Devi Ever Ruiner

Another brutal fuzz machine from Devi, and sounds great on bass and guitar. Pretty straight forward design–two cascaded transistor amplifier stages with a pre-gain control (intensity) and standard volume control. Pots are board mounted and it shouldn't take all that long to throw together.

EarthQuaker Devices Erupter

Merry Fuzz Friday, everyone! Here's EQD's latest fuzz offering, the Erupter. Essentially it's a JFET buffer into a pickup sim (the transformer) into a Fuzz Face-esque circuit. The Bias control controls the amount of voltage going to Q3 and is a center detent pot (though a regular B10k pot will work just fine). This one might benefit by adding a volume control to the output. Should fit in a 1590B just fine. The 2N497 transistor might be hard to source, but other low gain transistors should work. Schematic can be found here.

SoulSonic FX Chalice

Here's an other heavy one. This one was designed by Martin (aka soulsonic) and is basically 3 transistor stages and a tone stack into a JFET gain recovery stage. The toggle switch selects between distortion and fuzz.

The tone in Distortion mode is a big heavy, "Doom-y" sort of thing with alot of sustain. In Fuzz mode, it's a fart-y ripping sawtooth fuzz that's good for single-note lines and possibly bass, but it can do chords without totally falling apart.

The Contour control adjusts from a dark, low-mid-heavy tone when counterclockwise, to a scooped tone when clockwise. Around 12 o'clock it has a bit of a mid-peak.

 Schematic and demo can be found here. I added a trimmer to bias Q4 (J201 or 2N5457 would be good subs). Should fit nicely in a 1590B.

Wampler Paisley Drive

Got a request for this one. Another take on the classic Tube Screamer built for Brad Paisley. The traditional input/output buffers have been swapped out for JFET-based buffers, and there are two toggles for Presence and EQ (mids). Should be able to squeeze it into a 1590B.

Green Citrus

Here's a cool DIY design of a Green (Mutamp) amp emulator. Four JFET stages with a 2-band EQ and a Boost control. Should be a nice easy fit in a 125B with the board mounted pots. Here's the schematic for reference. Sound demo here.

Basic Audio Zippy

The Zippy is a silicon fuzz designed to give that vintage brassy sound. I've laid it out for board mounted pots and it'll fit in a 1590B or a 125B with top mount jacks. In the words of John Lyons...

Early fuzz boxes were designed to emulate the sounds of the saxophone.
The Zippy will allow you to channel your inner Coltrane with very reedy fuzz tones. Saxy and sexy.
At lower settings a nice musical razor blade fuzz sizzle.
Turn it up and it becomes an increasingly sharper toothed saw blade fuzz. It snarls. It spits. It goes from fat and thick to thin and cutting without losing it's signature top end sizzle and low end rumble.
The body control (bass cut) makes it easy to dial in just the right amount of beef. Zipper fuzz tones bloom and softly decay.

MI Audio Boost 'n' Buff V1

The Boost 'n' Buff is a simple little booster that doubles as a buffer when it's turned off (so it's not a true bypass effect). You should be able to squeeze this one in a 1590A. The FSw pads are for the bypass footswitch. If you want to build the second version of the Boost 'n' Buff, add a B20k to the output as a volume control.

Rothwell Love Squeeze

Here's a nice little compressor that should be a fairly easy build. It doesn't have the squish of a DynaComp, but goes for a more subtle compression like the Orange Squeezer. Board mounted pots and an easy fit in a 1590B. Here's the schematic for reference.

BearFoot FX Baby Blue OD

Here's Bjorn's Baby Blue overdrive. Fairly straight forward JFET circuit with hard clipping in the 2nd stage. The clipping diodes in the original are (massive) 2A1200s, but other silicon diodes will work–socket and experiment. The JFETs used in the original aren't confirmed, but I've laid it out for GSD pinout. Pots are board mounted and should fit in a 1590B. More info here.

Also, I've added extra holes on the PCB for the 470nF caps in case you want to use electrolytic capacitors.

Haunting Mids V3

Here a Black Friday Fuzz layout to compete with your Christmas shopping. The Haunting Mids is a one knob variation of a Big Muff. The Sustain control is a trimmer internally and the tone section and recovery stage have been removed. Great one for bass! Should be an easy fit in a 1590B or even a 1590G.

