Here's a collection of vero (stripboard) and tagboard guitar and bass effect layouts that we have put together covering many classic and popular effects in growing numbers. Many of these have been posted on freestompboxes.org, so check that site out for great discussions on building your own effect pedals. Enjoy the builds and please also visit us on Facebook and Twitter
The Marshall 3005 Lead 12 was a mini-stack with a 12 watt solid state head made in England between 1988 and 1991. People claim it's a great amp and can get vintage Marshall sounds from it, and that it takes overdrives really well.
One note in the amp the preamp was powered by +16V/-16V so you'll want to build a bipolar power board.
Alright ladies and gentlemen I finally had some time on my hands to relax and kick out a bunch of new layouts and since a lot of you out there have been playing around with those little Class D amps I thought I would be nice to have some more preamps based on amps we all know and love. First off the amp that gave birth to the likes of Marshall, Laney, Vox, and many others. It's the Fender Bassman 5F6. If you are unaware this is the amp that has essentially been copied and modified by every amp company.
Among the many Japanese Big Muff clones,
one of the first on the market was the Super Fuzz Sustainar, a nearly
exact clone of a 1972 era Big Muff made by the Hoshino Gakki company
(early units possibly made by Miyuki Ind. Co.) sometime around 1973. It
was housed in an identical enclosure to the V1 Big Muff with very
similar graphics. These were sold throughout the 1970s, and not long
after its introduction, Gakki shamelessly changed the name from Super
Fuzz to Big Muff. The pedals marked Electro Sound are the earliest, and
those marked Elk Incorporated or Elk/Gakki are the later made
production.
The circuit is identical to a PNP
triangle circuit from 1972, almost identical to the PNP circuit shown
above. The only change made was the high pass cap in the tone section at
C9. Typically .004µF, it was changed to 330pF in the Sustainar. This
had the effect of retaining treble when the tone pot was turned to the
bass side, making the bass range more useful. When fully in the bass
position the overall volume level is significantly higher than other
tone settings as well.
Note: this effect is PNP, positive ground, and you will NOT be able to daisy chain this with normal NPN, negative ground, effects unless you add a negative voltage inverter board.
" The vintage sound of an analog OTA-based phaser melded with contemporary
parameters out the wazoo. From classic and not-so-classic sounds,
subtle and over-the-top phase tones, mellow through seasick pitch
vibrato, ringmod, glitchy octave effects, and outright strange
phased/autowah/tremolo hybrid sounds you won't find anywhere else. No
doubt the Whetstone can do things that your current phaser can't "
This was a request.
Original FSB thread and unverified schematic avilable here.
Update! The first link on the right of the bottom 13600 should go from the Base of 2N5087 to the Collector of the 2N5088.
"The Dunes, like the Palisades, is a Tube Screamer variant. Yet it
goes a step further from the original, adding a few extra features that
go a long way to matching your guitar and pickups, to your amp. The
knobs are familiar—Tone, Gain and Volume. In addition, there are three
toggle switches that really make things interesting:
Voice: Gives you three tonal differences; MOSFET, Silicon and Normal.
These options give you different levels of compression when adding gain,
and really change the overall character a lot. The Normal setting has
little to no compression if that is desired.
Normal/Bright: Works great when using either darker humbuckers—switch
to Bright, or if using single coils, keep it normal. Using the master
tone control in conjunction with this switch gives you a lot of useful
variation.
Bandwidth: What a traditional Tube Screamer lacks—here, the Dunes gives
you the option of adding a lot of deep low end—great for single coils,
or switch it back to the more traditional screamer mode, accentuating
the midrange, with less emphasis on the bottom end."
PCB and schematic available on PedalPCB website here.
Here is the larger version (now discontinued) of the Noise Swash.
One of our members (Kornel) was given the schematic by Dan from 4ms and he asked me to draw a layout for it.
I don't have permission to publish the schematic but the layout matches it.
Please do not ask for it.
