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Friday, February 3, 2017

Catalinbread Manx Loaghtan

Got a request for this one. It's Catalinbread's take on the classic Big Muff, and therefore an excellent layout for Fuzz Friday. The biggest difference between this and a regular BMP is the tone section, where the typical BMP tone stack has been replaced with a Baxandall 2-band EQ. There is also an extra gain recovery stage built around a JFET after the tone section. Here's the schematic for reference.


14 comments:

  1. Any chance in seeing the Catalinbread Formula 5F6 overdrive in this neat collection of layouts one of these days?
    I have been searching but it's hard to find a schematic.

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    1. Not unless someone can provide a schematic. I wonder how close it is to the Formula No. 5...

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  2. Yeah, it sure is a toughy to find. It would be similar in structure I would guess, but judging by the demos online there is a different tonal quality.

    Thanks for the inspirational site, by the way.
    I´m learning quite a lot by backward engineering and your layouts are very compact and still roomy. You inspired me to try out some pcb building myself. I started with using yours as a base and trying out mods on them.
    Today, I managed to translate a vero layout from the doom bloom into an nice-looking and working pcb, tightly fitting in a 1590b, which was quite a challenge with 6 pots all mounted.

    Thanks for leading the way.

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  3. hi!i've build it but it's not working. i've read the fsb threat and it seems that there are some changes. i've also compered it to the Alex's layout over at guitarFXlayouts which is verified and it has some other values too for some resistors. i don't know if those changes would be enough for this one to work or if i made a mistake somewhere though...anyway.debugging day!i'll report back soon

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    1. ok...now that i read my comment again, i have to make things clear.i meant that it is not working as it should.sorry.so update..sound comes throught and it sounds like a muff. ok. all pots work somehow, BUT!!! when treble is at 50% and gain over 70% there is a really annoying whining/oscillation.as reported in guitar fx layouts by Brandon Murphy..that's all.
      so you could say that if you build this, it will work but with the problems above
      cheers
      Savvas

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    2. My educated guess: R7 and R12 are wrong in the referenced schematic. 470k from base to gnd looks odd in a big muff based pedal and might lead to a messed up bias of these two. Try to replace them with 100k.

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  4. tag it! i made the changes H.A. suggested. it works as it should.
    great layout.
    Saves

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  5. Would love to know the difference of this pedal and the know incrisingly famouse Thorpy Muffroom Cloud

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  6. Hello!! I made this pedal, it sounds great but it does not sound like a fuzz, it's more like a distortion, and I love the sound it has, but I want a fuzz haha, the only thing I changed are transistors 3 and 5, I used bc109c, which are what I got here

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    1. It's based on the Big Muff, which rides the line between fuzz and distortion. Lower gain transistors in Q3 and 5 may help it feel more fuzzy, as the BC109C as pretty high gain compared to the 2N2222.

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    2. Thank you!!! I tried some alternatives and left some bc549

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    3. Perfect!! Thank you very much, I changed the transistor and now it's a great fuzz !!

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