Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
Capacitors can be pretty complex things, given that they are passive components. There are plenty of in-depth discussions and explanations out there, but this is not one of them. This is intended as a primer for anyone just starting out building, who wants to know a little more about capacitors, but doesn’t like looking at equations … Read more
The humble Proco Rat – a staple of distortion throughout the 80s, and then later rediscovered by people that couldn’t afford expensive pedals or just liked the sound. By the way, I refuse to acknowledge the Rat as a fuzz pedal. Others may, but not me… Excellent analysis on Electrosmash if you have somehow missed it – link here The … Read more
Everything listed below is about guitar pedal builds and is not intended cover all possible uses of resistors. It’s an incomplete and general reference intended for someone just starting out building pedals. So if I have missed particular properties or information, it’s because I either don’t understand them or it’s irrelevant for this purpose. … Read more
Another tweaked Fuzz Face from Zvex – not to downplay the good work of Mr Vex and his amazing array of guitar effects pedals, but it is what it is. The Fuzzolo, Mastoron and Wooly Mammoth all have a similar Zvex Fuzz Face variant as a base – thread on DIY Stompboxes, and you can … Read more
Here’s a nice easy one if you haven’t done anything point to point before – the Zvex Super Hardon. ZVEX SUPER HARDON – POINT TO POINT LAYOUT I’ve left some room on the board for added power filtering / protection.
This is an LM386L based distortion that I’ve been playing with – I called it Kool Thing as I was testing it on one of my guitars that has an open tuning (DADDAD for the record), and I was getting a distinct Sonic Youth vibe – which is not all that surprising with that tuning. It’s basically … Read more
So I finally got around to buying a Tone Bender MKI-style wedge enclosure. I had been waiting for another seller, and they now have them in production. I’ve just bought one on eBay, and I’ll update and compare it when it arrives. Naturally, I’ll be putting a Tone Bender MKI circuit in this enclosure and … Read more
The first version of the Death By Audio Fuzz War is notoriously tricky to clone – this is the second version, which is a modded Jumbo Tone Bender with a tweaked tone stack. So, in other words, it’s a modded Big Muff. Schematic / build docs at PedalPCB DEATH BY AUDIO FUZZ WAR V2 – VERO … Read more
I’m sure others have done it; however, this is commonly known as the Voodoo Labs bypass. It’s an interesting way of bypassing a pedal using a DPDT switch while including an LED indicator. Before 3PDT switches became available, designers had to choose between not true bypass with a LED or true-bypass without an LED (until the millennium bypass appeared, … Read more
I did a point to point layout for this some time ago, which was actually my first post for this blog. Full description via the link above. The Colorsound Tone Bender Distortion is more distortion than bender – there are zero similarities between a MKI, MKII or MKIII bender and this circuit. COLORSOUND TONE BENDER DISTORTION – … Read more