DAM Buzzotron

For Fuzz Friday, here's the D*A*M Buzzotron with a few modifications (based on H.A.'s suggestions).The Buzzotron is a tweaked Burns Buzzaround, which can also be built on this layout. What I've added is a master volume control and a ICL7660-based voltage inverter. This allows you to power the effect with a standard +9v supply and use PNP germanium transistors like the originals. Here's the Buzzotron and Buzzaround schematics for reference.

And if you're interested in building the original Buzzaround populate the board like this:

D*A*M Flesh Head

Here's a Tone Bender Mk. II variation from DAM for Fuzz Friday. Originals use PNP transistors are are positive ground effects, but it could be built with NPN transistors as well (negative ground). This varies from a Mk. II in that there is an added tone control (Flesh), and the fuzz control is a fixed resistor. Schematic here. The perf side of the layout reflects the positive ground orientation of components, and the pcb side the negative ground orientation.

D*A*M/Emanating Fist Black Dust

For Fuzz Friday here's another take on the classic Colorsound One-Knob Fuzz by Emanating Fist Electronics (a sister company of D*A*M). It's fairly similar to the D*A*M Meathead, but with a few value changes. Here's the schematic:

Note that in earlier versions of this circuit, R4 is replaced by a 20k trim pot. So the value there may need to be tweaked.

One-Knobber Project

I haven't made a detailed project in a while, so for Fuzz Friday here's the One-Knobber. It's based on the old Dr. Tony Balls stripboard layout that covered the ColorSound One-Knob, D*A*M Meathead and Dark Meathead, and a one-knob adaptation of the '66 Vox ToneBender, and I've added the Ritual fuzz by Black Arts Toneworks.

Project PDF

D*A*M Ezekiel 25:17

Here's a non-Fuzz Face/Tone Bender offering from D*A*M for Fuzz Friday. It's designed for bass, but sound great on guitar as well. It uses one half of a dual op amp to blend in clean signal, and the other half creates the distortion via soft clipping. You have 4 options for clipping diodes, germanium, silicon, LEDs, and bypass, selectable via a rotary switch. The rotary will have to be wired off board, but the rest of the pots are board mounted.

D*A*M Drag'n'Fly

For #FuzzFriday, here's another D*A*M Fuzz Face variant, the Drag'n'Fly. This one is a silicon/germanium hybrid, using a BC337 silicon transistor for Q1 and a CV7112 germanium transistor for Q2 (but feel free to experiment with other transistors). I've laid this out for board mounted pots and the enclosure drilling template can be found here.

Vox ToneBender Mk I

You might look at this and think, "Gee, it's just another Fuzz Face," when in actuality, this pedal pre-dates the famous Dallas Arbiter stombox. (This is different from the Sola Sound ToneBender Mk I, as the Sola Sound has 3 transistors.) It was made in Italy for Vox and sounds like a Rangemaster and Fuzz Face combined, due to its smaller input and output capacitors. This is also the same circuit as the D*A*M 1966 Italian Tone Bender. I've added a 10k trimmer in place of the stock 8.2k resistor to dial in the bias for Q2 (a 20k trimmer might give you more tweakability), but on the PCB there are pads for a resistor in place of the trimmer if you prefer to go that route. Also, I've added a pull down resistor at the input, and polarity protection and power filtering. Note that this was originally built with PNP germanium transistors and was positive ground. The perf side of the layout reflects this, while the PCB side reflects negative ground for use with NPN transistors.

DAM Sonic Titan

The Sonic Titan creates amp-like distortion through the use of a JFET preamp stage, followed by LM386 power amp stage. The JFET stage creates the clipping and the LM386 amplifies the signal generated by the JFET.

Original units use a 2N3819 JFET with DGS pinout, so I've also included an layout for DSG JFETs like the J201, 2N5457, etc.

D*A*M Meathead

I realized after posting the Meathead Deluxe I hadn't made a layout for the one-knob Meathead. Anyway, the Meathead is one of most well known 1-knob silicon Fuzz Face variants, thanks to the like of Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age, among other guitarist. Q2 is a BC182L, which has an ECB pinout instead of the more common EBC, so be careful of that.

D*A*M Meathead Deluxe

Here's yet another Fuzz Face circuit as they say. This is basically the one-knob Meathead with a Filter control that pans between 2 different input caps, and an Attack control which is the standard Fuzz control on a Fuzz Face. Good sounding silicon fuzz.

D*A*M GB-83 GreaseBox

This is the silicon version of the GB-80. The darlington pair of transistors in the GB-80 aren't needed as silicon transistors have enough gain, and the rest of the circuit has just been tweaked for the silicon transistors. One problem people seemed to have cloning this circuit over on FSB was biasing the transistors properly. The 260k resistor from the base of Q1 to ground could either be socketed and experimented with to get the right value, or replaced with a 500k trim pot to dial in the right sound. The transistors in the originals are BC series, but socket and experiment. Anything in the 300 hfe range should work for Q1 and 400 hfe for Q2.

D*A*M GB-80 GreaseBox

Here's the germanium version of D*A*M's GreaseBox fuzz. It's based on the Tone Bender Mk. III but without the tone control. Q1 and 2 form a darlington pair to amplify the signal, and Q3 provides the fuzziness. The original units are positive ground effects and use PNP germanium transistors. That is reflected in the perf side of the image below, but for the PCB, I laid it out for negative ground for those of you who (like me) have a bunch of NPN germaniums.

D*A*M FR-70 FuzzRong

This is DAM's take on the silicon FuzzRite. Loud, snarly, and nasty fuzz tones in this circuit. Q1 is a KSP42, which seems to be pretty similar (if not the same) to a MPSA42. I've read of MPSA18s working in that spot as well. Q2 is a 2N4401, which should be easier to track down, though a 2N3904 should work just fine there as well. As always, socket and experiment. The depth pot is listed at 470k, but a 500k will work just fine. I've added power filtering, polarity protection, and an LED resistor on board and the whole thing should fit nicely in a 1590a.