Catalinbread V8 Fuzz Engine

For the final Fuzz Friday of the year, here's another one from Catalinbread. It's a fairly unique design and much like the Hyperpak, it uses a 4007 chip and will fit in a 1590a.

Brown Sound in a Box 2

Somehow I've not laid out this DIY classic, so here's the BSIAB2. It's a great distortion pedal designed by Ed Guidry and is probably a must for any of you EVH fans.

Earthquaker Devices Hoof Reaper

It's the last Fuzz Friday before Christmas, and as a present to you here's 3 effects in one–the Earthquaker Hoof Reaper. It combines the Tone Reaper fuzz, the Green Ringer (Tentacle) octave, and Hoof fuzz in one package. For the germanium transistors, originals use an AC176 in the Reaper side and 1N1308s in the Hoof, but others can (and have) been used, so socket and experiment. Also, it seems the originals have the Octave first from the input jack. So despite the footswitch arrangement, the signal goes, Input jack > Octave > Reaper > Hoof > Output Jack. Pots are all board mounted and it should fit in a 1590BB.

Hope everyone has a great holiday!

Catalinbread Hyperpak

Here's an older design from Catalinbread (now discontinued). The Hyperpak is based around a CD4007UBE to generate a wide array of tones. Be sure to use the unbuffered version of 4007. Shouldn't be too hard to fit into a 1590a like the originals.

Dan Armstrong Red Ranger

Here's a classic circuit from Dan Armstrong–the Red Ranger. It's a booster with a switch for boosting treble, full range, or bass. Original units didn't have a volume control, but it could easily be added to the output.

Heavy Darling Fuzz

Found this one over on DIYSB and thought it'd be a good Fuzz Friday layout. It was designed by Dragonfly for the old FX-X contests. Here's what he had to say about it:

The Heavy Darling is a SIMPLE fuzztone that cleans up great, has old school character, and good sustain...pretty much ANYONE who can solder should be able to build this one. It uses a MPSA13 Darlington transistor in the 1st stage that pushes the 2N3904 into full saturation. The 220k resistor limits the amount of saturation, and you could certainly experiment with values here. A pot could also be used to give some variable gain, and you could even set up the pot in a similar manner to the Orpheum, Fuzzrite, and Shin-Ei style fuzzes.

Red Llama + BMP tone stack

I drew this up last month on a whim, built it and it actually sounds pretty good. It's just a Red Llama with a Big Muff tone stack tacked on to the end. Ripe for tweaking to your own taste, especially with the values of the tone section. I changed the values to give boosted mids, but those are easily changed (consult google for different tone stack values), and I used 47n caps instead of 68n and 33n that are normally in a Red Llama (only because I have a ton of that value in my parts stash haha).

Electro-Harmonix OD Glove

Here's the Glove from EHX's nano series. Essentially, it's an OCD with a switchable charge pump. On originals the voltage switch is internal, but external makes more sense to me, so wire that to your preference. Here's the schematic for reference.

Skreddy Top Fuel

For Fuzz Friday, here's another fantastic Big Muff variation from Skreddy–the Top Fuel. It replaces the input stage with a MOSFET-based stage, and uses an interesting diode array for the 2 clipping stages. There's also a fabricated version of this layout in the store here.

Black Cat OD-1

This one's pretty simple, but is really versatile going from light overdrive to fuzz levels of gain. Originals use an OP275, but other dual op amps can be used (1458, 4558, TL072, etc.). It's should be a nice fit in a 1590a.

Catalinbread Naga Viper

Here's a versatile boost from Catalinbread. It has its roots in the classic Rangemaster treble booster, but with a silicon transistor, the Range pot varying the input capacitance, and the Heat pot controlling some of the gain. Check out the thread on FSB for discussion, schematic, etc. This is laid out for board mounted pots with the board mounted vertically.

OMG Fuzz

Found this design over on DIYSB and thought it would be a good Fuzz Friday layout. The One Mighty Gnarly Fuzz is a pretty straight forward design that you probably have all the parts for in your parts drawer. Check out the DIYSB thread for the schematic, and build notes.

