Bye for now

I'll be taking a break from the blog for a bit - all is well, I just don't have the time for it at the moment.

Please note that comments have been turned off - if you normally message me elsewhere, that's fine to continue.

FENDER: Blender

Something of a classic, the Fender Blender is a monster octave fuzz.  I'd be tempted to remove the Blend pot myself, as I don't like fuzz pedals with clean blend.  Probably advisable to add LEDs to the Tone boost switch too.   Layout has been designed for a wide enclosure to accomodate the switching and 4 x knobs.  Should be enough room to add a few extra columns for mounting points.  

FENDER BLENDER - VERO LAYOUT

FENDER BLENDER - SCHEMATIC / LTSPICE

Looking at the schematic, essentially what you have here is a Foxx Tone Machine, with a bit more going on.  Certainly more extreme on the fuzz side of things, and unlike the Foxx, you can't turn off the octave (unless you wanted to add a switch to disconnect C6 from the emitter of Q3).

Signal on the collector and emitter of the inverter stage, before being joined together to form the octave

Post diode clipping - the signal is throughly destroyed by this stage

The Tone Boost switch - notch filtered or raw fuzz

Looks a little different by the time it hits the output - tone control in circuit

Tone Boost on, taken from the output

If you want to ditch the blend, it's as simple as this - no effect on the circuit / frequency response.  

In case your wondering - I have no idea on what's happening inside a Kevin Shields Blender.  I've seen a gut shot and it has about 6 x ICs in there in addition to the regular transistors, so there's a lot going on outside of the stock circuit.

FENDER MDX Circuit / AION FX Elite boost / preamp

There's a few variations of this circuit, so I'd recommend reading through the Aion FX build docs or maybe just skip the vero all together and buy the board from them.

The build docs also include LTspice simulations of the frequency response, so that saves me a bit of time plotting them out.

I've labelled a few of the components where variations occur, but not all.  You should be able to work out the ones that I haven't labelled easily enough.

FENDER MDX CIRCUIT / AION FX ELITE BOOST / PREAMP VERO LAYOUT

Vague explainer / demo here

MSP: Vintage Alnico Speakers

MSP speakers are often found in Australian made amplifiers, such as Goldentone, Moody, Vase etc.  It seems at the time, local manufacturers had a choice of either MSP or Rola / Plessey Rola speakers.  This is likely because of the high import tariffs and shipping costs at the time.

MSP were made in Sydney, Australia by Manufacturers Special Products.  MSP was a component manufacturer for AWA, which was a huge electronics and broadcasting company up until the mid-seventies in Australia.  MSP made a wide range of products, apparently so they could sell to competitors without using the AWA brand (side note: AWA also made some great germanium transistors). 

I'm jotting down any information I can find, as there doesn't seem to be much info out there, and these are great speakers; they compare very well to their more expensive vintage counterparts from the U.S.A. or U.K.

I recently picked up one of these speakers in an old projector speaker cabinet and there was also one in a Goldentone amplifier I used to have.  They're sometimes referred to as Hi-Flux speakers.

work in progress, more information to be added as I track it down - I'm not looking to document every speaker they made, just ones used in vintage guitar amplifiers.     

M.S.P.  VINTAGE ALNICO GUITAR AMP SPEAKERS

12PQ - 21567

12" Alnico speaker,  20 / 25w RMS, 16 Ohms.   Made between 1954 - 1966

12PQCB-21188

Appears to be a variant of the regular PQ - I have no idea what the function of the little attachments to the speaker cone are supposed to do.  They appear to be stock, as I have seen one other photo showing this on the cone.

12PS - 21011

12" Alnico speaker, 16 Ohms - this was in a 4 or 5 watt amp, so I'm guessing it's also a low wattage speaker.  Unlikely a high wattage speaker would be wasted in a little amp like this.

12UA

12" Alnico speaker, 15w RMS

MSP SPEAKER DATE CODES

Look for a two letters and a number ink stamped on the speaker.   In some cases the first character is also a number - there's some question about what the first character is, but it's not that important, as really most people just want to know what year the speaker was made.

AB1 as an example,   A - not sure, B month, 1 year

A = January

B = February

C = March

D = April

E = May

F = June

G = July

H = August

I = September

J = October

K = November

L or O= December

DL9 = December 1959

Information on date codes care of P Fields, Aussie Guitar Gear Heads forum

SOLA SOUND: Tone Bender MKII SCB

I was a little surprised when someone requested this, as I assumed that I would have already done it given my love of vintage size vero and Tone Benders.   Anyways, here's the short circuitboard version of the MKII Tone Bender.

What's this short circuitboard business?  It's thought to be the transition from the MK1.5 Tone Bender to the MKII - basically same size board, but jam in the extra transistor stage on the front, hence the crowded layout.

SOLA SOUND TONE BENDER MKII (SCB) - VERO LAYOUT

There's also mention of 12k resistors being used instead of 10k in all the usual forums.  There's also another version with the 100ohm limiting resistor before the Attack pot on the board, but seriously, how much do you want to try jamming on the little board.

More Reading

https://fuzzboxes.org/tonebendermkii

https://stompboxes.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6381