Info:
"Inspired by the Trainwreck Express amplifier (built by the late Ken
Fischer), the TWE-1 is solid-state pedal designed to emulate the
touch-responsiveness and clean-to-overdriven range you get from a
high-grade tube amp. Along with Volume, Hi Cut, and Gain controls, the
pedal has 3-position Cab switch (4x12, 2x12, off), a Presence switch
that provides three levels of high-frequency boost (post OD), a Voice
switch (Traditional and Modern British), and a bypassable Brite switch
that provides two levels of high-frequency boost (pre OD). The TWE-1 with its Gain at noon or higher responded in an amp-like way to
changes in guitar volume and picking strength, delivering everything
from gritty cleans to richly saturated distortion textures. Thanks to
its strong output, the TWE-1 is suitable for clean boosting too. All
good stuff, but the standout feature of the TWE-1 is its powerful
tone-shaping ability. The Hi-Cut knob attenuates treble when turned
clockwise, and the Brite switch makes it easy to get the appropriate
sparkle with humbuckers or single-coils. The Cab switch beefs up the
low-end significantly in the 4x12 position (I felt the 2x12 setting
sounded best with my Deluxe), and the Voice switch lets you choose
between a thicker tone in the “M” position or one with more
upper-midrange emphasis in the “T” setting. The Presence switch set to
Hi restores shimmer when the Hi Cut control is turned up (a cool sound
in itself), and between all of these functions, the TWE-1 certainly
answers the needs of players who want a compact OD pedal with
exceptional sound and flexibility."
The layout should fit in a 125B size box.
You can find Bugg's schematic and easier-to-build pcb on his website here.
This is a buffered effect. Follow the layout to connect the footswitch.
Original Info:
"Our OLD SCHOOL tremolo pedal recalls the luxurious tremolo sounds of
vintage tube amps. Derived from a rich sounding, but feature-limited
tremolo circuit from the 1960s, we added extra range to both speed &
depth controls. But we did not stop there! We added two unique circuits
- one to starve the circuit to add grit & chop, and another that
can adjust the speed or depth based on your playing dynamics."
Original info:
"Pigtronix FAT Drive takes a futuristic analog approach to create complex
crunch tones using CMOS clipping and a variable low pass filter for tone
shaping. Bringing the tone control all the way clockwise takes this
filter completely out of the circuit for total transparency and robust
low end. Rolling the tone control back smooths out the highs, leaving
ample mid-range bloom and bottom end punch.
A Hi / Lo toggle switch brings additional versatility to the FAT
Drive’s wide-ranging palette of overdrive tones, altering the gain
structure for enhanced crunch and soaring leads. The FAT Drive features
true bypass switching and runs fine on standard 9-volt power but ships
with an 18-volt adapter for superior headroom, clarity and overall
output"
Schematic available here.
An old circuit that was missing from the main page.
There was a layout by Harald Sabro in the forum section but this one should be easier to build.
I've taken the "Bite" control from Codtone's Expandra.
You can remove it by adding a link between Bite 3 and 2.
I've also added two more layouts, one with "Forbidden" mod and "Edge" pot as suggested by Dino and one for the Expandora II.
I've heard that in 1991 former Lell engineer went on to form a new company called Rostex. At least that's the rumor and i have no other information about the brand or the pedal. You know anything about these (or have a demo clip/video), please do post it in the comment section.
For the layout, in addition to adding series polarity protection and input pulldown, i subbed the output buffer FET to common 2N7000 pinout.
4-knob version:
And the 3-knobbed version:
(Edit 25.5.2018 23:31: fixed a fault with low wiring and added the 3-knob layout Edit 29.5.2018 20:35: Fixed 3-knob layout that had a misplaced cut on board image)
The SOLO is the newest member of the Pro Co family of stomp boxes. Although it is housed in the same indestructible and road worthy steel enclosure that has come to be a trademark of Pro Co stomp boxes, the SOLO marks a departure from the RAT series of pedals in more ways than just the new cosmetics. With its enormous range of tones, 3 way selectable “hot, melt, & burn” modes, and highly interactive “scoop” and “tone” controls, the SOLO just might be the most versatile pedal in your arsenal.
Don’t let the name fool you, the 100% analog SOLO is no one trick pony. It is equally at ease in both lead and rhythm capacities, and with a wide variety of amplifiers and guitars. Capable of going from vibey, chewy, warm low gain tones, to deliciously mean and crushing high gain tones, the Solo still remains remarkably true to the sound that matters most: The sound of you and your guitar. And speaking of staying true to the sound of your guitar, true-bypass switching ensures that when the pedal is off, there is no coloration of your sound.