PIC Relay Bypass

If you feel like getting into a bit of programing with your pedal building, this is probably a good place to start. The legwork was done and graciously shared by Coda Effects. It uses a PIC micro-controller to trigger a relay and LED indicator. To learn how to program the PIC12F675 read the original blog post on Coda Effects. Benoit has since updated the schematic, adding a photoFET to get rid of a pop that happened when triggered. So you'll need to read and use the code from this post as well. Thanks again to Benoit for sharing his code and all his hard work!

Update March 2, 2017: Benoit updated his schematic and code recently, so I've updated the layout to reflect that, as well as the hyperlinks above to the correct code.

MXR Distortion III

Here's the MXR Distortion III. It's pretty similar to the MXR ZW-44, which itself is a Boss SD-2 clone. The main difference is hard clipping in the Distortion III instead of soft clipping in the ZW-44/SD-2. Originals use an MC33178P dual opamp, but try a JRC4558 or TL072.

CultureJam Stein Fuzz

For Fuzz Friday, here's another one from CultureJam.

The Stein Fuzz is a lightly modified version of the Roger Mayer Stone Fuzz* pedal (which is itself a lightly modified Fuzz Face). The main difference is more standardized part values (the pots mainly). 

It's meant to be a positive ground circuit (center positive, so not daisy chain-able with standard center negative/negative ground effects), but looks like a good candidate to convert to negative ground. The perf side of the layout below reflects the positive ground orientation of parts, and the PCB side reflects negative ground.

Demeter Tremulator

Here's a great sounding tremolo circuit from Demeter–the Tremulator. It's an optical trem, using a VTL5C1. That part can be replaced with an LED and a LDR (600Ω on/50M off) combo. Also, the diodes used in the originals are 1N5229 4.3v zenners, though you can use other zenners up to 5.1v. Here's the schematic for reference.

zVex Super Duper 2-in-1

This is a pretty handy expansion of the zVex SHO booster. It stacks two SHOs together and adds a master volume control. This is laid out so the board is vertical in a 1590B oriented like the original.

BearFoot FX Candy Apple Fuzz

For Fuzz Friday, here's the BearFoot FX Candy Apple Fuzz. It's a unique silicon/germanium hybrid designed by Bjorn and it rips. Originals use 2N1308 NPN germanium transistors, but others can be used. Pots are all board mounted and it will fit nicely in a 1590B. Here's the schematic for reference.

Ibanez ST9 Super Tube Screamer

Here's the Super Tube Screamer from Ibanez. It differs from a normal TS9 with the input buffer and the added Mids control. I've laid this out for board mounted pots with a 125B enclosure with top mounted jacks in mind.  Here's the schematic for reference.

Black Arts Toneworks Quantum Mystic

The Quantum Mystic is probably the most tricked out DOD250 around. It was developed with Mike Scheidt from the band Yob and based on his Grey Spec 250. It features an active 3-band EQ section and can create tones ranging from boost, to classic distortion, to modern doom metal tones.

Wattson EFY-6

For Fuzz Friday, here's the Wattson EFY-6. This is Wattson Classic Electronics take on the classic Shin-Ei FY-6 (also known as the Univox Super Fuzz) and stays fairly faithful to the original circuit, but with a few straight forward and useful mods. The schematic and a full explanation of the circuit was posted on FSB by amp_surgeon (the guy behind Wattson). The originals have the Balance pot as a trimmer, but I've included pads for either a trimmer or external pot. I've laid it out for board mounted pots to fit in a 125B with top mounted jacks.

Mad Professor Forest Green Compressor

Got a request for this one. It's very similar to Bjorn's Pale Green Compressor in his BearFoot Fx line, but with an extra stage for the Sustain mode. Here's the schematic for reference. From the product description:

FOREST GREEN COMPRESSOR (FGC) is designed to meet the highest standards of guitar and bass compression.  There is extremely low noise throughout the range and a high overload margin, which allows also a wide dynamic input range at minimum distortion and noise.  FGC is equipped with a special tone control to fine-tune the compressed sound for most transparent tone and effect.  The pedal has a switchable compressor and sustainer mode.  In Sustain mode you can get a very dynamic, touch sensitive tone with a long sustain. Here the attack is not lost, making the pedal suit-able even for blues players and works great with slide playing.