Spaceman Effects Saturn V

Here's the Spaceman Saturn V boost pedal. It's a pretty unique booster and uses depletion mode LND150N3-G MOSFETs. In original units, there are 2 resistors in series going to each drain of the transistors. They essentially create a 4.7k resistor using some really uncommon values. (It appears that the only reason for that is for more interesting guts. And lets be real, Spaceman has some of the best looking pedal guts around.) I've included room for the ferrite beads of the originals to fit on the board (these reduce RF noise) and if you wire the pots off board you can probably fit it in a 1590a. More info and schematic found here.

Dwarfcraft Great Destroyer

Here's a fun sputtery beast for Fuzz Friday. Like many of Dwarfcraft offerings, this ones got a lot of character and goes from fuzz to experimental with just a few knob turns. I've laid it out so you can fit it in a 1590B long-ways (much like a zVex pedal). Here's the schematic for reference.

Wampler Hot Wired V1

The Hot Wired is a dual channel dirt box offering distortion and overdrive modeled after the tones used by Nashville session artist Brent Mason. I've laid it out for board mounted pots with the board mounted vertically in the enclosure. I laid it out with a 1590BB in mind, but you might be able to make it work in a 125B as well.

Skippy Tremolo

This is Moosapotamus' take on the Vox Repeat Percussion tremolo. The Skippy keeps the character of the original, but with more control while covering a much wider range of tones. There's also the option to use the modern 2N6027 instead of the vintage 2N2646. And you can plug in an expression pedal to control the speed of the effect. I've changed the tone switch to a pot for more fine tuning. More info here.

Build doc here.

Earthquaker Devices Palisades

The mother of all TS808 derivatives/variants, the Palisades incorporates just about every mod to the classic Tube Screamer circuit. Two rotary switches control the bass response (Bandwidth) and clipping (Voice), one toggle bypasses the input buffer while the other is a bright switch, a footswitch selects between 2 separate gain pots, and with an added boost section to round it all off. All 5 pots are board mounted, but there will still be a good bit of off board wiring. Schematic can be found over on FSB. It's laid out for a 1790NS enclosure just like the original.

And because I'm sure the off board wiring isn't the clearest, here's a full wiring diagram:

Hopefully that clarifies any questions and doesn't raise more... haha!

Chunk Systems Brown Dog

Got a bass fuzz for Fuzz Friday this week. It's a gated fuzz with both clean and dirty level controls, an envelope jack to use with funk-style effects, and a soft/hard clipping switch. From the manufacturer:

The Brown Dog enables you to produce rampaging waves of meat with your bass guitar while still keeping your basslines tight and letting the character of your instrument's tone shine through. With two fuzz modes (hard and soft), a mixing stage and a unique gating circuit the Brown Dog gives you a wide range of fuzzy and synthy bass tones.

I've laid it out for board mounted pots and will probably fit best in a 125B, but it will probably fit in a 1590B if you omit the envelope jack.

Landgraff Dynamic Overdrive/Clay Jones Overdrive

Probably two of the most hyped Tube Screamer clones around. The only real difference between the Dynamic Overdrive and a TS808 is the clipping switch, offering symmetrical red LEDs, diode lift, and asymmetrical silicon diodes. The Clay Jones Overdrive is mostly the same, just without the clipping switch (just LEDs), and a Burr Brown OPA2134 in place of the JRC4558 opamp. If you want to build the Clay Jones version, omit the 1N4148 diodes and place a jumper between pads 2 and 3 of the clipping switch pads. Like most Tube Screamer clones, what you use for Q1-2 doesn't matter all that much. The Landgraff uses 2SC1815 transistors (BCE pinout) and the Clay Jones uses BC546B transistors (CBE pinout). Alternatives would be the usual 2N3904, 2N5088, etc. The layout below follows the more common CBE pinout. For a drilling template, use the Cmat Mods Signa.

