And on the eighth day... well not exactly that long ago, but close - and yes others came before, but it's hard to not acknowledge the Arbiter Fuzz Face as being a giant of vintage fuzz, a design icon if you like, with possibly the most widely recognised enclosure ever made. It's hard not to like a Fuzz Face.
The Dinosaural Tube Bender from Dan Coggins of Lovetone fame, who now designs for Thorpy FX. The Thorpy Fat General compressor is actually a Dinosaural OTC-201 Opticompressor. You can read up on that here.
This is the most recent trace from Aion Electronics. Aion do a pretty good job of tracing to say the least, so I expect it to be accurate.
This is different to the magazine version schematic, which has the same topology but with some different values. I built one based on the magazine version a while back, and binned it pretty quickly - couldn't work out what the fuss was about, as it was rather disappointing.
I've built and tested this version, and it's nice little overdrive. Runs from very clean, right through to a heavy drive, with a some very usable tones along the way.
The Aion Electronics includes a tone switch mod for more variety, and a bit more power filtering and protection. I'd recommend building the Aion version, as you get more flexibility for limited additional cost and effort.
This is a very unusual one - the Earth Sound Research Graphic Fuzz. Why is it so unusual - have a look at the schematic. It has no input or output caps, and the IC runs at +/- 4.5V. Practically half the parts on the board are for the split rail power supply.
Be careful with grounding connections as it's kind of unusual (see schematic), and it will behave weirdly on some settings, with oscillation etc., which is normal for this one.
Please note that this is a different circuit compared to the one on Guitar Effects Layouts - see the comparison down the bottom of this post. The one on Guitar FX layouts is based on a work-a-like, from what I gather, that someone posted in a forum to try and 'normalise' the design.
It's basically a WEM Project V, with a few parts removed, which are arguably unnecessary. The overly complicated tone/gain switches have been replaced with an Edge pot - probably not a bad idea.
The vero below is a trace from the pcb and build documents published by Ghost Effects - who kindly also includes a list of potential mods in the build document. Some models place all trimpots externally, which is a good idea if you have the space.
First, load up the schematic.
These parts have been removed
Univox Unidrive boost with Aion FX mods
The original Univox Unidrive was a straight boost, with a bit of dirt - it was a large rocker pedal with preset gain levels on a rotary switch, and the rocker controlled the output level, not unlike a regular volume pedal, but with the increased level of a booster. The don't really make guitar effects like this anymore, and perhaps for good reason when consider the practicalities.
The Monad adds a capacitor blend on the input to swing form top boost through to full range, and adds a pot instead of a rotary switch for gain control. There's also a trimmer added to control feedback between gain stages - might be worth trying a larger value, or even changing this to an external pot.
The WEM Pep Box, most famously used by the Beatles back in the day - a nice early English fuzz.
If you don't have a 500k pot for volume, use a 50k pot and remove the 56k resistor from V3 to ground. The earlier versions used 12.5uf capacitors, so 10uf caps will be fine. Like a few things of this vintage, you may need to play with biassing a little, or it could just fire up and work first go. There should be enough room to sneak in a 1M resistor to ground on the input too if you would like to include that as a modern addition.
This is a very simple little circuit from Dead Astronaut, which has a little bit of Big Muff happening in the clipping section on Q2. Maybe not enough to tag it as being in the Big Muff family, it's certainly a second cousin.
While it might be simple, the Dead Astronaut X Fuzz is a fierce little fuzz.
Here's the thread on DIY Stompboxes
The Lovepedal Fuzz Master is a silicon Fuzz Face with a blend control on the input shifting between two capacitors to increase/decrease the frequency range at the input stage.
It uses silicon PNP 2N3906 transistors with a standard power supply - so if the layout looks a little odd, that's what's happening. V+ goes to the emitters, collectors to earth, the same as the Way Huge Conquistador.
