Frantone Lo-Tone Classic Fuzz

Here's an interesting one from Frantone for Fuzz Friday. Think the first half of a Big Muff into an LM386. Schematic over on FSB here.

Frantone Cream Puff

Happy Fuzz Friday, everyone! Got a few requests for this one. It's a bit like a fuzz in the way a Big Muff is a fuzz–bridges the gap between fuzz and distortion. And it's somewhat similar to a Big Muff with two gain stages pushing a BMP tone stack. Schematic can be found over on FSB.

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:

Frantone Vibutron

Here's another one of my Eagle creations. The Vibutron is a great sounding tremolo from Frantone that uses a ICL8038 to produce the LFO. Originals use a rotary switch for selecting the waveform, but as lvlark pointed out on the Tagboard Effects blog, a on/on/on DPDT switch can be used instead (check out his layout for switch wiring). For you perf builders, this might be a bit difficult to translate to perf (especially with 3 traces under the 8038), but I'm sure one of you out there will make it work. :D This layout has also been uploaded to OshPark if you want a fabricated board–click the OshPark tab above.

Note: Red lines are jumpers

Frantone Peach Fuzz

For this week's #fuzzfriday, I present the Frantone Peach Fuzz. Got a request for this one. Quiet circuitry and classic fuzz and overdrive tones. It seems to be the circuit the Danelectro Cool Cat fuzz was based on, and that thing sounds great (it was one of my first pedals when I started playing). Original units use relay switching and the circuitry for that has been omitted from the layout below.