I've made 2 versions of the layout, one with SGD pinout for the 2SK170, and another with the more common GSD pinout for other JFETs (J201, 2N5457, etc)

Parasit Studio Stepping Stone Overdrive

Here's an early design from Freppo from Parasit Studio. It's a punky overdrive/distortion transistor-based circuit. Here's the schematic for reference.

This was my first attempt at making my own overdrive from what I had learnt by building and modding other circuits. I had done a few heavily modded ones before, but nothing really original. I spent countless hours trying out different ideas on the breadboard before I was satisfied with the result. However, going back listening to this one now I find it alittle too thin/midrangy sounding, so I will probably revisit the circuit and improve it some time in the future.

Earthquaker Devices Tone Reaper

Happy Fuzz Friday, everyone! This week I give you the Earthquaker Devices Tone Reaper. This got traced over the Tagboard Effects forum, so thanks to Galapagos for doing the leg work. It's based on the 3-knob Tone Bender, with the darlington pair of germanium transistors simplified into a single high gain silicon transistor. In some respects it's similar to the D*A*M GB-83 Greasebox in that respect. An AC176 is used in the originals but others may work. Socket and experiment as usual. The tone control has also been changed to a BMP tone stack. I redrew the schematic for reference:

All-Star Reverb

Found this one over on FSB. It was designed by Induction and takes elements from the GGG D-Verb, BYOC 2-Knob, and CultureJam's Box of Hall. Like those designs it uses a Belton BTDR-2 reverb brick, which can be mounted directly to the board from the solder-side. If you want a wetter sound, replace the marked resistors with the values listed in the layout below. You may be able to fit it in a 1590B, but I'd go with a 125B. Here's the thread of FSB for reference.

CMAT Mods Signa

Got a request for this one. It's a barely modified Tube Screamer with a clipping switch to go between silicon and red LEDs. The switch is a SPDT on/off/on by the way. Gearmandude really seems to like it.

Smallsound/Bigsound Team Awesome! Fuzz Machine

For Fuzz Friday here's another cool design from Brian at Smallsound/Bigsound. It's a unique silicon/germanium hybrid fuzz box with all kinds of options. This was traced over on Freestompboxes and Brian was kind enough to chime in and shed a little light on the circuit. There have been a couple versions of this circuit with both PNP germaniums with a charge pump and this version with NPN germaniums. The dip switch is there to give the option of bypassing the input buffer. For the buffer to be on, switch 1 down and 2 and 3 up. To bypass the buffer, switch 1 up and 2 and 3 down. There are a couple question marks around the circuit still, specifically 2 diodes (which are probably schottkys) and one larger capacitor (probably 330nF), so socket things and experiment. It seems to be a very tweakable circuit, and it work well on guitar and bass.

 

Demeter Compulator

Here's a really nice optical compressor from Demeter. It offers vintage studio compression that's very transparent and a fairly simple simple build as well. The trimpot sets the gain of the compressor's preamp stage. If the signal is distorted, turn down the trimmer till it's clean. Here's the schematic for reference.

Menatone None More Black

Here's the None More Black from Menatone. It uses cascading JFET stages to produce a high gain distortion tones of the 80s all the way to modern metal tones. There are apparently some versions with and without a charge pump to run at 18v off a 9v supply. I had room for the charge pump, so I included it.

Death by Audio Robot

For Fuzz Friday, here's another wild and wacky one from DBA:

The Robot is a low fidelity 8 bit pitch transposer with absolutely no feelings what-so-ever. It is completely synthetic and transforms any input into a spuree of resynthesized robot jargon.

Originals need a dedicated power supply as the HT8950 chip runs off 2.4-4 volts and the power section of the original will not play nice daisy chained with other pedals. To make it a little more user friendly, I've altered the power supply to use a 3.3v regulator (LM1117V33C or similar, though watch the pinout). Here's my modified schematic:

Note: I've also included 4 extra pads on the PCB layout in case anyone wanted to do the mod lvlark describes here.

Valve Wizard Small Time

Here's Valve Wizard's take on the PT2399 delay. It's very similar to most PT2399 delays out there, with a dual op-amp providing input and output buffering. This was designed with the tails function and it uses Valve Wizard's usual J112 switching. Here's his original schematic and explanation of the circuit. You can also use a DPDT footswitch for bypassing, using one side to turn the delay on/off and the other for LED indication. I've included 2 extra pads on the PCB layout for this function. If going this route, don't populate the J112 along with the 1N4148 diode, 1k and 4.7k resistors, and 10µ capacitor round the J112.

