THORPY FX: Heavy Water

A nice booster from Thorpy, most likely Dan Coggins design.  The build notes from PedalPCB suggest germanium diodes across the opamp for a dirty boost.

Schematic can be found here

THORPY HEAVY WATER BOOSTER - VERO LAYOUT

This puts out a lot of level, and the low cut can put it in treble boost territory on extreme settings without any trouble at all, otherwise generally handy to cut a bit of bass to tighten things up on the lower end. 

I haven’t included a trace of the wave, as it basically looks like a big sine wave - a bit of change with the bass cut, but nothing worth looking at.  

THORPY HEAVY WATER BOOSTER - VIDEO DEMO

THORPY FX: Fat General Optical Compressor

While on a run of compressors, I thought this one looked interesting.  ThorpyFX Fat General is an optical compressor with a treble control and a blend function.

Schematic can be found on PedalPcb here.

It's said to be a progression of the Dan Coggins designed Lovetone OCT-201 - based on the trace at Aion FX, 

THORPY FX FAT GENERAL - VERO LAYOUT

The layout works - I have tested it using standard true bypass, but please read the comments below.  Seems to be some switching issues.  

 I used some proper vactrols that I forgot that I had in a draw and subbed a couple of resistor values as I was short a few.   

Sounds fine, although after playing with a few compressor/limiters recently, I think I prefer diode compressors.  The tone control is subtle and only obvious on certain pickup/compressor settings.  Still quite useful.  The blend is a cool feature, but not one that I tend to use on guitar. 

THORPY FX FAT GENERAL - VIDEO DEMO

THORPY FX: Fallout Cloud (Muffroom Cloud)

The Thorpy FX Fallout Cloud AKA the Muffroom Cloud, is a Big Muff with a Baxandall tone stack.

Here's the thread on Freestompboxes.  It's a lower gain muff, probably more like a BMP from the former Soviet Union, as they also tend to have 47n caps on the diodes and large emitter resistors.

THORPY FX FALLOUT CLOUD - VERO LAYOUT

Taken from the pedal PCB schematic that's on Freestompboxes.   Not verified as yet, I have checked over the schematic a few times, but I have not built this (yet).

THORPY FX FALLOUT CLOUD - POINT TO POINT LAYOUT

And if you want to make exactly the same thing, but with additional frustration and an extra hour or so of time spent, maybe this is for you.  I find it somehow satisfying.