I build guitar pedals and sometimes other things as a hobby. On rare occasions, something here might be for sale, and I sometimes build things by commission. Most of the time I don’t build clones of anything, but I build plenty of projects that I did not design on printed circuit boards. I tend to post demos on my youtube channel, but this is mostly just pictures of cute artwork to look at.
My Designs/Hacks
I’ve moved these to their own section because they were getting lost in the mounds of builds below.
For all of these designs, I’ve included links to the schematics and layouts (usually perfboard, but I include etch images when I have them) for DIYers who want to build their own. Or if you prefer, I can build you one with custom artwork. (There is also a list of PCBs currently available for some projects on that same page.)Â I am also available for contractual work designing analog guitar pedal circuits and PCBs. (References are available upon request.)
Fallstaff Boost, a rangemaster (treble booster) derivative. It has an input stage to make it play nice with other pedals, and an innovative color knob that changes the distortion character and treble content. Total boost is somewhere north of 20dB. Â Here’s the build document. PCBs are available directly from me for this project (just send me an e-mail).
Want it, but don’t want to build your own? Click here for an order form.
Clipper Ship Overdrive. This is a dirty boost cascaded into a FET-based booster (a tweaked version of R.G. Keen’s “SRPP,” based on the AMZ Mini Booster). The gain control goes from clean to fuzzy, but the pedal always cleans up with your guitar’s volume, making it a very open and touch sensitive dirt pedal. And the boost stage has gobs of output to push your amp into its own overdrive. A “stupidly wonderful tone control” allows for treble boost clockwise and treble cut counterclockwise. This build used a Russian germanium transistor for the dirt side and germanium diodes.  The overall character is kind of Vox-y. PCBs are available directly from me for this project (just send me an e-mail). The build document for the PCB is HERE (etch layout included). I have also added an optional input buffer as of September 2015.
NEW DEMO 12/16/12
Want it, but don’t want to build your own? Click here for an order form.
Blue Warbler Envelope Vibe. This circuit has been revised and is also now available with one (1590A) or two (1590B) stages! Better LFO control (including slower speeds), a better tremolo mode without any volume drops, and a simpler envelope control.
I created the original version of this design for DIYStompboxes.com’s Turkey Day Competition. It’s an nice watery optical vibe that reacts to your playing, and it even has a bonus tremolo mode (the tremolo won’t replace a good dedicated tremolo, but it’s kind of fun). Despite the simplicity of the controls, there is a huge variety of settings. Watch the demo that shows all the ins and outs below. Check out the build document for a schematic, perfboard and etch layout, and an extensive “how it works” write-up detailing all parts of the circuit. There is also a PCB project from JKM PCBs with a slightly modified version of this design.
Want it, but don’t want to build your own? Click here for an order form.
 Bearhug Compressor. This is a tonally transparent, ultra-quiet, tiny, and easy-to-build compressor. It occupies some middle ground between the ultra-subtle compressors like the Flatline/Afterlife and Orange Squeezer and super squishy compressors like the Ross. The comp knob ranges from almost no compression to “you can tell it’s working.” The S/L toggle switches between a short decay for subtle peak limiting and a long decay for a mild “duck and swell” sustainer effect, as well as changing the overall amount of compression available. The Bearhug also makes a good lead boost. Here’s the schematic and the perfboard layout. A PCB is available from 1776 Effects. Out of all my designs, I think this is my favorite — I use it all the time, on my main gigging pedalboard and on almost all the electric guitar and bass tracks on recordings I’ve made in the past couple years.
Version 1 demo with full circuit walkthrough here.
Want it, but don’t want to build your own? Click here for an order form.
Hamlet Delay and Preamp. My take on a PT2399 delay paired with a transparent preamp with some optional boost. Tails, tons of headroom (with no PT2399 distortion ever), and a internal trim for the repeats tone to go from bright digital to tape-like to analog. The prototype unit shown was built for my friend Joseph Scala, who used it on several tracks for his 2013 February Album Writing Month project. Here’s the build doc from the short-run PCB project — it also includes the perfboard layout and etch image. JMK PCBs has also released an awesome version with integrated tap tempo (from the TAPTATION) and external tone control!
Want it, but don’t want to build your own? Click here for an order form.
Cardinal Harmonic Tremolo. NEW VERSION MARCH 2015! This is an optical version of the tremolo effects found on Fender amps in the 1960s. It has a waveform control (for square and sine-ish waveforms), a switch to go between harmonic and normal tremolo modes, and a “bright” mode in the middle that modulates only the bass frequencies. The Harmonic mode is an unusual, and beautiful, combination of mild filtering and amplitude modulation.
I also concurrently designed a Tap Tempo version! The dry path is exactly the same as the analog version, but it uses the mighty TAPLFO chip’s digital LFO. This version has the six basic controls — depth, rate, tap division (half notes up through 16ths), eight waveforms, “balance”/waveform distort (like a duty cycle) —  and the mode switch. The PCB was designed to fit in a 125B with top mounted or side jacks (it can also be built in a “landscape” layout. I thought it looked best with concentric pots, so the rate control is stacked on top of the division control, and the balance pot is on top of the waveform control.
1776 Effects has a fantastic PCB for the analog LFO version (i.e. no tap tempo), which you can get here. He is also at present selling the necessary matched FET sets and vactrols for the project. Layouts for both versions are in my perfboard library.
Here is an audio-only demo (this is the tap tempo version, but the audio path is the same, and I stick to waveforms that are used in the analog version). Recorded through Sakura on the “tweed” setting and captured with a ribbon mic I built and a Sennheiser MK4, for a very natural sound. It also includes a comparison of different cutoff frequencies for the bass band in harmonic mode, starting with the Pro’s and ending with the Twin’s, which is the one I personally settled on.
For the version 1 video demo, click here.
Want it, but don’t want to build your own? Click here for an order form.
