Hornby Skewes Zonk Machine

The Zonk Machine was one of the many British fuzz boxes that came out in the mid-60s. Like the Tone Bender Mk II it was designed to compete with, it also was featured 3 germanium transistors but offered more of a boost and slight oscillation (in a good way). This is a positive ground effect so unless you use a charge pump or can make it work with NPN germanium transistors you can't daisy chain it with other negative ground pedals. If you are going the NPN route, be sure to rotate the polarized caps an the diode 180º. Here's the schematic for reference.

Lovepedal JTM

Got a request for this one. It's another Electra-derived overdrive, this time meant to sound like a Marshall. This should be an easy fit in a 1590A.

Run Off Groove Supreaux Deux

Got a request to do this one again but with board mounted pots. If you don't know, it's a FET emulation of the classic Supro 16T amp. More info, schematic and demos can be found on the Run Off Groove article.

Black Arts Toneworks Fnord

Got a little Eagle excursion for Fuzz Friday. Here's the Fnord from Black Arts Toneworks. It's pretty much the same as the Escobedo Digital Octaver Fuzz with an added diode lift switch (though that's jumpered in the originals). It's a pretty gnarly fuzz with a wide range of tones. For you perfboard builders you should be able to translate this onto perf pretty easily.

Here's the schematic for reference:

Way Huge Saffron Squeeze

Here's Way Huge's take on the Ross Compressor. This is based on an original from the mid 90s that was traced over on FSB. It will fit in a 1590B with side mounted jacks or a 125B with top mounted jacks.

Wampler Pinnacle

Got another cascaded JFET design, this time from Wampler. Great for getting those EVH Brown Sound tones. I've added 2 trimmers for the 2 non-cascaded JFET stages to make biasing at little easier (originals use 22k resistors). Should be an easy fit in a 125B with top mounted jacks, but should also work in a 1590B with top mounted jacks (though you have to be really precise drilling those).

Perf Board Tutorial

I thought a tutorial on how to build on perfboard would be a good addition to the blog. There are lots of ways to do it, but this video shows how I do perf builds and how the perf layouts are designed to be built. I filmed this ages ago with great intentions, but it took me a year to get it fully edited (video editing is actually my day job and I'd rather build pedals or play with my kids when I get home instead of doing more editing lol). But better late than never! Enjoy.

Spaceman Effects Gemini III Dual Fuzz Generator

This week's Fuzz Friday layout happens to be the 500th layout on the blog! So for #500 it has to be something cool, so here's a really unique fuzz from Spaceman Effects–the Gemini III Dual Fuzz Generator. As the name implies, it has 2 sides: silicon and germanium. The Blend knob pans between the 2, and each side has a 3-way gain switch. I've laid it out for board mounted pots for a 125B with top mounted jacks.

It's a good idea to experiment with the transistors, especially on the germanium side. Here's some good alternatives from digi2t who traced it over on DIYSB:

Q1: Russian MP20B (hFE: 80-85)

Q2: Russian GT404 (hFE: 120-130)

Q3: Russian GT402 (hFE: 100-115)

Q5: BC109B or 2N3700 (hFE: mid 200s)

Q7: 2N5088

Also the 1nF cap near the input apparently really needs to be a polystyrene. YMMV

Carl Martin Crush Zone

Here's an interesting distortion from Carl Martin. It's similar to an Escobedo Punch-in-the-Face between 2 opamp stages. Board mounted pots and will fit nicely in a 1590B. FSB schematic here for reference.

Run Off Groove Ginger

The ROG Ginger is an amp emulator designed to sound like the classic Ampeg SB-12 Portaflex. So it's intended for bass, but sounds good with a guitar as well. Schematic, sound clips, and more info can be found in the ROG article. It's laid out for board mounted pots will fit easily in a 125B with top mounted jacks.

Kustom K200B Harmonic Clipper

Found this over on the Tone Report Weekly and thought I'd make a PCB/perf layout for Fuzz Friday. It's based on the fuzz unit in old Kustom K200B amps and utilized by John Fogerty of CCR. The first 2 transistor stages are from the original units, with a Escobedo Duente boost at the output as a gain recovery stage. A lot of the credit for adapting the original circuit into pedal form goes to a group of cool dudes on DIYSB (pinkjimiphoton, digi2t, and a few other I'm probably forgetting) with the Suzi-Q.

What the Wah?

Hadn't done a wah in a while and thought I'd do project where you can build several old school wah circuits on the same board. Many of the early wahs back in the late 60s were based on the original Thomas Organ CryBaby, and as a result many of them follow the same topology with a few value changes. Here's the schematic:

A lot of the original transistors used have a BCE pinout, so I've made 2 layouts: one for BCE and one for the more common CBE pinouts. Generally speaking your just need transistors in the 300-400 hFE range, however with many circuits, different transistors offer different flavors. So as always, socket and experiment.

What the Wah? Project

EWS Bass Mids Control

Here's another one for the bass players. It's a pretty handy EQ pedal from EWS. Originals come in a 1590a, and sadly I wasn't able to duplicate that here, but it will fit fine in a 1590B with board mounted pots. Originals have the Volume control as an internal trimmer, but I've moved that to a full sized pot for more control (and a newer version of this pedal has all 3 control externally as well, so maybe I'm on to something haha). Here's the schematic for reference.