the amp input jack, which would have been fairly limiting. … Read more
The AIWA TP-1011 is the reel-to-reel tape preamp Richie Blackmore from Deep Purple used to drive his Marshall. I’m not a huge Deep Purple fan, but I do like the sound of some of these old reel-to-reel preamps. This layout is for the stock circuit running at 18v. If I ever get around to breadboarding the … Read more
Germanium transistors from the former USSR are cheap, generally high quality, available in large quantities and very cheap compared to their European counterparts. They are their own thing and are not direct copies of European transistors – you can find similar transistors, but they are never like-for-like replacements. They nearly always sound different and … Read more
This has been transcribed from the U.S. Joint Publications Research Service No. 569 from 1978. Translations of Eastern European Scientific Affairs. Among other things, it contains a guide to Soviet semiconductors. The publication can be found in this folder. It’s a handy guide to Soviet transistor and diode numbering, as well as their … Read more
The Fuzztone is an early design of Dan Coggins before Lovetone or Dinosaural appeared. The first publication in ETI (Electronics Today International magazine) actually had an error on the schematic – it wasn’t critical, as it just changed the frequency response a little, and it lost some level along the way in the filter … Read more
I purchased a Vox Escort amplifier a little while back, and it’s quite a cool little transistor amplifier. It’s a simple transistor amp from the early seventies with an IC-based amplifier. It screams when turned up. Here’s my original post with more information on the amplifier (including a schematic). Anyway, I thought I might try recreating one, albeit in a different … Read more
The Sounds of Today is Ian Sherwood from Ghost Effects adaptation of the MKI Tone Bender. It’s all explained by Ian here, with photos. There are also plenty of photos of these in various stages of construction Instagram too, so you can see a few variations along the way. Short story: The attack has been replaced with a fixed resistor. The resistor … Read more