Mossy Sloth Fuzzy OD. This is a transistor-based Fuzz/OD hybrid with some unusual topology meant to take advantage of the asymmetrical clipping created by MOSFETs when used as diodes in various arrangements. The resulting distortion is complex and a little unusual. Though it’s called a fuzz and it can add some warm buzz to your chords and riffage, it has strong midrange content and can do some spanky overdrive. The Bass control can be used to clear up the signal or simply ensure that the effect cuts through the mix. Like all of my dirt pedal designs, it also provides a mighty boost to push your amp into its own breakup, and much attention has been given to smooth volume knob cleanup. Here’s a build document with the schematic and layouts. Disclaimer: This is not a super high-gain fuzz monster, but it will gobble up a boost and turn into one, and even compress and sag like a tube amp!
Want it, but don’t want to build your own? Click here for an order form.
Polar Bear Overdrive (aka Snow Day Overdrive). This is a FET- and MOSFET-based amp simulation overdrive running on 18V that includes a switchable miniature compressor circuit and soft clipping in a “power tube” section. It has bits of several projects in it; and the really special thing about it (the mini compressor) isn’t something I created (though I wish I had). It goes from glassy “almost” cleans to either open or slightly compressed edge of breakup that feels very similar to one of my favorite amps, up to a medium gain compressed sound. It has lots of harmonics without sounding overly clipped, and a very wide dynamic range. The art on this one (my personal prototype build) was inspired by (and in some cases borrows images from) the Calvin & Hobbes comics. Here are the other panels: in, out, top, bottom. Here’s the schematic, and the perfboard layout is in the library. I’m honored that Madbean Pedals has chosen to do a PCB run for this project, which has been released as the “Flabulanche.” Besides the video demo below, I made an audio-only demo straight into a recording interface — no EQ, no amp or speaker simulation, no effects. I recommend listening to that to hear the compression effect, because that will not be as audible on YouTube.
Want it, but don’t want to build your own? Click here for an order form.
Swamp Comp/Fuzz. This was a design I created with help from bassist (and fellow DIY builder) JR Hevron, who won my 2015 “PIF” thread on Madbean’s forum. It’s a FET compressor blended with a couple BMP-style distortion stages, modified for bass. The treble control is pretty neat in that it cuts more treble from the fuzz than from the clean signal, which helps balance things, and the volume level of the distortion stays comparable to the clean signal while blending. I’ll post the schematic once it has final approval from JR, and if the project becomes available anywhere, I’ll update this with a link.
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Cruise Drive (originally “Cruz Drive” named after the original owner). This is a boost/overdrive (18V output) with a set of versatile tone controls, based very loosely on the Tube Driver, using a MOSFET front end and a pair of FET stages. The bass control is a shelf filter to deemphasize lower frequencies, and the Tone control’s function depends on the mode switch position, allowing scooped mids (at 250Hz), boosted mids (at 1KHz like a treble booster), or flat mids, to match almost any amp. A PCB project for the 1590B version is available from TH Custom. Here is the schematic. And here is a demo. The guitars are played through the Cruz Drive into the lead (tweed) channel of Sakura, captured with a ribbon mic running through a Scarlett 18i8 into Logic X. Drums are programmed. Settings on the Cruz Drive are: Left: Gain 7:00, toggle V, tone 3:00, bass 5:00. Right: gain 3:00, toggle ^, tone and bass 12:00.
Junco Microphone (NOT FOR SALE — DIY Only). The Junco is built on a circuitboard project I made for the Aurycle FET microphone body. It’s based in part on the KM84 circuit (which was the basic inspiration for the circuit found in the Aurycle kit) but includes pad, high-pass, and multipattern switching. The circuit boards are available through OSH Park, and builders can use any capsule that takes their fancy. There are some 47-style capsule builds shown wayyyy below, and the build diary video shows me building one with a K12 capsule.
Smooshy face — an optical comp with blend. Based on the John Hollis Flatline for the compressor side. The other side is just an op amp clean boost and clean blend using FET buffers. It takes up to 12V input and uses a charge pump for split rail operation to +-12V for some really high headroom. The compression and clean outputs have completely independent volume controls, so they can both be at, above, or below unity.
Modified Community Projects and My Versions of Vintage Pedals
Once again, I find that some projects are getting buried in the mountains of builds below! These are projects that I didn’t create but rather modified from other DIY projects, or they are my take on a vintage project that I think is notable enough in some way to deserve a build even if you’ve made a similar version of the project in the past. I modify many of the projects I build, so this is by no means exhaustive, and you may find other modified circuits you like below and in my perfboard library!
Orphan Fuzz. This is a hybrid of the germanium Orpheum and Mosrite fuzzes (closer to the Orpheum), with a couple extra tricks. It has an input switch to go from a smaller input cap to mimic the response of the Mosrite and the normal Orpheum value or for the small input cap with a “pad” to lower the input gain a bit for playing with humbuckers and keep things from getting out of hand. Inside there’s a bias trimpot for the second transistor (I’ve slightly overbiased it for just a little sag). Here’s the layout. And an etch mask for you etchers. I did a short PCB run for this. The documentation for that includes a redrawn schematic. The color didn’t come out well in the photo: It’s a mix of blue, white, and green, and more speckled than really shows up.
Rust Bunny. My take on the Sam Ash Fuzzstainer MK ??, based on the schematic traced by Jerms. Lots of history of this one over at Tone Machines, so big thanks (and props) to them for the work. I modernized the circuit, redid the layout (the original layout was … well, let’s just say it looked like it was sneezed into existence, and fiddled with some other stuff to get more usable range out of the controls. The layouts are in my perboard library (includes etch masks for 1590A or 1590B builds). Tagboard Effects did a vero layout of my version of this fuzz as well. I didn’t redraw the schematic; my adjustments were pretty minor, so you can use Jerms’s schematic. Here’s the build document for the short-run PCB.
