4ms Fuzz Jade

Happy Fuzz Friday, everyone. Today's layout is a cool variation of the Fuzz Face circuit, but with the addition of a Big Muff tone stack and a gain recovery stage. There's also a Mud pot that starves Q3 for extra tweaking. Board mounted pots and 1590B friendly. Here's the schematic for reference.

Blackout Effectors Mantra Overdrive

Here's a great sounding overdrive from Blackout Effectors. It features a 2-band EQ and the standard drive and volume controls. The topology of the circuit is reminiscent of the classic Big Muff, (input amplifier, gain stage, gain stage, EQ, gan recovery stage) but the components are completely different. Here's the schematic for reference. Adjust the trimmers to around 6.2v, then fine tune by ear if necessary.

Cornish SS-2

With the G-2 fresh in our minds, I thought I'd draw up the SS-2 as well. This is set up for a 125B like the G-2 due to the footswitch board. The circuit itself is like an MXR Distortion + with a tone control and a gain recovery stage. Originals utilize 2, LM741 chips, but I've drawn it up for a LM1458 (which is a dual version of the 741) to make things a little easier and save space.

Cornish G-2

Happy Fuzz Friday, everyone! As promised, here's my layout for the Pete Cornish G-2. The circuit is essentially a Big Muff (with a few different component values) with a simplified tone stack and input buffers. It's not quite as fuzzy or distorted as a typical BMP but more of a heavy overdrive. Though it can get fuzzy at higher Sustain levels. There is a bit of uncertainty over the type of diodes used in the clipping stages, so socketing is a good idea here. 1N34s or 1N60s are a good place to start.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I've also laid out the bypass buffer with a board mounted footswitch. It's a little too wide for a 1590B, but this and main circuit layout will fit very nicely in a 125B enclosure. 

If you're building on perf and want to include the bypass buffer of the original you can use the Cornish Buffer layout and wire it like this:

Grab & GoGo Delay/Overdrive

Here's a cool little dual effect designed by Allesz over on FSB. I actually laid this out a long time ago, but couldn't wrap my head around the switching with the buffer. I've learned a lot since then and feel confident in my understanding to publish this one here. It essentially is a basic PT2399 delay with 2 of the pins from the PT2399 being used as a separate soft clipping overdrive. A simple buffer, built around the MPSA13, is always on, making this a non-true bypass effect. But a little buffering never hurt anyone ;) The original schematic and discussion can be found here.

Since there's a lot of off board wiring going on with this one, here's a full off board wiring diagram to help clarify.

Buffered Bypass

Prepare for a bit of rambling: I was looking through the de-goup thread for the Cornish G2 over on Freestompboxes.org and was intrigued by the buffered bypass switching that's used on that pedal. (Before people bombard me with requests for the G2, don't worry it's coming.) Original G2s have individual PCBs for the footswitch, the bypass buffer, and the effect. Surely the first 2 can be combined, right? So I drew up the Cornish buffer with a board mounted footswitch (which I will share when I post the G2 layout), but it was too big to fit in a typical 1590B with the footswitch centered in the enclosure. Then I got to thinking about replacing the buffer circuit with one that took up less space. So I drew it up with the input buffer from the Klon and it will fit very nicely in a 1590B. This uses a board-mounted DPDT footswitch (I bought a bunch from Tayda a while back) and the on/off indicator LED can be mounted to the board as well.

I verified this over the weekend and here's a few pics of my build.

Austone Textone Fuzz Nutz

Here's a cool circuit for Fuzz Friday. It's supposed used by Billy Gibbons from time to time and it's a silicon Tone Bender of sorts. It uses 2SC1815Y transistors that have a gain range of 120-240 hfe. Other transistors can probably be used, but mind the BCE pinout.

BearFoot FX Blueberry Bass Overdrive

Being primarily a bass player myself, I've wanted to build this one for a while, but didn't really feel like messing with all the off board wiring of my first layout of this circuit. So I've drawn up a new layout with board mounted pots. I've also subbed a 2N5457 in place of the stock 2N5952 because it's what I have in my personal stock and I order from parts suppliers enough already (haha). If you do use a 5952, mind the pinout as it's SGD, whereas the 5457 is GSD.

Wampler Faux Analog Echo

Today's layout is Brian's take on the PT2399-based delay. It's similar to many other PT delays, but is it's own beast. It can do anything from simple slapback delay to up to around 500 milliseconds of delay. I've laid it out for board mounted pots and it would be a snug fit, but i'll fit in a 1590B (especially if you use low profile jacks).

Schaller Fuzz

For Fuzz Friday I give you a fun little circuit built in West Germany in the late 60s and early 70s–the Schaller Fuzz. It's a silicon Fuzz Face variant and sounds rather good. Originals used BC109B and 239B transistors, but modern equivalents would be BC549B or 550B. It's laid out for onboard pots, but if you feel like using hookup wire, you could probably fit it in a 1590a. Schematic can be found here.

For reference, here's a schematic I drew up based on Peter Ginidis' comments below. Seems the one floating around the web isn't clear on the pot lug numbering.

CultureJam Box of Hall

Here's a great sounding reverb designed by CultureJam, built around the typical Belton BTDR-2 reverb brick. I've laid it out for onboard pots and the BTDR-2 being mounted from the solder-side of the board.

DeadAstronaut Bassman Preamp

Here's one for my fellow bassists out there. It's a transistor-ized version of the Fender Bassman preamp as modified by DeadAstronaut over on DIYSB. It's laid out for board mounted pots and switch and will fit nicely in a 1590B.

Keeley Fuzz Head

Over a decade ago Robert Keeley was kind enough to share this design with the DIY community. It's a fairly unique fuzz, with a germanium treble booster at the beginning, a differential amplifier in the middle, and a basic buffer at the output (this is so it will play nice with other effects). Robert's full explanation of the circuit can be found here, however note that the schematic in that document isn't what I used. I used this later one with a tone control, and ended up laying it out with all controls externally. The PreGain control originally was a trimmer because it has a tendency to crackle when turned, but for ultimate tweak-ability I moved it externally.

The switch is a SPST on/off, by the way.