Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
The Fairfield Circuitry Barbershop is one of my favourite overdrives, although I am yet to try this version. There’s some subtle difference to version one, and it has a tone control, similar to the Millennium version. I think the most significant difference is the change to the output buffer. FAIRFIELD CIRCUITRY BARBERSHOP VERSION 2 – VERO LAYOUT TEARDOWN & SCHEMATIC … Read more
Suggested as a favourite along with the Wampler Plexi-Drive by Ding on another post, so thought I would take a look at the Ramble FX Marvel Drive 2.2 They’re clearly going for a Marshall vibe, and they have some success capturing this through the sound of the video demos. RAMBLE FX MARVEL DRIVE 2.2 – VERO LAYOUT RAMBLE … Read more
Thought I might add the Wampler Plexi-Drive to the list after I did another Benson layout, as they are similar in many ways. Just look at the two schematics side by side, and you’ll see what I mean. Like anything involving JFETS, choose the resistors going to the drains to suit your JEFTS; they can and … Read more
The Aria Super Fuzz Sustainer is a variant on the Big Muff, probably based on the Elk Sustainar as it shares the same values mostly (based on a Triangle BMP). The tone stack is a bit different, and it’s clearly missing a recovery stage at the end, not unlike a Colorsound Supa Tone Bender. Unusual to see the 6n8 … Read more
The Benson Preamp is pretty popular, but 2M pots are hard to find. This is a modded vero layout using a 1M bass pot. To make this change and keep the same frequency response, resistances are halved, capacitance is doubled. Note that the Drive pot value also had to be halved. I’ll add a regular size … Read more
I saw this pop-up in a GroupDIY audio forum and thought it looked interesting. It’s a FET based limiter from Roger Mayer that he designed way back in the day, and is still in production in various forms at the moment. There’s also a version posted where someone redesigned it using TL074 quad opamps, which much be a more practical endeavour considering the … Read more
The Earthquaker Devices Hizumitas is basically the same as the Elk Sustainar, but with a 3n3 cap instead of a 330pf cap in the tone control (specifically the high pass filter). There are some other minor differences, but the 3n3 is probably the biggest factor in terms of sound. Even though the EQD Hizumitas … Read more
The Earthquaker Devices Bows is a straight-up germanium Rangemaster with some modern tweaks. It uses an NPN transistor and has a switch to swap to a larger input capacitor for a full-range boost. The space above the transistor on this layout allows it to be mounted on its side (bent over 90 degrees), as OC transistors are … Read more
Initially I wasn’t sure about doing a layout for the Boss FZ-3, as it isn’t the most popular fuzz out there – then looking at the schematic, it appears to be quite tweakable, so I thought why not make a start, and see where this goes. It has elements of a Tone Bender, a silicon Fuzz Face … Read more
I haven’t posted in a while, as I’ve been selling a few things, and doing a bit of guitar shopping at the same time, which has taken up way more of my time than expected. A Yamaha SL500 or an Aria Pro II Leopard were looking promising at one stage, as I was looking around for a … Read more