It's kind of an unusual approach, as the 3906 is just the PNP version of the 3904, which is an incredibly common, garden variety NPN transistor. It looks like this might be a progression on the Lovepedal BBB07, that used germanium transistors, which might explain this. Apart from that, it leaves the door open to hybrids.
Use the 10k trimmer to bias Q2; the stock setting is 2k7 from what I've read. At a guess, make the 10k trimmer an external pot, and you will have the Lovepedal Fuzz Master 1000.
The DeArmond Square Wave - it's pretty much an MXR Distortion + with a couple of minor values changed. It does come in a cooler-looking box...
There's a great analysis of the Distortion Plus on Electrosmash, which will apply equally to the DeArmond Square Wave.
I just realised that I had not posted a Sola Sound Tone Bender MKII layout... I did the Marshall Supa Fuzz earlier, which is kind of same same but the layout caters for larger mojo parts, and even the D*A*M MKII hybrid for a silicon / germanium monster. For completeness, here's the MKII.
Another variation on the Sola Sound Tone Bender MKII from D*A*M - the Flesh Head.
As mentioned, it’s a modified Tone Bender MKII. The 1k Attack pot has been replaced by a 1k resistor, and the 10nf output capacitor has been replaced by two capacitors, one larger and one smaller, with a pot to sweep between the two values.
It wouldn't be hard to add the Attack pot back to the circuit - maybe try and see what you think.
I didn’t list transistor types, as there are so many opinions out there already as to what’s best in a Tone Bender MKII.
You can find the full list of what was used in the Flesh Head via the link below - there were only ten made, so don't feel too bad making a clone.
The back story from David Main (D*A*M mastermind), and more pics can be found here on the D*A*M forum.
The Catalinbread Merkin Fuzz is their take on the classic Mosrite Fuzzrite, but with a few changes in values and a boost section at the end.
Now I know a lot of guitar pedals have some odd names, but a Merkin Fuzz? Really??? Google it....
Input signal: 440hz sine wave, approx 130mv TRMS
It looks like a Tone Bender MKIII coming straight off Q3, but don't expect this to sound like one (see the note above regarding gating). I used an old silicon Micro Electronics PNP 2N40** something in Q3 (testing a few as I don't have the transistor used by Way Huge).
The Micro is the large tin can transistor in the next photos below on the breadboard. I usually try a few different transistors for Q3 on Tone Bender MKIII / MKIV builds, as this is where the magic happens.
This is the BYOC version of the Maestro MFZ-1 Fuzz, the Lil' Black Keys. Named as such, as there are a few references to the Black Keys using the Maestro at some stage.
It's an easy build, and it sounds pretty good too. There are fairly minimal differences circuit-wise, between the original and the Lil' Black Keys. A couple of cap values and the Lil' Black Keys has 2 x diodes in series for hard clipping instead of one in each direction (less compression / more output). You could probably try some LEDs instead for a similar sound.
I used to have an old Guild Starfire III - put this in front of it with a bit of reverb, and it sounds like the Black Keys.
Input signal: 400hz sine wave, approx 130mv TRMS
GAIN 100
Well they don't come much simpler than this - the Earthquaker Devices Arrows. It's a booster - it has one knob - it makes things loud.
The Pellucid Compressor by Jonny Reckless on DIY Stompboxes
This is the octave portion of the Sunn Life pedal by Earthquaker Devices, taken from the Pedal PCB schematic.
It's an EQD Tentacle (Dan Armstrong Green Ringer), with an input buffer and blend control. I made this as an add-on for other builds - or if you want to build a Life pedal, add this in front of a modded Rat and add a MOSFET boost after it.
The Earthquaker Devices Plumes is their take on a Tube Screamer, and it's quite a good one. It's somewhat simpler than Palisades, which is probably about as far as anyone would want to take a Tube Screamer.
I'm not one that really likes Tube Screamers a great deal, as I never got the mid-boost and bass cut... I quite like this one though. Also, check out the Nobels ODR-S if you like Tube Screamers that don't sound like Tube Screamers (if that makes sense).