The Last Bearbender. A Tonebender MKII variant with a mix of FET, germanium, and silicon transistors. The layout and an etch mask are in my perfboard library. Note that the topology of the layout allows this to be built with any kind of transistor in Q1, which can lead to very different sorts of fuzz sounds. I used a FET in Q1 for mine, and a very low gain silicon (hfe ~60) transistor for Q3. I also added a bass control between the first and second gain stages, which I find to be quite useful in taming the fuzz and altering its texture.
Crying Time. This is simplified version of Rob Henry’s Light Wah, with just the LFO portion. I added a wave shape switch, and I found that the sawtooth wave really makes it sound more like you’re playing with your feet! You can check out the schematic and learn how to build one here. My layout for this is in my perfboard library.
Mini pedals
My favorites! In roughly the order they were built.
The Li’l Teapot, a rangemaster treble booster with a tone control. Â Afterlife, an optical comp from a Madbean circuit board. A really excellent sounding pedal.
Cave Dweller, a nifty little delay on a Madbean PCB, with art inspired by Die Unendliche Geschichte. Thistledown, a silicon fuzz face on a Madbean PCB. Petit Louis, yet another Madbean project. It sounds a lot like an old tweed or marshall.
Clementine Squeeze, an orange squeezer made to fit in a 1590A. I built this one freehand on perfboard. Baby Bactrian, “almost a Red Llama” (there is one part different because I didn’t have the right component value), Mr. Huge’s legendary overdrive circuit based on the Anderton Tube Sound Fuzz. This one is also built on perf board. For the art, I wanted to have cute, bright, primary colors arranged in a way that  called to mind South America. Mini Tone King amp switch, for my Imperial. Part of my continuing quest to never use a larger enclosure than absolutely necessary for anything.
Madbean Fat Pants, a pedalization of the Echoplex’s preamp. Makes a wonderful boost or just adds heft. TremEAlo, Runoff Groove’s modified EA tremolo, with a couple substitutions and shrunken to fit in a 1590A (the original layout was almost small enough, so this was easy). The rate pot works backward because it’s easier to fine tune it and I didn’t have a reverse-taper miniature pot. Nature Dweller, a Madbean Cave Dweller modded to be a little brighter.
Clipper Ship #1 This was my first build of the Clipper Ship. Ghost Note, another Afterlife, this time with a sensitivity knob. The Sens knob can give back some of the dynamics at high sustain settings, or make it even more squished. Capucino Fuzz. Who’s an English major with two thumbs who can’t spell? This guy. A miniature Harmonic Percolator clone, an extremely rare fuzz box. Madbean has a schematic for both a “stock” version and a trace of the version Steve Albini used in a video. I compromised between the two. The switch goes between the stock 1N695s clipping diodes (“Even”), which are pretty rare, and OA126s (“Odd”), which are also really rare. The “Odd” side is more like an overdrive, and the “Even” side is like a buzzy box full of angry bees. This immediately became one of my favorite fuzzes. It’s touch sensitive, versatile, and sounds great.
Pewser. Pew pew pew pew! Madbean’s Smoothie board, a Phase 45 made to fit in a 1590A. I added a mix pot, which controls the wet/dry mix. I generally find phasers to be too extreme otherwise. The art wasn’t really my idea, it’s from a shirt that Lexa has, right down to the “Pew pew pew pew pew!” French Press, built for my friend Micheal Friedman. Another 3-knob Afterlife, same as the Ghost Note with a couple parts changed to suit his playing. He asked for art inspired by van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night. The art wraps around the sides. Another Fatpants, also for Michael Friedman. I was looking through some van Gogh paintings that had to do with food and came across “Four Meager Onions” — so I mimicked the painting a little, added some sunflowers, and put my recipe for onion soup on the side panels. The silver knobs looked like stock pots.
“Te” overdrive, a Zen Drive variant squeezed into a 1590A. After a lot of dissatisfaction with the sound of the original circuit (I found it too dark, and I didn’t like the way it behaved with the guitar’s volume), I added an input buffer and adjusted a few values. It keeps the sweet sound of the MOSFET clipping of the original, but I can dial it in more to my tastes. Still does that little “chirp” sound, too! The art is the hanji for “Te,” which means “power” or “virtue” in Taoism. There’s a slight yin/yang symbol thing going on in the art, and a certain Taoist bear in the “ink smudge.” A layout for this project is in my perfboard library. Shoot the Moon — mini edition! A perfboard build of CultureJam/Effdub’s tremolo based on the Tremulus Lune (see the full-sized build using his original board below). The knobs and some moons painted on the side of the enclosure glow in the dark. I’m not sure when I’d ever be playing anywhere that it’s dark enough to observe this, but I did it for fun! Feel free to e-mail me for the perfboard layout if you’re interested in building one. Little Buzzy Fuzz, a hybrid buzzaround. I used a super low gain silicon transistor in one position and flipped the distortion diode around because it seemed to “focus” the fuzz better. I’m really surprised by the shades of tones you can get out of this; it’s a very versatile fuzz box. Also I’m really pleased with the art, even though the paint wrinkled a little when some clearcoat came out too fast.
Thistledown Ge. This is a Germanium fuzz face with boosted output and an increased midrange focus. It uses really low-gain germanium transistors and has a pregain trimpot inside. Crying Time (see above) and Little Ducky: The Little Ducky is a slightly reworked Nurse Quacky, a nice simple envelope filter. Fun together and apart!
 
Shetland Klony, aka Dwarvish Centaur. 1590A kl*nes. The first is on a prototype PCB layout by JimmyBjj and built to the “My Little Klony” specs (shifts the overall frequency response a little more to the treble side). It was designed to be true bypass, but I converted it to buffered, which I think is backward from how these things normally go … The second is built completely stock, right down to using “boring” 1N34A diodes, and has a kilt, because I can’t believe I forgot to add it in the first one. The third is stock except for some OA1160s, which sounded too good not to use. Here’s a link to Jimmy’s order page if you want to build your own, but be sure to read both of my build reports so you know what you’re getting into.
