600th Verified Layout!

Going into our 5th year online, the Briggs Unknown Fuzz has become the site's 600th verified layout, thanks to Neil for verifying that one. 

When I did the first 100th Verified Layout! post I didn't have any intention of doing them every 100.  I was just amazed that we'd got it up to 100 and so wanted to post something to thank everyone.  When it got to 200 I thought I should do the same thing again as a tongue-in-cheek parody, and so it has gone on since then. Thanks for that goes to you all for building and verifying these layouts, and discussing them to make this what is a great effect building community.  Seriously you are a great bunch and it's been a pleasure getting to know you all over the years. 

Special thanks to Miro from myself and I'm sure also from everyone else who enjoys his layouts.  He really has brought a new dimension to the blog, his work is always top notch (I doubt I could do most of his layouts as compact and neat as he makes them) and he has contributed a lot more than I have this year (and probably last year too).  So thanks mate, you're a star.

So one year is about to finish and a new one begin.  Let's see how long we can keep the parody going and how quickly we can get to 700 (Miro's turn), even if we are running out of suitable schemes :o)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all

Ibanez Standard Fuzz

No way we're going to beat last year's number of layout posts :) We might break the verified 600 before new years though :)

Since i was up for taking on the big fuzzes.. Here's another vintage fuzz with up octave overtones. The layout turned pretty neat with some symmetry in there, but it'll once again eat up your 10µ cap supply :) Original has no polarity protection nor filter cap, so you should think about adding those yourself. The first gain stage with SK30A FET is per original, but instead the BCE pinout of the 2SC1815 used in the original, i drew the other transistors to match the pinout of your standard 2N2222 (and similar). Anything with relatively high hFE will work fine. BC550, 2N3904 MPSA18 and so on. Reportedly, lowish hFE gain transistor would work the best here. Try any Si NPN, you might get the best result with hFEs around 200. Just mind the pinout. I also left the clipping diodes on the edge of the board so one can take them easily on a switch and have his (or hers) way with them. Maybe a three position switch with LEDs, Germaniums and a diode lift in the middle? Tone change switch can be either a toggle or a stomp, which way you prefer it. If you want, you can omit the small link and the cuts from the bottom right off the board and wire the switch lug 2 directly to balance pot's lug 3.

Peavey Hotfoot Distortion

It's christmas eve already. Ho ho ho for all you builders out there!

We seem to have very few effects with buffered bypass, so i think i found a suitable one. The Peavey HFD-2 Hotfoot Distortion. It's more or less 1:1 with a Rat, but with added JFET input buffer which also takes care of the bypass buffering. There is only 2PDT stomp needed for the bypass, and it takes care of the LED and silencing the circuit too. The original has J231 JEFTs for the buffers, but as those will be a pain to source, i'd suggest using 2N5457 which are used on all the Rats. And those are just buffers, so the tonal differences will be practically none. If you change the values at 1K5 and 47R, both leading to 2µ2 caps, you can get yourself a Rat with a JFET buffered bypass. The method of taking the distortion out when bypassed is also worth a mention. Adjust the value of R-LED to match your indicator LED.

BBE Crusher

BBE's take on one of the classics. Once again, the power supply filter cap is probably an overkill, so use 47µ, 100µ or 220µ instead of the 1000µ.

Unicord/Univox Super-Fuzz

A friend of mine was wondering about Malekko mini boxed fuzz and forums told us that the unit was apparently just Univox Super-Fuzz clone in A-box. With our favourite methods, there is not a snowball's chance in hell to fit this in A. There's already Mark's original layout in the library, but i redrew this so it can be fitted in 1590B box instead of BB.

This layout is per the factory schematic found on Univox.org. I swapped the transistor pinouts for modern ones so that 2N5088, 2N5089, MPSA18 and similar can be used. There's added anti-popping pull-down resistor at the input and a polarity protection for your convenience.

Layout is now fixed and verified. Happy building everyone!

Gearmandude's old demo vid:

BBE AM64 American Metal

I wasn't aware that BBE would release nice, simple designs with all through-hole components for good bargain prices. Funny how all the units on eBay are priced about a double of the original unit as a new...

The input cap (4n7) could be upped to at least 22n and there are other things one could do to this too. Clipping on a switch and so on. You won't be saving any money building this though... The power filter cap is 1000µF in the original unit, but i left it at 220µ for this layout. Both of those values are a overkill. You'd be fine with 47µ or 100µ in its place.

Proco Rat 2

Now, there is only couple of small changes to the output buffer and volume control when compared to the original Rat. The volume control looks like it could give you some trouble with the output level. If it does, just snip the 10K resistor from volume 3 to ground. I would personally use linear taper for that too.. If you want to turn this in to Turbo Rat, then just swap the 2M2 resistor for 220K and use 3mm red LEDs for clippers. Or use 1N34A germanium diodes to make it YouDirtyRat. (fixed clipping info accordingly)

EHX IC Big Muff V5 '78

Javi mentioned on the original IC BMP post that the original 2 ICs instead of the quad used in that layout make the circuit sound a lot better. So i thought i'd draw up a layout for '78 tone bypass switch version with two opamps. This way one can build a clone that's closer to the original and/or try out different opamps for it. It is per Analogguru's schematic which has couple of notes on it. First of all, the sustain connections are tweaked to function better. Both can be easily be modified per original on this board. And then there's a note for 820K resistor from supply to IC2 pin 3. That resistor needs to be 1M if you want to use TL071 or similar FET opamps for IC2.

Sam Ash Fuzztainer

MOARRRR FUZZ!! :o)

Here is the Sam Ash Fuzztainer.  It is slightly modded from the original, the transistors suggested are more modern 2N5088 instead of the original 2N5172, power filtering and polarity protection has been added, the bias trimmer has been taken external because of the different tones this will give you, and the output resistor was reduced from 68K to 1K.

These mods were suggested by Jon Patton (midwayfair on our usual forums) and here is his vid of what to me is a great sounding pedal: