Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
I know these are everywhere, but humour me – this is mainly for my own reference. FENDER CHAMP-AMP, 5C1 (WIDE PANEL TWEED) Note: The Fender Champion 600 and 800 are said to use the same schematic (or at least extremely similar). Preamp: 6SJ7 pentode, grid-leak biased (no cathode resistor) Inputs: two jacks, each 75k in … Read more
Something of a classic, the Fender Blender is a monster octave fuzz. I’d be tempted to remove the Blend pot myself, as I don’t like fuzz pedals with clean blend. Probably advisable to add LEDs to the Tone boost switch too. Layout has been designed for a wide enclosure to accomodate the switching and 4 … Read more
This is a slightly modded Interfax Harmonic Percolator that I made today. It’s an odd little circuit – it can run from clean, a bit overdriven, then into distortion, and finally to overly compressed fuzz madness. The range of sounds are so broad, it’s almost worth setting it up as a dual pedal (which I … Read more
Now this is mainly for my own purposes, as I doubt anyone else will want to build a Rat this way & I only plan on making one. Just a standard Rat, built on 0.15″ vero and I’ve prioritised looks of build practicality (or at least what I think looks good anyway). I have built … Read more
Just a little one from the Bosstone family. This is said to have been used in MSA Pedal Steel guitars, and it’s basically a slight variation on the Nashville Bosstone circuit. These can be a bit noisy, so really have to watch your wiring and try for quite low gain on Q1. It can … Read more
Perhaps best known as the Analog Man Astrotone Fuzz now, this started life as the Sam Ash Fuzzz Boxx and the same circuit also appears in the Astro Amps Astrotone Fuzz – which is a supremely cooler name, which is maybe why it has stuck. The original has 47n caps on this input and output, … 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
After spending some time on the germanium Fuzzrite, time for a bit of silicon action. It’s a bit less interesting, as there seems to be less variance to the circuit – or none? Some differences in construction methods occurred, but that’s about it as far as I can tell. Although I need to do a bit more … Read more