Compressor party 2012! Copper Crush: A stock Lovesqueeze clone. I don’t normally do straight up clones, but I couldn’t really find anything I wanted to change in this one that didn’t upset the circuit. So I built it as intended. It’s a good clean compressor, but extremely mild. Lemon Zester Comp: Another Orange Squeezer, this time with the gain mod. It boosts the signal strength to trigger the compression harder. It’s a fantastic mod originally suggested by Mark Hammer (though I used very different values than he prescribed). FETa Salad Squeeze: The Circuit Salad (Ray Ring) opto-FET compressor. Ray billed it as an “improved orange squeezer,” and, though it has some of the squeezer’s character and principles, it’s very much its own thing. I did some additional simplification to his simplified version and worked out some good parts substitutions for the rarer components he used; then recently he simplified his design even further and I replaced the  PCB with his final version. You can see my layout and discussion here.
Mini Cosmopolitan (Screwdriver clone). Again, I don’t normally clone circuits, but it would be really tough to improve on a Skreddy design. The Ge transistor is a Russian MP38A. The input gain is hardwired at max, and the treble is a trimpot since I usually set it near max and leave it. Clementine #2, yet another orange squeezer, this time with a “perfect” bias knob, like the Hartman Compressor. Rather than simply replacing the internal trimpot, it is set up to work only within the very small “good” biasing range, going between the squishiest and most open settings at opposite ends of the pot’s travel. Beehive (That SUPRO Jive), a miniature Honey Bee clone with asymmetric distortion.
Two mini Engineer’s Thumb compressors. The first was built for Michael Friedman, who challenged me to get it into a mini box. A far cry from my first build, which was almost too big for a standard box! I ended up with two boards, so I boxed one up with art that actually has to do with Sherlock Holmes, the same art that’s on the first one I made. (Michael specifically requested the yin-yang art.)Â Supeux Deux, Â Runoff Groove’s Supro 16T amp sim, squeezed into a 1590A with a charge pump onboard. Very nice sounding circuit. [This is spelled differently from Runoff Groove’s because (a) it’s funnier and (b) I didn’t have enough space on the shield.] Suproman!
Blue Warbler #3, now in a mini version. 🙂 The art wraps around the sides just like in #1. I had a lot of trouble getting the full circuit into such a small case, but it sounds good and works just like its big brothers. Runoff Groove Tri-Vibe, in a 1590A. Incredibly challenging build and frustrating to box up. The first one I built (the “Warbler” below) sounds a little better to me, but it’s still one of the best modulation circuits on the planet in my opinion. Mini Cardinal Harmonic Tremolo, a version of my Cardinal tremolo with a bias-modulated LFO so it could fit in a 1590A. The IC-based version sounds much better, but this is good for subtle sounds in a limited speed range. Plus it’s cute!
Fuzzy Weekend 2013! Pushestij Zelonij Pirog. It’s a muff in a 1590A. On perfboard with full-sized parts. Yup, it can be done. Green Russian values, but slightly lower gain transistors for a bit more raggedness (I’m going for the sound in my friend Keith’s real GR Big Muff Pi). the script says Fuzzy Green Pie, and there are stink lines coming from the green pie. This was the artwork in which I discovered that I don’t actually know how to print in Cyrlic, because I ended up writing a few letters in cursive. Here’s the layout if anyone else wants to give it a shot. Tea and Crumpets. My build of Alex Frias’s Boss T-bone Trumpet Fuzz. This pedal has a few interesting quirks: It does octaving with the voltage sagged, but also does a 5th drop down on the decay of a note in some settings. It also has something that could be a feature or a bug, which is that in certain highly sagged settings with the input maxed out you get a low-frequency carrier wave that does ring modulation. Utter insanity in three simple knobs. Here’s the layout. Beware that this requires a lot of auditing transistors to get it to sound right. A Bearhug of Very Little Brain. This is a Bearhug v2.0 that I built specifically to go on my pedalboard. I entered in into Madbean’s July 2013 contest, too. Lots of wrap–around art.
…Peanuts to Space. This is a 1590A reverb, on perfboard, using the Belton Brick. I’ve never measured so much in my life. The layout is in my perfboard library if you feel like taking what is one of the ultimate 1590A challenges. Singularity. Madbean’s Zero Point Micro. Nice PT2399 with modulation in a small package. Little Penguin Fuzz. A single knob (volume) germanium fuzz face-based fuzz for a customer. Seems simple, but there are a bunch of controls inside the little box: pregain (with a switch to change how it works), input bass trim, adjustable bias, and output bass cutoff frequency switch (to go between the Meyer mod and the original Fuzz Face). I didn’t redraw a layout for this or anything, I just kind of freehanded it.
Another Bearhug. Not exactly a customer build, but not for me either! I will update this if it gets used for what I made it for. 🙂 Ship in a Bottle fuzz. Here’s something really unique — a fuzz made with all glass components. The resistors, capacitors, diodes, and transistors are all in glass packages. It took me forever to get my hands on the parts necessary to make this. It sounds all right, too. The schematic and layout are in my perfboard library.
Tears of a Klone for a customer. Another micro klone, probably the last one of these I’ll do since it was my last Apis PCB. Thanks again to Jimmy for the PCB design. A Ghost Note Compressor for a customer in South Carolina. Black Hole Shoot the Moon for a customer up in Boston who plays bass clarinet (!). Some of my favorite space art; I was kind of sad to see it go. The guts were a little hard to figure out at first, but it fit okay when all was said and done. I moved the waveform knob to a switch and left the volume internal, since he didn’t need it.
Fallstaff with a beard for a customer. Some Bearhug guts to show a little modification — for someone with bass-heavy, high output guitars, a pair of switches for -3 and -6dB high pass filters at different frequencies. Kazak, a buzztone copy running on a normal center negative 9V supply. Was a little surprised by how low-gain it is for a 3-transistor “fuzz.” Has some improvements and modernizations inside as well.