Nocentelli JFET Boost

Here's a recent design by Nocentelli. A single JFET stage into a Baxandall EQ stage with a BJT gain recovery stage. Originally designed with an opamp gain recovery stage and no gain control, Nocentelli redesigned it for a lower parts count and easier build. I added a trimmer to the JFET stage so it's easier to bias correctly. More info here on FSB.

Way Huge Purple Platypus

Here's a bit of a rarer old school Way Huge circuit from the 90s. It's essentially what would happen if a Red Llama and a Foxx Tone Machine had a baby. Original thread on FSB here with schematic.

BJFE Folk Fuzz 3.5%

For Fuzz Friday, here's a great fuzz design by Bjorn he did for the DIY community. Q1-2 can be either silicon or germanium, and Q3-4 are used as clipping diodes. Here's the schematic for reference. Should be an easy fit in a 1590B.

SMD to Through-Hole Conversion

There are a lot of circuits (a lot) that use J201/2N5457 JFETs. Sadly, these components in the TO-92 package are out of production, and many of those that can be found online are either barely within spec or completely out of spec. So I thought it would be good to have a conversion board to use SMD transistors (that are current production and much more consistent) in through-hole layouts. Just solder some header pins to the holes of this board and you're good to go. I've also done a conversion board for BJTs, as some common through hole transistors are already being pulled from production.

If you don't feel like etching, you can pick these up in the store.

Wampler Tweed '57

Here's another (and more complicated) amp emulator, and another great design from Brian Wampler. This one stacks JFET stages much like the Cranked AC. It emulates a dirty Fender tube amp with a 3-band tone stack. I added trimmers so it's easier to bias the JFETs and it's laid out for board mounted pots in a 125B enclosure.

Lumpy's Tone Shop Lemon Drop/ZII/Series 7

Here's a simple little overdrive designed to emulate the old Vox 4 and 7 series amps (used by the likes of Jimmy Page and the Beatles). Pots are board mounted and it should fit in a 1590B easily. I've added a trimmer to bias the JFET at little easier. Schematic and voltages can be found here on FSB. From the manufacturer:

The 7 Series Overdrive captures the aggressive qualities of the solid state preamp found in the 4&7 series amps by using a pseudo hybrid setup consisting of a specifically selected silicon transistor for the first stage which adds a distinct bite and growl.  That pushes an FET stage into clipping adding some warmth, sustain and amp like dynamics to the tone and feel.  The end result is a highly effective emulation of the amp and a unique sonic blend that could be characterized as a "fuzzy overdrive." 

Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe

Happy Fuzz Friday! Revisiting one of the early layouts of the blog–John Lyon's Scarab Deluxe. Been meaning to draw it up with board mounted pots for a while. Ian Nelson sent me his version and with a little modification we can check that off the bucket list. Great sounding fuzz based on MicTester's Hot Silicon.

Mid-Fi Electronics Pitch Pirate

Here's the Pitch Pirate with board mounted pots. Like the Deluxe version, the LFO is designed to be grounded when the effect is turned on (hence the pad at the top of the board). Just use the true-bypass wiring diagram in the General Layout Notes and leave out the LED wiring. Then just connect the corresponding pads on the board to the lugs of the switch. The on/off indicator LED (pads at the top of the board) is connected to the LFO ground so that will turn on and off (and show the rate) with the LFO. It'll fit just fine in a 125B with top mounted jacks, but will also fit in a 1590B if you wire the pots off board (or maybe with long leg pots mounted to the component side? YMMV).

GodCity Brutalist Jr

Here's a really cool distortion based on Providence Stampede and designed by Kurt Ballou of GodCity Studio. He's actually made his business card a PCB you can build this circuit on, and if you can catch them while they're in stock you totally should. But while they're sold out, you can build one using this layout. Fits in a 1590B or a 125B with top mounted jacks if you prefer.

EWS Little Brute Drive

Found this one on FSB and haven't seen any layouts for it, so I thought I'd give it a go. Originals are in 1590A enclosures with the Tone and Volume controls as trimmers, but I've laid them out as external controls. There seems to be some discrepancy on the taper of the gain control in the schematic, unless EWS uses a dual-gang pot with different tapers. I'd just go with a linear taper and hope for the best. Should fit just fine in a 1590B with board mounted pots.

