Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
A nice Harmonic Percolator variation from Catalinbread. They’ve kept the bones of the original, and have added an input capacitor blend, as well as a pot to dial in the diodes on the output. Link to schematic Link to tracing journal on Aion FX – and think about buying one from Aion CATALINBREAD KARMA SUTURE, GERMANIUM VERSION … Read more
Haven’t done a tag board build for a while – so here’s a classic. INTERFAX HARMONIC PERCOLATOR HP-1 – TAGBOARD LAYOUT Being tag board, I’ve used 1/2w resistors and axial caps. You could use something more practical (smaller), but if that’s what you want to do, I would recommend using a different layout, as this is … Read more
After doing a layout for the Nordland Overdrive, I thought I would compare the differences to the designers original Nobels version. Apart from some insane power filtering / protection and LED circuitry, there’s a couple of small changes. Traced schematic for the Nordland is here, on Aion FX Hard clipping diodes to ground, instead … Read more
Saw this on the Aion FX tracing journal today – what a monster. The original designer of the Nobels ODR released this through his own company, Nordland. It’s an updated ODR with bells and whistles. The ODR Special is one of my favourite overdrives; I’ve just never done a layout for it. Check out the … Read more
REDUCING NOISE ON DC POWER FOR FX PEDALS When looking at a guitar pedal schematic, you’re really looking at two circuits that overlay each other, sharing resources, and working together. There’s one for the AC signal and one for DC power. We use capacitors to block DC, and let AC signals pass – this is … Read more
POLARITY PROTECTION FOR GUITAR EFFECTS PEDALS Guitar pedals are full of components, some of which are so sensitive to voltages of the wrong polarity that they will explode – electrolytic capacitors in particular. Exploding caps is not good. And to really start at the beginning, the wrong polarity means V+ and ground (or V-) have … Read more
This is a Pete Cornish SS-2 using Joe Davisson’s diode-compression op amp. It sounds pretty good – a lot like the regular SS-2, but without any distortion artifacts on sustained notes as it fades outs. It’s also quieter in terms of noise. This one is getting boxed up, and now I want to try a SS-3 … Read more
After the previous post for the Dan Armstrong Red Ranger, I thought I might do layouts for the rest of the series, starting with the Blue Clipper – I then got sidetracked, and now I’m looking at a Blue Clipper using Joe Davisson’s diode-compression opamp. I had to change the bias from the original … Read more
Bass, treble and full range boost – a 1970s classic from Dan Armstrong, although somewhat overlooked compared to its more famous brethren, the Orange Squeezer and Green Ringer. DAN ARMSTRONG RED RANGER – VERO LAYOUT RED RANGER VIDEO DEMO
This is the distortion section from a Vox Super Beatle V1141 amplifier, which happens to be almost identical to the Colorsound one knob fuzz. So much so that I used the layout and transistor selection from the D*A*M version. Interesting when you look at the schematic, as the distortion effect is first in the signal chain, ahead … Read more