Normal sized pedals
Madbean Kingslayer, a heavily modified Kl*n Centaur. It has two hard clipping options (symmetric and assymetric) and a diode lift on one switch and an “OD” setting that adds soft clipping on the other switch; I decided to go with an asymmetrical setup involving MOSFETs for that. I had some fun with the diodes and used a mix of NOS Germanium from Russia and continental Europe from my collection at home. I posted a full build report on the Madbean forum. Rub-A-Dub Reverb. 1776 Effect’s outstanding implementation of the Belton Brick. I used the long brick. The decay is beautiful and shimmery, with slight modulation. Hugely impressed by this, and it’s quite different from (and sounds great in concert with) the reverb on my amp. Check out the lyrics on the side. 🙂 Tre — Treeeeh — Square Wave Amplitude Modulator (Stutter Trem), a CultureJam board designed by a friend of his. I built it with the shunt mod, so it’s a complete on-off sound. Joe Scala used it on the song “You Were Right” on his February Album Writing Month record. He also used my old telecaster. I love that record, it’s amazing and I still can’t believe it was written and recorded in 28 days while he was working full time, running 10 miles a day, and still playing with my band.
Blue Warbler Envelope Vibrato #2 (“Bird on a Wire” art). Built for Joshua McClarren for a charity auction on Madbean. Azabache, Runoff Groove’s brilliant Fender Amp sim. The modes are tweed, blonde, black, and silver. Moss Press, Ray Ring’s MOSFET compressor. This is a brilliant design! The attack has a really pleasant little bit of “pop,” the decay is flawless and natural, and it has a ton of compression available. Although it has some perceived treble loss (and therefore I consider it one step behind the Engineer’s Thumb, for example), performance-wise it’s one of the best I’ve encountered.
Blue Warbler #4, with custom art, for Angelo. Hamlet Delay #2, for William, with custom art copied by hand from an old line drawing he found and an infinite repeats switch added.
Tap Tempo Cardinal Harmonic Tremolo. A TAPLFO implementation of my harmonic tremolo design. This replaced the original Cardinal Tremolo I made, the MusicPCB Tap Tempo Tremolo project (below). A Light Fuzzy Quiche #2. (Also from the Fuzzy Weekend 2013) Another Whisker Biscuit on CultureJam’s PCB, this time with a ! switch. Way back when I made the first one, I made a serious error in one of the capacitor values, which resulted in a totally insane mids boost (rather than the typical mid scoop of a muff). I “fixed” the first Quiche, but I might just have to add the switch to that one as well. The tone stack in this approximates the green Russian big muff’s. More Bone inspired art. A rat creature can dream …
Cardinal Tremolo #1. This was my prototype, which I still have. I moved it down here because I liked the art on #4 better and decided to make that the “official” art. Another Bearhug, this time for a customer, with art referencing the Zappa-Nesmith interview on the Monkees. The customer did a fantastic mock-up of the art, I just did my best to duplicate it. Tap Tempo Hamlet. A version of my Hamlet delay and preamp using the TapTation chip, for a customer in Norway. He wanted a blue case, so I picked the only scene involving water … poor Ophelia!
MLF Drive — I didn’t actually build this one, but I supervised its creation! My buddy Mike (MLF are his initials) asked me for a soldering lesson, and I thought it would be more fun to help him build a whole pedal. It’s a simple class A germanium boost, and it ended up sounding pretty good. Bearhug Camp (not a typo). Commissioned by my friend Keith as a present for his nephew, who is a boyscout. This is why you hang up your food! Cardinal Deluxe — All four pots and a 4-mode rotary! Also the first time I’ve used the vibe mode in a build. For a customer in Texas.
Blue Warbler #7 –For a customer in Costa Rica, who wanted a red case with simple graphics. 🙂 I was really pleased with how the bird came out on this one, definitely one of the best I’ve done. Duo Vibe — Culture Jam’s PCB contribution to the Function-Fx fundraiser. It’s an optical phaser/vibe/filter. Cool little circuit based on the Wobbletron, but more extreme than e.g. the Blue Warbler. The filter mode is the unique thing about it. Not totally happy with the knobs, but nothing else was working well. Grease Gun — Madbean’s PCB contribution to the Function-Fx fundraiser. I made a few changes, and used OA126 diodes and a germanium transistor in the second stage, but as these don’t make a big difference in sound (I did it just for the “coolness”), I put some jokes on the outside about germanium. For a guy who builds so much with Ge, I sure am cynical about it!
Naughty Fish. Madbean’s even-more-shrunken Mutron III. Of course, it’s more fun with extra controls, so I added not just the external volume but decay and attack controls. This one was a major, major pain to box up, but it sounds really great. Another Supreaux Deux, for Zach. This time with the “bottom” switch. It looks nicer in presence; again, I can’t really get silver paint to show up looking right. He asked for really simple art with a yellow lightning bolt. A Cardinal (V1) for a customer that I particularly liked the art on. I’m a sucker for pictures of trees and birds.
Nadeon Particle Generator. Madbean’s Stage Fright (a Maetro Phaser clone) with my really cool “Sweep” mod — it changes the frequency response of the sweep, going from very bassy to very high pitched. This is a super deep phaser; it sounds absolutely massive, almost flanger-ish. I did a demo of this one, which you can watch here. If you’re wondering where the name came from, it’s the technical description of a phaser from Star Trek. And yes, I’m an English major that spelled “Particle” wrong. Sheep vs. Bee. A Bee Baa clone on the 1776 Effects Buzzsaw board. Pure insanity. LEDman vs. The Cads. A Mutron II Phasor in a 1590B! Kudos to Kgull for the killer layout and thanks to Madbean and Luke (from Luck Duck) for the schem and fixes. I did make one modification: I addd a dry lift for a vibrato mode; unfortunately, it’s a bit of a waste, because with the Regen above about 1/4 you can’t tell the difference between the modes. I should have tested more thoroughly before I added it. Still, a good project, and it sounds different enough from the other phasers in my collection that it was worth a build.