Walrus Audio Mayflower

Here's the Walrus Audio Mayflower, which is essentially a hybrid between the Tube Screamer and the Timmy (which has its roots in the TS already). Originals use a second dual opamp for buffering the voltage divider, which in this instance seems to just be unnecessary, so I've omitted that.

Devi Ever Vintage Fuzz Master

Here's a cool one from Devi Ever for Fuzz Friday. The Vintage Fuzz Master is only slightly different than the Soda Meiser and both can be built on the same board. The only difference is the orientation of the PNP 2N2907A transistor. I've also included 2 switches for the Chaos and Noise mods. If you don't want to include the switches, just jumper the switch pads.

Menatone King of the Britains

Here's a Menatone design that emulates a Marshall JCM800. Like many Menatone circuits, the King of the Britains has had several iterations over the years. For this layout I went with the 6-knob version (and is essentially the same as the Electrictabs JCM800 emulator). I've laid it out specifically for a 125B enclosure with all the pots board mounted. Here's the schematic for reference. I would have liked to included trimmers for biasing the J201s, but there just wasn't enough room. So it's probably a good idea to socket the resistors feeding the drains and reference the schematic for voltages.

BearFoot FX Baby Pink Booster

Here's a cool little booster from Bjorn. Fairly typical JFET boost but the way the originals are wired, when the effect is bypassed, it's buffer. This layout reflects that original wiring, so wire the In pad to the input jack, Out pad to the output jack, and use a DPDT footswitch. If want to wire it for true bypass, jumper the 2 switch pads at the top of the board and omit the 150k resistor going from lug 1 of the Boost pot to ground. Or you can wire up a SPST switch to go between buffer and boost. Lots of options with this little circuit. Works well off 18v too.

HipKitty Oxblood Distortion

 Here's your Fuzz Friday fix. I'm calling it a fuzz anyway since it's just a modded Fuzz Face with an input buffer and a treble cut control at the output. It's supposed to give the boxy sound of a cranked AC15. Here's HipKitty's description:

The Oxblood Distortion was designed to emulate the tone and response of an old Vox AC15 with added gain at the input stage. Unlike other Vox-like pedals which emulate the tone and response of the Vox AC30, only the Oxblood Distortion emulates a boosted AC15.

Unique to the Oxblood Distortion is it's ability to make a "large" amp sound "small" and in hyper-drive with the tone of the AC15.

Also unique to the Oxblood Distortion is it's controlled output. While other distortion pedals use greater than unity gain at output to alter the user's amplifier input stages, the Oxblood Distortion does not. This keeps the true tone and response of the effect intact throughout the initial preamp stage of the amplifier in use.

Mad Professor Little Green Wonder

I feel like in the past few months I've done a ton Tube Screamer variants. Well here's another one, but one of the more interesting ones I've seen. Bjorn designed this one for Mad Professor and utilizes a dual-gang pot for the Body control that affects both the treble and bass response. The IC was originally a LF353, but that was changed to the TLC272CP as it was more readily available and worked at lower voltages and breaks up easier. The only schematic I found online was a little difficult to read (it was hand drawn) so I've drawn that up in Eagle as well. Pots are board mounted and will fit nicely in a 1590B.

EchoPlex Preamp

The EchoPlex Preamp emulates the input stage on the old EchoPlex EP-3. It provides up to 11dB of gain and is mostly used as an always on pedal to sweeten the user's tone. If you want to add the volume control, use a 500k pot and connect lug 1 at the junction of the 100n cap, 220k and 100k resistors, and run lug 2 to ground. This also works really well when running at 18v. Schematic for reference can be found here.

VooDoo Lab Superfuzz

It's Fuzz Friday once again, so here's the VooDoo Lab Superfuzz. Despite the name, it's not based on classic Univox fuzz circuit with the same name. Rather, it's a highly modified Jordan Bosstone with an added EQ section. One interesting thing about this one is the fact that Q2 (PNP) has the emitter going to ground, where every other version of the Bosstone has that transistor's collector going to ground. Maybe VooDoo Lab found some extra mojo by doing it that way? Schematic can be found on FSB. I've laid it out for board mounted pots and it will fit nicely in a 1590B.

