Thanks to everyone who came to the pedal building event at Noisebridge on Nov. 1, 2025. Great to see new faces, and always great to see returning hackers! The energy was excellent — I attribute this to the enthusiasm of the participants, thanks! Sign up for the next event. A few people started new projects. … Read more
I wonder what happened to Tim Escobedo? The author of Circuit Snippets, a page with a lot of great ideas for guitar effects. The site is no longer active, but it has been archived in a few places; here is a link. If you haven’t explored Circuit Snippets, you should take a look. The ideas … Read more
Had another great session building some guitar pedals at Noisebridge. If you think this interests you and you are in the Bay Area, you should join us! Join the Noisebridge Meetup channel. The pedal workshop is scheduled every other week on Saturday from 1 to 3 PM. The workshop has been running since Jan. 2023; … Read more
Glitchstorm is an Arduino based bytebeat synthesizer. In short this is a noise maker that generates chiptune style sounds. It’s a lot of fun to play with! In more detail, bytebeats are music generated with software via non-linear algorithm. The sounds a lot like 8 bit chiptunes. The sounds evolve over time, and can sound … Read more
If you came to the previous workshop, you should have started the Fuzz Face. When you get all of the parts soldered to the board it’s time to put it all in an enclosure. This post covers drilling the box and wiring things up: Pedal workshop Noisebridge #3 If you’re still soldering things up refer … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more