Fuzzhugger Algal Bloom V2

From the Source 

The Algal Bloom is a harmonically rich, wide-range fuzz! From mellow to gritty overdrivey tones, to beautifully thick fuzz, to crunch, crust, and throaty fuzz roars! V2 adds an all-new Choke toggle that turns the Algal Bloom into a Harmful Algal Bloom, a raunchier mode that goes from dying to crusty, to crunchy, to whiplash! A new 3-way filter toggle lets you smooth clipping and highs for ultimate control.The Algal Bloom is known for its open tone and many chord-friendly settings, with fantastic definition and note-separation, even on high gain settings. The controls are uniquely interactive for incredible range. The pedal has a unique sound and circuit, but also expands on some classic tones that fuzz enthusiasts will love. A workhorse of a classicish, garagey, all-around capital F Fuzz. 


The Controls! 

• Gain: Gain adjustment and clean-up! As you back it off, it cleans up your fuzz, also adding a hint of sputter and fizzle. Hard right is full-on!

• Bloom (Fuzz): Expands and pushes your fuzz tone, adding gain, sustain, and definition. Hard right is maxed out...a unique, throaty, brash-yet-full tone! 12 o'clock is its "home setting," for thick fuzz tone!
 
• Power: Controls the flow of power to the circuit, altering response, heft, and gain (slight scratch is normal, as circuit adjusts to voltage change)

.• Level: Your master volume control.

 
• Choke / HAB Toggle: the V2's new Choke toggle, letting you dial in whiplash, crunch, crud, crust, dying, and dead. 

• Filter (3-way):
1) Middle: the unfiltered Algal Bloom you know.
2) Up: slightly smoothed highs, reducing clipping and fizz activity from the highs.
3) Down: smoothed and dampened.

 

Fuzzhugger Doom Bloom

From the source:

The Doom Bloom reimagines Algal Bloom with new controls, more lows, bite, mass, and more available
headroom. It's stupid with lows and menace! Designed to hold together and retain clarity with lower tunings.

Controls: 

- Bloom is Bloom...it's fuzz+gain+definition. It increases gain and note separation. Rather than going mushy or
washy, it holds together pretty nicely when cranked. It holds up well with lower tuning because of this.

- Head is headroom. As you turn it right, headroom increases, making the pedal less clipped, but also louder and
more open (favoring transistor fuzz over clipping diodes). So while turning right reduces how clipped it is, it also
increases mass, for some big thunderous chords. Full-spectrum massive attack!

- Body (Body and High work together). Body shifts a huge amount of lows in/out of your sound...but leaves your
highs totally in tact. (Unlike Tone controls that make you choose either [bassy and dark] OR [bright and thin]). Body
also adjusts fuzziness.

- High lets you then control your highs, separate from Body. Set your lows and fuzziness where you want it, then
adjust your highs.

- Bias biases the first transistor gain stage (controlled by the Bloom knob), functioning as an additional boost and
character control with massive boosting power!

Fuzzhugger Algal Bloom

Recently traced. So here it is. Very decent sounding thing, especially when we take into account that it is sort-of LPB to Hemmo's BazzFuss - with starve cotnrol. I personally have a strong dislike to pedals which have more than one knob (level/volume) that can kill the signal by dumping all of it to ground. Therefore, here's a slightly modded layout. My mods are just those two resistors labelled "2.2K*". To make it verbatim, just replace those two with links. Or check the schem at FSB and have your own way with it.

Oh. One more thing. As this one has heart warming, way better than usual, polarity protection method in use, i left it as it appears on the original.