CultureJam DuoVibe

Here's a cool vibrato effect designed by CultureJam and based on Tim Escobedo's Wobbletron. Here's what he had to say about it his original build doc.

The DuoVibe is a two-stage optical vibe circuit than can also cop subtle phaser tones. The LFO is modified from the Shoot the Moon tremolo (itself derivative of the Tremulus Lune) and is capable of triangle wave and near-square wave output. The pitch bend in Vibe mode is discernible but not capable of “seasick” wobble. With the depth cranked, you can think of it as a sort of “tremolo with funk going on” kind of thing. There is a Vibe/Phase Mode switch, the name of which indicates its function and purpose. This switch simply toggles a feedback filtering cap value, but is useful despite the simplicity.

Catalinbread Supercharged Overdrive

Here's one of the earliest Catalinbread designs, the Supercharged Overdrive. It's a pretty unique circuit with the Contour control adding in more distortion and saturation from the CD4007 stage. Laid out for board mounted pots and will fit quite nicely in a 1590B. Schematic here for reference.

Durham Crazy Horse

For Fuzz Friday here's an really interesting circuit from Durham that's both an overdrive and a fuzz. As the name implies helps you get some Neil Young tones, but does a lot more than that. The input stage features soft clipping in the feedback loop of an opamp,  much like a Tube Screamer. The 2nd half of the opamp acts like a buffer, pushing a Fuzz Face-style stage. This then pushes another Fuzz Face-style stage that feeds into a Big Muff tone stack. The addition of the Volts control to starve the opamp of voltage makes this a really versatile pedal. I've laid this out with on board pots that will ideally fit in a 125B with top mounted jacks. Here's the schematic for reference.

Equinox II Demo

Sorry this isn't a layout guys, but I made a quick little demo of the Equinox II reverb and wanted to share it with you all. Still really digging the sound of this thing and works really well with my smaller amps that don't have built in reverb.

A little info (maybe more than you asked for?) on the gear I used: the guitar I used started its life as a Gibson Melody Maker SG–one of those with the single bridge humbucker with the volume control and output jack on the pickguard. When I bought it the neck had a pretty substantial crack in it, so I picked it up pretty cheap. Fixed the crack and decided to turn it into a Junior with a P90 and more traditional control placement. It is very unnerving when you start routing on a USA Gibson, but it's turned into quite a player and I'm glad I took it under the knife.

Much less to say about the amp. It's a stock Vox AC4C1 in red. Got it at close out and it's a great little bedroom amp. A little boxy sounding on its own, but that's why I built this reverb!

The mic used was MXL 990 into a Zoom H4N recorder. Shot with a Canon T4i and I promise next time I do a demo I'll use better lighting!

Taptation

Want to add tap tempo to a PT2399 delay? Using this chip from DIYSB and the layout below, you can add tap to any single PT2399 delay (Deep Blue Delay, Rebote, Faux Analog Echo, etc). The Pin 6 pad connects to the 6th pin of the PT2399, and the LED flashes at the rate of the tap.

HAO Sole Pressure

Here's HAO's take on the Distortion +/250 Preamp circuit. It uses LED clipping and features a Brilliance switch for normal, bright, and warm settings. A TL072 dual opamp is used, but on the original, only one side is used and the other is left unconnected. In this layout, I used the unused opamp for the voltage divider to give more stability there.

Way Huge Swollen Pickle Mk I

For Fuzz Friday we have the original Swollen Pickle from Way Huge Electronics. One of the unique things about this Muff clone is the use of a quad transistor array instead of 4 individual transistors. This makes for a quieter pedal and more consistency in transistor matching. However if you don't feel like tracking down an MPQ3904 or NTE2321, you can use 4 individual transistors. Just note the pinout in the layout below.

Jen Harmon Booster

Here's a really unique overdrive from the Italian manufacturer Jen from the late 70s. Think Tube Screamer meets Big Muff. It sort of reminds me of a DBA design (only more stable and not as over the top) with a whole mess of transistor stages pushing a BMP style tone stack. Originals used BC318c transistors, but others in the 400-500 hfe range can be used. Here's the schematic for reference.