The Sultan

The Sultan is my first entry to the End of Days Fuzz Challenge. Based on the fuzz Face with a Bass and Treble tone control similar to tone controls used on Orange and Matamp amps. The Fuzz Face is a…

End of Days Fuzz Challenge

End of Days Fuzz Challenge is a challenge to make develop new Fuzz circuits. Here’s a description from the web site: It is an open invitation for pedal builders/ companies of all levels. If you – or anyone you know…

Bork Bork

Just built up a Bork Bork from Breakfast Audio. This is a clone of the Ibanez Wau Wau Fuzz. As far as I my “in depth” research can tell the Wau Wau Fuzz was originally a Fuzz and Wah in…

Kay Fuzz Tone

Here is a kay Fuzztone clone. This is an octave-type fuzz that uses a full-wave rectifier. It is similar to the Super Fuzz and all its variants. The Kay Fuzz Tone uses fewer transistors than the Super Fuzz so you…

New PCB Day

Here are some new PCBs. I ordered these from PCBWay.com. The best deal there is ordering 10 boards 100 by 100mm. Since shipping can be high, ordering several designs brings shipping down to reasonable rates. This order with 6 designs…

CA3046/3086 transistor array

The CA3046 is a 14 pin DIP that contains 5 NPN transistors. CA3086 and CA3045 are the same chip with a different number and some other esoteric differences. There is also an LM3046 and LM3086, same chip different manufacturer. What…

Distort-o-Matic XI Stompboxology

Here’s another project from Nicholas Boscorelli’s Stomboxology newsletter: Going Discreet. Described by the author as: All-transistor distortion box with aggressive tone controls. Nicholas Boscorelli When I look at this I see a diode clipper similar to the Electra, DOD 250,…

Ugly Face blue

A blue Ugly Face. I used PCBs from PCBWay.com and put everything into a blue powder-coated enclosure from Tayda. I wanted to put some blue knobs on this enclosure but didn’t have any on hand. I didn’t want to place…

Flat Line by John Hollis

The Flatline is a compressor with a simple effective design. It works surprisingly well for its simplicity. I’ve built a few of these over the years on strip board. This time I decided to make my own printed circuit boards.…

Tremolo-Matic XVIII Build

This is a tremolo built around a couple inductors, its from the Stompboxology newsletter: Going Discreet issue. If you’re not familiar, Stompboxology was a newsletter produced by Nicholas Boscorelli around 2002. It had many stompbox ideas, including circuits, layouts, and analysis. The…

Bobtavia analysis

This is a quick look at how the Bobtavia works. The Bobtavia is uses the LM386 to amplify the input signal. In the default setup the LM386 has a gain of 20. The output of the LM386 runs through a…