Wampler Pantheon

The Pantheon is Brian Wampler's take on the classic Bluesbreaker circuit. It adds some of the mods from the King of Tone as well as a Baxendall tone stack for the Bass control (the would be treble control of the Baxendall is fixed) and a gain switch to set different min/max settings of the Drive pot. Fits in a 125B like the original. If you're not feeling like etching or grabbing the perfboard, there are boards available on the store.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wampler Pinnacle

Got another cascaded JFET design, this time from Wampler. Great for getting those EVH Brown Sound tones. I've added 2 trimmers for the 2 non-cascaded JFET stages to make biasing at little easier (originals use 22k resistors). Should be an easy fit in a 125B with top mounted jacks, but should also work in a 1590B with top mounted jacks (though you have to be really precise drilling those).

Wampler Velvet Fuzz

The Velvet Fuzz is a unique fuzz that combines amp emulation and 2 different selectable fuzz tones. The toggle selects between a LM386 (Tight) circuit, and a 2N5089 (Big) circuit. These then push a Plexi Drive circuit that gives the Marshall amp emulation. The modular nature of this design gives you the option to have not only a Velvet Fuzz, but a Plexi Drive in the same box. The board is laid out for board mounted pots and I've included trimmers to help bias the J201 JFETs. I've also included a switch diagram to show how to wire the toggle switches.

Wampler Cranked AC

Another amp emulation overdrive from Wampler that's supposed to sound like (you guessed it) a cranked Vox. This one has been discontinued, but was very popular. It's very similar to the Plexi-Drive, but doubles the transistors and there are a few component changes. I've added trimmers to help bias the J201s.

Wampler Plexi Drive

I'll give you heads up now. This is going to be Wampler Week. I laid out the Plexi-Drive a long while ago, but I wanted to give this "Marshall-in-a-box" circuit another go with board mounted pots and trimmers for those pesky J201 JFETs.

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).

Wampler Faux Spring Reverb

The Faux Spring Reverb, like many pedal reverbs is based around a Belton reverb module. Originally it used the BTDR-1 (which is massive), but in this layout I've adapted it for the newer and smaller BTDR-2H. I've also simplified the power section a little, and used a TL071 for the second IC. In the original a TL072 was used, but only used half of it. Here's what Brian has to say about his design:

The great thing about the Faux Spring Reverb is that it retains the Analog base tone, doesn’t send your signal through digital/analog converters and back again (wrecking your tone completely) allowing you to be as springy as you like without your sound becoming lifeless, dull and… well, bad. With the tone control, you can control your sound completely and have your reverb be as bright as day, or dark as night… As lively and bright as a small hall, or as deep as the biggest cathedrals.

Edit: I realized this afternoon that the Depth pot would hit the Belton brick, so I've changed it to a 9mm pot and it will clear the brick. The whole thing will be really snug, but it should be doable.

Wampler Triple Wreck

The Triple Wreck is a high gain distortion that some say sounds like a 5150 amp. It has a 3-band EQ and a switch to select between "Vintage" and "Modern" tones. There's also a built in boost section to take things over the top.

I've laid out the distortion section and the boost section as separate layouts in case someone wants to build it without the boost in a 1590B. The boost itself might be a nice little stand alone pedal and would easily fit in a 1590A. (The boost is a simple BJT-based circuit that drives a modified Big Muff tone stack. If you wanted to add a volume control to the boost circuit, just connect lug 3 of a 100k pot to lug 2 of the Cream pot, then ground lug 1 of the new Volume pot, with lug 2 to Out.)

Edit Aug. 20:

Got a request for this without the ground loop as there have been reports of noise in the circuit and that could be culprit. If you've already built it, try cutting some copper near the text on the PCB.

Wampler Distortion Plus Mods

A while back Brian Wampler shared a bunch of mods to the classic MXR Distortion Plus circuit in Premiere Guitar magazine. It adds a tone control, a switchable soft clipping stage, a compression switch, and a bass boost switch.

Wampler Ecstasy

Here's another great overdrive from Wampler, with a wide range of tones to choose from. It has a simple 2-band EQ and a DPDT (on-off-on) switch to go between smooth clipping, no clipping, and hard clipping.

Wampler Plexi-Drive

Here's Wampler's Plexi-Drive, another Marshall-in-a-box pedal. The original unit uses a 470µ capacitor for power filtering, which seems like overkill to me. I've replaced that with a 100µ cap that should do the job just fine.

Some build reports on FSB say that the 15k resistors from 9V to the drains of the J201s might need to be tweaked to bias the JFETs correctly (4.5v), so either socket those positions or use trimpots. Also, if the tone control is too dark sounding for your taste, replace that A25k pot with an A500k to brighten things up.