Maestro Bass Brassmaster

The Brassmaster was originally designed for bass and also picked up by guitarists. The circuit is very unique and originals are hard to come by. I was able to lay it out to fit in a 125B with board mounted pots.

Pladask Delay V3

Don't know much about this one. Stumbled across it on the Tagboard forum and thought it was an interesting design. It can apparently do normal delays as well as some lofi craziness. Schematic and discussion here. Laid it out for board mounted pots to fit in a 125B.

Wampler Sovereign

Here's another Wampler take on the JFET mu-amp design. This one adds a op amp stage at the output and features a Big Muff-style tone stack. This one's pretty versatile and a great sounding distortion. Ian sent me his perf layout of this one and I refined it a bit for what you see below, so a special thanks to him. Schematic can be found over on FSB.

TC Electronics Spark Mini

Here's a work-a-like for the Spark Mini. It'll be a bit of a squeeze, but it should fit in a 1590A. The original is all SMD components, so the transistors listed below aren't the same as the original, but through-hole equivalents. Other NPN and PNP transistors can be used (2N5088/87, 2N3904/06, etc.). Here's the schematic for reference (requires FSB login).

Escobedo T.M.K.

Here's a really cool one designed by the great Tim Escobedo. T.M.K. = Too Many Knobs. (And you thought the Fuzz Factory had too many) It's part fuzz box, part noise maker and would probably be just as much at home on a synth rack as it would be on a pedal board. This can get pretty gnarly and should fit in a 1590B.

Valve Wizard Engineer's Thumb

A little blog update: You may have noticed there wasn't a post yesterday and that there is one today. Why on a Tuesday and not a Monday? Some big-ish changes are coming to the site in the near future, which (along with a bunch of other small things) is taking up a lot of my free time. So don't freak out. I'm still here. Layouts are still coming. Just not quite as frequently (2 a week instead of 3). Now that that's out of the way...

Here's the 5-knob version of the Engineer's Thumb compressor. Been meaning to do this one for a while and decided to do it in Eagle. It's generally considered a Dyna-Comp/Ross Comp killer, and uses one side of an LM13700 chip in place of the old CA3080. This one will fit in a 125B with all 5 pots board mounted. The Bright switch is off board, but that's just 2 wires. If you don't feel like etching, you can get a board fabricated off OshPark. Original info on the circuit by the designer can be found here.

Build doc here with schematic, BOM, and drilling template.

Death by Audio Kill Kill Filter

It's a Fuzz and Filter Friday! Here's DBA's Kill Kill Filter. At it's heart is a stripped down Big Muff (only one distortion section without clipping diodes) with a footswitch selecting 2 different pots in the tone stack. Schematic can be found over on FSB.

Colorsound Tremolo

Haven't done a tremolo in a while, so let's remedy that with the original 4-transistor Colorsound Tremolo (the re-issue is the 3-transistor version). Originals used 2SC945 transistors (BCE pinout), but I've laid this out for more common NPN transistors with CBE pinout. You might want to use a C100k pot for the Speed control. Here's the schematic for reference.

Friedman BE-OD

By popular demand, here's the BE-OD from Friedman, one of the best Plexi in a box pedals around. Well, not Plexi really. It's designed to emulate the Friedman Brown Eye tube amp head. Laid this one out for board mounted pots, and it will fit easily in a 1590BB. More info can be found on the FSB thread for this one.

Field Effects Acceleron Fuzz

Here's a pretty unique fuzz for Fuzz Friday–the Acceleron from Field Effects. It uses a mix of BJT and JFET transistors and offers a wide range of fuzz tones. I've laid it out for board mounted pots and you'll notice a big box film cap labeled ??? It's probably 2.2µF, but socket and experiment.

Throbak Overdrive Boost

Pretty much a Colorsound Overdriver clone. Laid this out for a 125B (because of the dual footswitches) with board mounted pots. The boost footswitch bypasses the PreGain pot and only uses one side of a DPDT. Use the other side for LED wiring. If the off board wiring is confusing, check out the thread with the schematic here on FSB. The diagram is for a vero layout but the wiring is the same.