Land of the Dead trio: Ghost Note, Madbean Uproar, and Boneyard. I boxed these three pedals for another DIYer as a trade. Since I was doing three pedals at once, I decided to use a common theme, with art that bleeds from one pedal to the next. All metallic colors, except the white, and “Ghost Black” powdercoating from Pedal Parts Plus.
A Rust Bunny enclosure — this was a PIF for the 2014 holidays to another DIYer. I just did the enclosure, he built the effect. The bird sits on the washer for the footswitch when it’s installed, he’s not just floating in the air! A stock Afterlife, built on perfboard for a customer. A no-frills build of the Orphan Fuzz built as part of a trade with a local guitarist … I did manage to sneak an homage to the stock art by putting silver strings inside the “O” to make it look a little like a harp. Bigger enclosure because he needed a battery.
Q’s Baltimore Blues Echo, a Hamlet delay I made for local guitar hero Quinton Randall. Bunny Bender, a Germanium Vox Tonebender/Rust Bunny mashup, built for a (repeat!) customer. I took the fuzz and bias controls from the Rust Bunny, changed the tone control to affect the bass only (from the Vox’s original massive bass cut at 1KHz down to 144Hz with the bass all the way up), and built it up on perfboard with a pair of germanium transistors (a Russian medium gain in Q1 and a US low gain in Q2) with gain buckets similar to reported values from some vintage units. Although the circuit looks like a Fuzz Face, it sounds different and didn’t clean up as fast with the guitar volume but also isn’t quite as dirty. I really like how it turned out. Buzzy Fuzz, for Chris Freeland (the engineer at Beat Babies Studios). He liked the Little Buzzy Fuzz but needed something a little more robust. I added the volume control, reworked the tone control a tiny bit, and expanded the range of the bias control, but used a similar cocktail of transistors as the tiny version. I went a little more cartoony with the graphics … can’t do anything the same way twice!
Yet another ‘Bunny — for Erin Frisby. It was a surprise for her when she moved back to Baltimore. It has the output buffer and a more extreme tone control; I tried the input buffer (given where I anticipated it being placed in her effects chain), but I’ve decided that the input buffer is never necessary or desirable. Sorry for the potato pic. My camera died some time ago and replacing it really hasn’t been in the cards. Two Snow Days — The nighttime one is for Quinton “Q” Randall, an awesome local blues guitarist. It was a holiday season gift for him. The daytime one is for Zach (he of the Bunny Bender and Supreaux Deux). Zach’s was made for cleaner sounds so it has more bass than the original but slightly less gain, while Q’s was set up for some higher gain settings, so the bass knob cuts more bass than the original. Both of them were happy so I guess I made the right decisions!
A Cardinal with a little extra: I got unlucky with low-gain FETs and some out-of-spec VTL5C1s (just a little over unity for the pedal), but wasn’t sure how the customer would react to having the lower headroom offered by the boost capacitor on the last stage. So I added a switch yoinked from one of the Aurycle mic kits and a mini electrolytic on a piece of perfboard to squeeze a switchable boost in, and I tweaked the resistance that controls the LEDs. biased hot without the boost on and the pedal sounds like it’s supposed to. Yay!
Bigger Pedals
Tremulus Lune, a supremely tweakable tremolo. The symmetry knob is unique to this tremolo; it allows you to fine-tune the ramp of the wave. It sounds very swampy in the right settings. The first (non-harmonic) Cardinal Tremolo, a Tap Tempo Tremolo project from MusicPCB. Also tons of tweakabilty: eight different wave forms, and tempo divisions, as well as a wave shape knob that goes from very smooth to full stutter. This was actually my first complete, working pedal — I did a blog post about it if you’re interested in its journey from electrical tape-wrapped EEK to something worth opening up.
The Amazing Half Octagon, a Madbean Low Rider (based on the Peal Octaver), a 4-octave (two down, one up, and clean) all analog pedal. It’s glitchy and a little fuzzy on the upper octave, but the tracking is actually quite good. It sounds very synthy, especially with a fuzz in front. Multiplex Echo Machine, Josh McClarren’s (1776 Effects) brilliant design and the best sounding PT2399 delay I’ve ever played. It mimics some of the characteristics of three tape delays (Binson, Roland Re-201, and Echoplex) and has a really cool detune feature for an interesting take on modulation.
Madbean’s Nautilus, a modernized Mutron III. An awesome filter effect. Joshua Tree Echo, built for Chris Stelloh of Miss Shevaughn and Yuma Wray. It’s a 1776 Multiplex (with tails and an oscillaltion switch instead of true bypass and a detune switch), with a Rub-a-Dub reverb and Fatpants in the same box. Here’s a build report that describes all the mods.
Mythical Overdrive. My BYOC PIFmas present, a klone build from a kit. Some unusual clipping options in this one. The Dez-RT, a three in one for my friend Mosno. He’s from Sudan originally and wanted the Sudanese flag as the art. Left to right it’s a Hamlet delay, Clipper Ship OD, and a Blue Warbler.
Zero Point Semi-Deluxe. Madbean’s Zero Point Module. Massive project. I put both modulation controls on one knob, sort of Memory Man-like. I love the Analog setting on this. Another Nautilus, for a customer in France. All metallic paints on flat black. Classy!
Cosmo Tremolo, a stereo tap tempo tremolo based in part on the Cardinal using essentially every feature of the TAPLFO. It has TRS or dual mono inputs, Sync in and out, Expression pedal input selectable between the Rate and Multiplier (he wanted the multiplier instead of depth, otherwise I would have used a 3PDT toggle instead of a rotary … the multiplier is a pain), and even a switch to do Harmonic and Vibe (per the Cardinal)! Here’s a clip of what it sounds like in stereo.
