Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
I was a little surprised when someone requested this, as I assumed that I would have already done it given my love of vintage size vero and Tone Benders. Anyways, here’s the short circuitboard version of the MKII Tone Bender. What’s this short circuitboard business? It’s thought to be the transition from the MK1.5 Tone … Read more
I thought a post was required for the silicon Zonk II, as looking at some schematics online, some appeared to be a little different. Being a pedal from the sixties, variations and tweaks were not uncommon. At the moment, this is probably best known as being the inspiration for the Reeves Zo. This is fun … Read more
Since I’ve been on a slight Beatles related run lately, I thought I should tackle the Castledine Electronics Magical Mystery Box. This is Stu Casteldine’s version of the Brilliant channel from a Vox Conqueror guitar amp. Castledine included a gain recovery section at the end and the transistor-based distortion switching has been removed. I ran … Read more
The Arbiter Treble and Bass Face is the lesser-known cousin of the Fuzz Face from the mid to late sixties and was probably overshadowed by the Colorsound Power Booster, which had more gain on tap, and perhaps a nicer frequency response. Speaking of which, it’s easy enough to mod this to suit your tastes. I … Read more
I have a fairly extensive post on the Wem Project V here, this is post is primarily to document my own work, as I’m not sure how many people would want to build in this style. Standing resistors are mostly frowned upon in the world of vero, despite being commonplace on many vintage effects. Joining … Read more
The Top Gear Fuzz is a rare English Fuzz Face variant from the late sixties / early seventies. It’s a fairly awkward build as it’s on a tiny piece of vero, floating between the two pots. There seems to be a couple of versions floating around (like all a lot of vintage circuits). I have … Read more
I saw this pop-up today at Macari’s and thought I’d check it out. It’s a silicon fuzz face variant used as the fuzz board in one of the old Colorsound fuzz wahs – which is not completely unlike the Colorsound Fuzz Box one knob fuzz (which I used for the layout). It’s a great sounding, … Read more
Just a Rangemaster with a rotary switch for selecting input capacitors – it uses some odd parts, as this is what was available in my local electronics store – the 5 lug tag strip in particular, a regular Rangemaster is on 6. It’s also a slightly odd rotary, but it was all that was left … Read more
I only came across the Hofner Preamp quite recently, despite seeing some other builders making point-to-point style germanium preamps based on this circuit – the prime example being the R2R Electric preamp. There’s a good write up here, but in summary: Back in the day before guitar amps were affordable, and TV was a thing, … Read more
Still on the Vox thing at the moment – just a little Distortion Booster using a variation on the Colorsound fuzz box layout. It’s the red box version, here’s the thread on FSB with the schematic etc. Like so many vintage effects, there seems to be a few versions of the circuit. VOX DISTORTION BOOSTER … Read more