JHS Charlie Brown V3

Unrelated to the Angry Charlie circuit, the Charlie Brown emulates the brown sound of a JTM45 amp and is a variation on the zVex Box of Rock without the boost section. The input stage is an AMZ Mosfet Booster (replacing the SHO input stage of the Box of Rock to avoid crackle in the gain pot), and the tone control has been modified to include the AMZ presence control.

Frantone The Sweet

Laying out Big Muff variations never gets old for me. This one uses germanium transistors in the two clipping stages (and predates the EQD Hoof which also uses germanium transistors) along with schottky diodes (1N6263s). Q4 is a FS25444, but the usual BMP transistor suspects will work as well (2N5088, MPSA18, BC549C, etc). Other than component values, the biggest difference between this and a typical Muff is the placement of the tone section. On a typical BMP the tone section is immediately following the 2nd clipping stage, followed by a gain recovery stage. Here, the gain recovery stage follows the 2nd clipping stage, pushing the tone stack. Schematic can be found over on FSB.

The bass version, the Bassweet, can also be built on this board with just a few value changes. The Gain and Tone pots are changed to A10k, and the rest of the value changes are illustrated below:

Simple CabSim

Came across this design in researching a different project and thought I'd draw it up. It uses 3 transistors and doesn't take up a lot of space, so you should be able to fit it in a 1590A or add it to another pedal. More info can be found here. Sounds like you can use pretty much any medium-high gain PNP/NPN pair for Q2-3 (2N5087/2N5088, BC560/BC550, etc).

Tortenmann TA-100

Came across the schematic for this and thought it would be a good addition. It's a unique germanium overdrive using PNP AC128s, though the effect is a negative ground effect (so it can be daisy chained with other pedals). The TA-100 has been used by Ryan Adams and sounds great through a Princeton Reverb. Schematic here on FSB.

Dunlop Band of Gypsys Fuzz Face

Here's the Band of Gypsys Fuzz Face from Dunlop for Fuzz Friday. Despite being called a Fuzz Face, the actual circuitry of the Band of Gypsys version isn't even close to the original Fuzz Face. It's pretty close to an Octavia without the transformer. Here's the schematic for reference.

MXR Custom Badass '78 Distortion

I've wanted to draw this one up for a while. It's a fantastic clone/variation of the  Boss DS-1 Distortion. I had one for a while and loved it, but ended up selling it to fund some other stuff. But I'm definitely adding this one to the pile. You can sub a TL072 or JRC4558 in place of the TLC2262 if you need to.

JHS Angry Charlie

I've gotten a few requests to redo the MI Audio Crunch Box with board mounted pots. How is that relevant to the Angry Charlie you ask? Well, it's the same circuit. JHS added a cap in parallel with the existing cap coming off the Presence control to ground which tames some of the highs. So if you want the Crunch Box, just leave that cap out.

Jon Patton's Mossy Sloth

Finishing out Jon Patton week with the Mossy Sloth Fuzz for Fuzz Friday. It's a pretty unique transistor-based fuzz and uses MOSFETs to create some asymmetrical clipping for some unusual fuzz and distortion sounds. Loads more info can be found here.

Jon Patton's Blue Warbler

Continuing Jon Patton Week with a vibe/tremolo effect called the Blue Warbler. It features envelop control over the LFO and can be built with one or two LDR stages (layout below reflects the 2 stage version). Jon explains it best, so be sure to check out his build doc and demo below. It'll be a little tight in a 1590B because of the way the pots are board mounted, but should be doable.

Jon Patton's Clipper Ship

Jon has contributed a lot to the DIY pedal building community and I always learn something new when I layout one of his circuits. So I think we'll have a Jon Patton week, starting with the Clipper Ship. There's a good bit of flexibility with this one. Q1 can be pretty much any low gain transistor, germanium or silicon. If you're using a germanium transistor, use a germanium diode for D2 (if you're using a silicon transistor, omit D2). For D3-4 use anything with a low clipping threshold–1N60, 1N34, BAT41, etc. Q2-3 form a cascaded JFET stage (much like the AMZ Mini-Booster and a ton of other designs). Way more info on the circuit can be found here, including the schematic. I've laid it out for a typical 1590B with board mounted pots.

Oh, and D1 is a 1N5817 or similar for power protection.