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Pedal Building Workshop at Noisebridge: Fuzz Face
The next pedal building workshop at Noisebridge will be about building a Fuzz Face. If you’re in the bay Area check out the workshop on meetup! the Fuzz Face is a classic fuzz circuit with a bit of magic. its one of the earliest fuzz circuits to be developed, it has been played by many…
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Summon Fuzz
I built this a few years ago. I got it out and played it for a while. sounds pretty good. This is a Big Muffin with a diode lift switch, and a blend control. The PCB is from https://shop.pedalparts.co.uk/product/bassblendmuff. It worked well but the board doesn’t have an LED! So the wiring is a little…
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Deformis: Ugly Face with Mix mod
This is my take on Tim Escobedo’s Ugly Face. I replaced the LM386 with a dual op-amp and and added a mix control. The LM386 is a great chip but its gain is limited to 200. A single op-amp can easily generate a gain of 200 and more! This way I can replace the 386…
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Big Muff Workshop
Big Muff Workshop at NoiseBridge You want o build a Big Muff, good for you! It’s not hard todo follow the steps below. If you’re using one of my PCBs the part numbers on the PCB correspond to the parts numbers on the schematics on this site: https://www.bigmuffpage.com/Big_Muff_Pi_versions_schematics_part1.html There were many different versions of the…
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Schräg Filter
I found the Schraëg filter while surfing the Modwiggler and lines forums. Described as “Schräg is an expanded repackage of the Bastl Cinnamon multimode filter”. It sounded interesting and I have wanted to try having a project manufactured by a service with SMD components. In the discussion on lines, here, there was some discussion of…
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Resistors and Ohms Law
Resistors are the most common component you will encounter in electronic circuits. A resistor resists the flow of electrons. To understand this you first need to understand the concepts of voltage and current. Electricity is the flow of electrons. Electronic circuits are all about controlling the flow of electrons in creative ways. A common analogy…
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Zap Frequency Build
Zap Frequency is a clone of the Systech Harmonic Energizer. This effect is a parametric EQ with variable band width, frequency, and resonance. The effect is very strong! It would make a good wah if you control the frequency with a foot treadle. It can be for a “cocked wah” and boost. It’s also good…
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Another Super Fuzz!
Another Super Fuzz build. I used the first PCB I designed from a post over at FreeStompBoxes.org, read about that first build here. This one looked good but it didn’t work! I put it aside because the problem wasn’t obvious. I got it out again and set at debugging. After a few minutes with the…
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Retro Channel: The Fuzz Clone
The Fuzz by Retro Channel is a Fuzz circuit built around the CA3046 transistor array. It’s a lot like a Fuzz Face and Tone Bender. It makes use of all of the transistors on the CA3046 and sounds pretty good doing it. Here is a schematic I found over at https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?t=13062 Q3 and 4 are…
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Sustainers
We need to talk about sustainers. A sustainer is a device that increases the sustain of your instrument. These come in a few varieties. There are pedal sustainers, handheld sustainers, and in guitar sustainers. All of these can be divided into two types sustainer effects and what I’ll call string drivers. Sustainer effects are effects…
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Deformis – Ugly Face with a mix control
Here is an updated post with a schematic and parts for the Deformis. This started as Tim Escobedo’s Ugly Face. I made a few changes. I swapped the LM386 with a dual op-amp. The 386 was used in the Ugly Face as an amplifier with a gain of 200, a single op-amp can easily replace…
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Kwikplug
If you’re into to cheap guitar parts you have probably heard of GuitarFetish.com. If not you should check it out. They sell an array of pickups that are cheap and get good reviews. I’v tried a couple of these and they sound good to me. They also offer a feature called Kwikplug. Kwikplug is a…