Even in its highest gain settings, the SOLO remains extremely tube-like, articulate and touch sensitive. Complex chords ring out with clarity, leads sustain with ease. Roll back your volume knob and it cleans up, just like a good tube amp would. The solo uses three pairs of carefully matched (or should we say, carefully mismatched) clipping diodes to produce asymmetrical clipping. The three pairs are accessible via the “hot, melt, burn” slider switch. This has the effect of making the SOLO clip very much like a tube amp going into natural power tube distortion.
You'll notice there's plenty of room to add 3 more clipping options if you want to use a 6 position rotary switch.
BuGG from Pedalpcb.com has created an EZ FV-1 module for vero layouts.
It is available here: http://www.pedalpcb.com/product/ezfv1.
This is what he wrote about this circuit in our Forum / Requests section (schematic available there):
"This is a fairly straightforward single-algorithm FV-1 circuit, it would
be a nice starting point for learning how to work with the FV-1. For easy stripboard building the PedalPCB EZ FV-1 module is
available, a through-hole FV-1 module for stripboard/breadboard layouts.
(ready to use, no SMD soldering required) The pin spacing is standard 0.1" x 0.6" so it can be handled like a standard PDIP-28 (WIDE) IC. The 24LC23A must be loaded with an algorithm in bank 0, although
multiple switchable programs are possible by pulling pins 16, 17, and 18
high (corresponding to the binary encoded bank number). The internal algorithms can also be used by grounding pin 13. There will be pre-programmed EEPROMs available soon for those who just want
to build the thing and not fool around with programming as well."
Original info:
"The Steel String Clean Drive faithfully recreates the tonality and feel
of the iconic Dumble Steel String Singer amplifier in a stompbox format.
Designed alongside a real Steel String Singer (#001), this 100% analog
tone tool will do it all from Overdrive, to Fat Boost, to Compression,
to EQ shaping and more. Get the unmistakable Crystal-Clear Overdrive
and Fat Clean Tones from albums like "Texas Flood", "Venus Isle", and
"Continuum" through any clean amp platform"
You can find Bugg's PCB and schematic here.
Spotted this over at General Guitar Gadgets and thought it sounded nice. It's a modified
big muff that supposed to be tuned for bass, and from the clip it sounds pretty nice, but then again how can you go wrong with anything with big muff origins.
Bajaman's overdrive circuit based on the Engl 530 preamp with switchable tone stack.
Original thread and schematic available on the FSB forum here.
The layout should fit in a 125B box.
09/07/2018 Layout Updated! Inverted Treble and Bass pots' lugs. Changed 390p cap from TL062 pin 5 to 470p. Changed 1K resistor next to 22uF cap to 1K5.
22K resistor between Gain 1 and Gain 3 goes from Gain 1 to 15n/10K 3 rows below instead of Gain 3. 22K above TL062 pin 8 needs to move down one row between 10K/22K and VBias.
Bajaman's overdrive/distortion circuit based on the Mesa Dual Rectifier high gain channel with switchable tone stack.
Original thread and schematic available on the FSB forum here.
The layout should fit in a 1590B box.
Bajaman's overdrive/distortion circuit based on a modified Boss DS-1 with an active high and low tone control section.
Original thread and schematic available on the FSB forum here.
The layout should fit in a 1590B box.
This is based on a Marshall JVM410.
You can find Bajaman's original thread and schematic on the FSB forum here.
There are two versions:
First one with just one toggle switch to select between Cruch, OD1 and OD2.
The second one uses separate footswitches, Gains and Levels.
You need to add an extra pole for LEDs.
Can use any small signal N channel JFet for the buffers (mind the pinout).
What can I say about the Laney Supergroup. The supergroup was based on the same Fender Bassman architecture just
like the Marshall JCM800, Sunn Model T, Mesa Dual Rectifier, and a whole host of other
legendary Rock, Hard Rock, and Metal amplifiers. One of the best descriptions I've ever heard of the Supergroup is that it's like a Marshall JCM800 with more balls and gain. It's just an all around badass heavy amp. And for all my lovers of tall things heavy it was used by the legendary Tony Iommi for years, and Laney even went through the trouble of recreating it to reissue it as a special signature amp for Iommi.