Built one for myself and... The first one works as well as the "fixed" layout, but there are couple of things i wanted to address. First, the "starve" was in reverse. I wired it backwards in the first layout - as to me, starve means that you are limiting more of the current. Now it works in a way that makes more sense to a user, but way less sense if you know anything about electronics. (One should not call anti-starve a starve. Grrrrr.) And the 100K logarithmic wasn't very good to me, so i swapped it for 50K linear. Then. The 2K2s i suggested. Yes. They will make the sound travel through even when "bloom" and "gain" are fully CCW. However. Those values i pulled out of a hat do not perform very well. After careful measuring what value of resistance between pins 1&2 of those two pots works the best, i settled for 22K at "gain" and 12K at "bloom". With these values, the volume is somewhat close to unity when all pots are at CCW - except for volume. The sound is very pleasing. It ranges from overdrive tones to massive fuzz to Octavia-like weirdness at the "bloom" maxed. Very decent circuit. I'd personally call the controls "Water Temperature", "Air Temperature", "Length of Summer" and "Master Volume". That's how you'd make algae.

Either way. Call it verified.

Fuzzhugger Phantom Octave

 I do find these small boards less stressful to draw :) This one is small enough to fit in 1590A without any problems, but if you're feeling adventurous you can shave off one row from the right hand side. I left there a bit space so 100µ caps have more room to sit in nicely... Schematic has the onboard LED as 5mm red, but you could try out different colours to see how those affect the octaves.. I must add that this puppy is sounding pretty cool and it is priced reasonably, so you should consider getting yourself an original...

From Fuzzhugger(fx):
Equal parts mysterious and ghastly, the Phantom Octave is a shape-shifting octave fuzz monster!

No controls? They're not necessary--they're at your fingertips! The Phantom Octave is extremely interactive with your pickup selection, picking intensity, and your guitar's Tone control. Like its namesake, the octave will disappear with picking intensity and by rolling back your guitar's Tone control. Octave effect is strongest with low-output single coil pickups.

With the flip of your pickup selector and your picking technique, you'll find huge octave downs, glitchy ring mod-ish tones, and even be able to bang out some simple chords! Set the intensity of the effect by using your guitar's Tone control as a Blend. Roll your guitar's Tone control all the way back, and you've got a chord-friendly fuzz!

The Phantom Octave is a very strange pedal compared to most octave fuzzes...in some ways, it's more stable...in many ways, glitchier. It'll sound different with each set (and combination) of pickups. Some pickup selections will produce more exciting results than others. On most guitars, the Tone knob allows you to blend out the intensity of the octave and glitch. Easier to master and jam on (which is not to call this beast stable, but)--for example, you'll be able to get away with some bends and power chords! You'll quickly get used to the sensitivity of the pedal and what different playing techniques and settings will
produce.

Controls:
• Output: Controls the output level of the Phantom Octave!
• Interacts strongly with your pickup selection (and playing technique). A guitar with a three-way selector means three settings!
• Your Guitar's Tone knob will blend out effect intensity. When blended out, you get a nice smooth fuzz tone!

• Must be used with passive magnetic pickups (standard guitar and bass pickups), and be placed first/early in your effects chain.

Here's demo of Geiri's build:

Fuzzhugger Groundswell Overdrive

Happy Christmas everybody!  Info about the original:

The Groundswell full overdrive with a natural response to picking intensity. It features two transistor based gain stages, so it doesn't have that artificial over-clipped sound like many "overdrive pedals" out there. No compression, just gain and drive! Dual gain stages and a voltage reducer that alters total amount of gain, as well as feel and response to pick attack.

I originally built the Groundswell for myself, my goal being a unique overdrive with a natural feel and sound. After getting a lot of requests to build more, I decided to make it available in small quantities. Users' reactions have been really exciting!


As an idea for a mod it may be worth adding a diode clipping switch to this to give you more dirt options.  Using a 3 position on/off/on with a lug layout like this:

1----4
2----5
3----6

Take a feed from Volume 3 to lug 2
Lug 5 to ground

Solder your favoured diode pairs between lugs 1 & 4, and 3 & 6.  I suggest 2 top to tail 1N4148s or maybe 1N4001s one side and maybe a couple of LEDs or germanium diodes at the other.  The middle position will then be the diode life stock pedal mode.