Something’s FSHY! An FSH-1 clone on Madbean’s Sharkfin board. This is a notorious project, but Madbean’s documentation made it a very smooth build. I did some stuff to it (I used an LM13700 instead of two 3080 chips for less noise, modded it to buffered bypass using its own input buffer, and made a couple adjustments to work better with single coils and increase the volume), but it’s mostly stock. I was super pleased with the art on this one. Runoff Groove’s Thunderbird, their 100W Marshall emulator … with op amps! Craziness. I did a video demo of it here.
Sugar Blues Wah. Built on Madbean’s Weener Wah PCB to original Vox specs, with a yellow Fasel. There’s a switch on the side for a FET boost (adjusted inside but set to just a small boost) and a 4-position rotary (instead of the Weener’s usual 3-way toggle)Â to change the resonant frequency (small, medium, large, and super double chubby).
Another Hamlet, with infinity switch and the repeats tone trim on the outside, for a local guitarist and writer. Tetragrammaton — A Snow Day and Cappuccino (percollator clone with extras) 2-in-1 for a customer in North Carolina. He named it and provided some usual bits of artwork he wanted in there. I was particularly happy with the way the sky came out — I did layers and then used thinner to get the swirl effect. Diodes for the Cappuccino are 1n695 (odd) and OA126 again, but there’s also a diode lift. The Snow Day was build on the Madbean board with some compromises between my original and Brian’s improvements to the circuit.
Tap Tempo Cardinal “and then some.” Built for Greg T in NC, with an added expression control for the rate or depth and a garnet tone control with a 1KHz boost/cut.
Perfboard Layouts
I’ve posted my entire perfboard layout library publicly here. This contains all my 1590A layouts, all my original designs, a handful of the larger pedal layouts, and even some etch transfers based on the layouts. (Update 4/6/17: This is now hosted on Google Drive. It’s a ZIP, so it won’t display when the link opens. You have to click the little down arrow in the top of your screen, and it’ll pop up with a dialog box to save the zip.)
Guitars
The Don Quixotecaster. Assembling this was a ton of frustration; I’m unlikely to make another guitar for a long time. Getting a telecaster-shaped body with a Stratocaster-style bridge routing was tough. The pickups are a Vintage Strat set made by Michael Reilander in Canada, with individual switches for each pickup. The red switch is the Sancho Panza switch. It doesn’t do anything on its own, and most of the time it’s useless, but sometimes it makes things a little fatter.
Amps
Although I swore I’d never do it, I built an amp. This is Sakura. You can read about it over here on the blog. Based on the tweed champ with several modernizations and tone controls, in a 1×12 cabinet built by my dad. Schematic. No layout for this one — I just tinkered with a standard champ layout and did some extra point to point.
Microphones and Preamps
Recently I decided to expand my home studio gear a little bit.
JLM Baby Animal Neutral. A pair of them squeezed into a Hammond 1590J! Â Although there were a few things I could have done better for the build — like owning a 15/16″ drill bit so I didn’t have to file out the XLR plugs, it was exactly what I wanted: A compact, perfectly flat, character-less line driver with a very large amount of gain and less self-noise than my Scarlett interface’s built-in preamp.
FET and Ge Mic Pre. A transformer-coupled basic preamp project I developed. The PCB is modular with flexible biasing and can support a bunch of different variations. The board is also small enough to fit in a guitar pedal, without the transformers, of course. I plan to develop a couple add on boards, like an EQ or compressor. Jensen input transformer and Carnhill output transformers. Channel 1 is Ge -> silicon with a gain control and Channel 2 is FET -> Silicon with a volume control. This was a comedy of errors build. So many things went wrong. For starters, it was originally supposed to be four channels. You can see the bandages all over it. I am pleased with it in the end, however, and I will be building a couple more channels of it.
Also built a 4-channel Ge/FET Pre 1RU — I had extra prototypes and was verifying the PCBs. Still not the final PCB version, but I have more boxes and transformers around if I get the itch to drill more XLR holes (I do not like that, sam-I-am). The channels are, in order, (1) Ge -> FET with the gain control and Jensen input and output transformers; (2) Ge -> Ge with volume control and Jensen input and output transformers; (3) FET -> Silicon on 48V (like channel 2 of the build above) with a volume control, some custom wound input transformers (from CJ on GroupDIY, 1:4 and they’re HUGE Neve-style xfos), and Edcor output; and (4) Ge -> FET on 48V with a gain control, the other custom transformer, and Edcor output. I actually modded the Edcords to do 1:2 for the output. The only thing I’m dissatisfied with is the pad. I may eventually end up changing it to a switch, because it causes some hiss with passive microphones, and really poundy drums can overdrive my converters on channels 1 and 4 even with the gain at 0 and the interface’s pad on.
Austin Microphones DIY ribbon mic with a Cinemag output transformer. I got it partially assembled but without a ribbon from someone on GroupDIY. I cut a new ribbon for it (a nerve-wracking process if there ever was one) and got it fired up. I LOVE this thing (despite some S:N issues). What you hear is what you get, just with slightly softer transients. I also got to record my friend Jen Parde’s vocals through it on one song and it was a match made in heaven. I might find a way to paint it one of these days, but for now I’m okay with it being flat brass. Lexa crocheted the hood for it.
D251 (based on the LA251) tube mic. I more assembled than built this — I bought it mostly complete from a GroupDIY forum member, finished stuffing a few missing components, troubleshooted the PSU, and wired it. I love how it sounds. I was afraid it would be too bright compared to a u47, but it’s just right, and it doesn’t even have the “best” capsule I could put in it.
