Sunday, April 28, 2024

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 - 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.

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