Junco. My build of Aurycle’s FET mic kit. The body in these kits is actually really nice (especially for the low price). The circuit has some questionable components, though — the 2k2 power splitter resistors were pretty far from matched, there were tantalum and ceramic caps in the signal path, the FET bias is fixed (and would have been wrong), the switches were lousy (though I can’t say that the larger toggles I used were a great idea), the high-pass filter was a bit more extreme than advertised, and they left some parts from the u87 that were just adding noise. I replaced some parts, did the hi-Z section “dead bug” style, and used an RK47 capsule so I could add a simple pattern switch. (The capsule from this kit went in the modded 990 that previously housed the RK47, and it sounds pretty good; it just didn’t have a rear membrane, so it couldn’t do patterns.) Some miscellaneous other mods and part upgrades along the way. It wasn’t without its problems. The PCB pads lift easily because they aren’t through-plated, so adding the mods created some havoc. I also had probably the weirdest issue I’ve ever had in any build of anything that took me almost 12 hours to verify and finally fix: The mic would stop working if I held it face-down. But I could make it come back on if I squeezed the top of the basket. I hammered the top edges gently with the butt of a screwdriver and the problem disappeared completely (I can’t even make it reappear now). So the solution was every bit as nonsensical as the problem. I must have torn the thing apart 50 times, checked every component, replaced every suspect part, and did continuity and voltage checks on every part including every inch of the body and headbasket. Drove me insane.
My next Junco47 got a bit of an overhaul — this time with an oscillator and an old Cinemag 4:1 transformer! I built this one on perf but it sounded so good that I made it an open source PCB project. I hope to have the project verified soon, after which it’ll be shared on my Osh Park. Some kind of nice switches from Mouser — too bad they’re STILL too big to fit in the plastic holder. I got creative with a pen knife, the soldering iron, and a pair of clippers and it doesn’t look too bad. But it still retains the “Junco” moniker because it’s hardly the cleanest work. I also forgot a couple caps on the oscillator side, so they are sort of hanging in space. (Otherwise the guts weren’t too bad this time around.)
Edna and Millicent: I decided to convert some super cheap stage dynamics I found in the bottom of a box to 25mm condensers. I used a variant of the Schoeps circuit and a Transsound electret capsule. Not bad for hardly any investment! The diaphragms ended up being suspended on wiring in the mesh headbasket, which was kind of fun to wire.
The fun will never end, it’s Compressor Time! A dual modified 1176 built on the Hairball platform (and using their transformers). I added a bunch of ratios, stereo links, lengthened the maximum attack, and simplified the metering switching to omit the +8 since I’m not totally sure what it’s for anyway. The Vu meters are pretty nice vintage GC Electronics ones with low tolerance. The “in-between” ratios I added are actually pretty useful, especially the 2:1 for early buss compression (pre-limiter). The 12th position (“?!”) isn’t the all-buttons-in mode, but it’s extremely crushed and can still get some distortion with the attack all the way down. The push/pull volume knob is the bypass switch in this case. A couple issues … I misdrilled the attack knob on the left a hair too close to the Vu meter. That meter is also missing a bulb (I will probably have to replace it with an LED since it seems to be unobtainium). The 12-position rotary I used also obviously didn’t fit the ratio PCB, and I’m not sure that the final result was any cleaner than it would have been if I had done all the wiring floating.
jots on pants 
jon,
wonderful playing, demos, peds …. pls let me know if you are interested in building ANY clones for me. tnx, L.H.
of particular interest are:
1. Azabache
2. Supreaux D. (or some variation of your devising)
3. Hamlet Delay
4. Bearhug Compressor (or BH v.2)
5. Main Squeeze (with your external decay control)
hi, Larry, thanks. I’ll e-mail you in a couple days here … I’m not building during February. Too many recording projects going on for the next couple weeks. I’ll be back up and running in March.
What a great blog, man.
Why did you choose Fallstaff for the name of the boost? Are you living near Fallstaff Manor Court by any chance in Baltimore?
Doron
Hey, neat, there’s a Fallstaff Manor in Baltimore? I just chose the name because I like the character (especially Robert Nye’s portrayal in the book “Fallstaff”). 🙂
wheres the milf driver? are you ashamed of us??
Well … I didn’t make it, you did! But I’ll put the picture up, of course.
Under your steady hand and guidance. A thousand thanks.
Are you available or willing to build a flatline / afterlife comp in 1590a size?
Hi, Anthony, I am. Please e-mail me at Jonspatton@gmail.com. My base price for an Afterlife is $115 for the two-knob version and $120 for the three-knob version. You might want to check out my Bearhug, though — it’s cheaper and I prefer it (it’s on basically every recording I’ve made for the past two years) and not just because I designed it. 🙂
Thanks for credits. nice work, go on, keep the good job!
Is the mix on the phaser just a linear pot in the place of the 16k resistor that controls the dry output? (also did you use the 1/8 watt resistors? Having trouble locating them).
Do you mean in the little Phase 45? It’s a 20K pot that replaces two 10K resistors, which connect to each other right near the output of the audio path. It’s a common mod so you should be able to find it in a lot of places. I might have also described it thoroughly in the build report on Madbean, but I don’t remember which resistors it is on PCB at the moment.
My wondrous pedal has entered the hall of fame lineup!!!! I now abide in the numinous.
Wow, what a read. Great pedals. Cute artwork. I really be interested in some pedals of yours. Let me know if your building at the moment.
hi, Lee, I’m always available for building pretty much except for during February when I am recording and writing the whole month for FAWM. Feel free to e-mail me.
Jon, are you still building effects? I built a Cardinal Tremolo and have some issues – wonder if you offer assistance. Also, I’m awful at making enclosures, wonder if you offer pre-drilled custom enclosures.
Hi, Floyd. I rarely have any extra enclosures around (I don’t built *that* much). Hopefully you got my message on TGP, but if not, please start a thread in the 1776 subforum of the madbean forum. This makes it faster to get an answer and also makes the solutions public for other builders.
Yes I did get your message on TGP and here. Since then the weather has turned and I’ve been inundated with outdoor work. But I am beginning to pull together information to post my Cardinal issues.