Wampler Hot Wired v.1

Original FSB thread and schematic available here.
These are 2 separate effects in one box.
Follow Mark's Dual Offboard Wiring.
23/11/2017 Layout Updated! Added the 2 Inputs caps.

Wampler Sovereign

The Wampler Sovereign Distortion is a versatile beast of a distortion pedal that is unlike the rest of its ilk. The gain is rich and full of harmonic overtones, never sounding or feeling fake and stiff. Surprisingly shapeable and responsive, the non-traditional gain and EQ controls allow you to tune the pedal to suit any setup, and instead of just emphasizing a certain frequency range, they actually change the texture of the gain. With the right settings dialed up, it can nail the elusive sludgy deep sound loved by stoner metal guitarists, along with virtually every other shade of high-gain tone a player can imagine.
You can find original thread and schematic on FSB forum here.

Madbean Leviathan (Wampler Faux Analog Echo Delay)

Madbean's great new project based on Wampler Faux Analog Echo Delay.
Original infos available here.

This video is for reference only:

Plexi-Drive with Trimmers

Yup. Most of you who know me know that i've had more than enough trouble with JFET biasing on some fixed drain resistor designs... This one also has the input cap and pulldown resistor at the input. Already verified by me. I found the best gain to be with drains at ~5V, but now you can tweak them to the voltage you want. Used 20K pot for tone. 50K should be fine too.

MXR Distortion+ w/ Wampler mods

Another request. Wampler's mods for MXR Distrotion +, as seen at Premier Guitar magazine's website.

Wampler Paisley Drive

Another excellent pedal by Wampler, and Brad Paisley's signature overdrive.  Info about the original:

Since late 2009, we discovered that Brad Paisley was using Wampler Pedals. He started with the AnalogEcho, then got an Ego Compressor and then had the Underdog overdrive.

Everything was great until his tech at the time, Chad, mentioned to Brian that Brad still was not quite settled on the overdrive sound he was getting from his live rig… could Wampler maybe look at making a pedal …??

Brads requirements were quite “simple”… it needs to be clean but get crunchy with some “beef” to it. It needs to have a fluid tone when soloing. I needs to add a little hair to the tone but then but then has to be able to give flat out ball busting gain, oh… but please do not wreck the tonality. It needs to have everything, in a pedal format, but do not make it sound like a pedal...!

Over a period of months, Brian made some circuits and sent them off, there were a couple of “tweaks” here and there to be made and then finally, when official “proto #2” landed it went straight into the live rack and out on the H20 world tour.

That prototype has now been made into the Brad Paisley signature “Paisley Drive” and goes with Brad wherever he goes. When you see Brad live, or performing live on the TV, and you are blown away by his overdriven tone, it’s the Paisley Drive.

The truly great thing about this pedal is that it’s not only Telecaster style guitars that it works so well with, it brings the best out of your Strat or anything you may have loaded with humbuckers. You no longer need to have individual pedals for your guitars; the Paisley Drive will make each one sing.

The inbuilt tonal controls, the presence and mid contour switches, will make this pedal the single most versatile and complete overdrive pedal you have ever owned. In fact, we believe it might be the last one you ever buy...

Brad Paisley:-
“...we actually recorded this (pedal) in the studio, you know, trying it out. I turned up a Trainwreck Amp that I've got and compared the sound of the distortion and it was very, very similar. And that's a very good test because any time a pedal can mimic a great overdriven amp then you're on to something...”

And the bill of materials:

Group	Name	Qty
Capacitors	51p	1
Capacitors	100p	1
Capacitors	22n	1
Capacitors	220n	3
Capacitors	470n	1
Capacitors	1u	4
Capacitors	220u	2
Resistors	100R	3
Resistors	200R	1
Resistors	220R	1
Resistors	240R	1
Resistors	300R	1
Resistors	1K	4
Resistors	2K2	1
Resistors	10K	8
Resistors	511K	2
Resistors	1M	1
IC	JRC4580	1
Transistors	J201	2
Diodes	1N4148	2

Wampler Triple Wreck

Request.  I've done the main board and booster separately so that you could potentially put the main board in a 1590B or preferably a 125B (5 pots and a switch are totally do-able in a 125B).  If you're more sane than that and want to put this in a 1590BB then you can build the booster on the separate daughterboard or even experiment with the booster of your choice.  It has been mentioned that this really benefits from an 18V supply, so consider adding a little charge pump daughterboard in there too, with maybe a switch to select between 9V and 18V operation.  As noted by John, leave the booster at 9V all the time, 18V for main board only.

Info from Brian about his excellent original:

The Triple Wreck high gain distortion pedal... When this pedal was thought of, it was decided that we would take no prisoners, we would produce a pedal with so much gain it would wipe the floor of anything else

This pedal is probably one of the tightest, thickest highest gain distortions you have ever heard... Many people have told us that it sounds more like a 5150 amp to them than a distortion pedal, that may very well be - All we know is that Brian designed it to just to be an ass kicking distortion pedal, heavier than everything else, meaner than everything else, and it is.

With a solid three band EQ (total control allowing you to scoop out those mids without it peeking out the lows and highs like so many other pedals) you can emulate some of your favorite high gain tones, but as this pedal is so versatile, you can easily find a distinctive tone all of your own. There is so much control over the tone your distinctive sound is waiting for you. Believe it or not, even when the gain is backed off, this pedal is still useable, it still sounds great.

There are two distinct voices in this pedal, Hard and Brutal. The Hard gives you that warmer thump high gain where as the Brutal allows a little more sparkle to creep in, giving it that more recent, full audio spectrum feel.

So, we've already put in loads of gain, maybe more than you need, so let's stick in a boost switch. What...? Putting a boost switch on an already high gain pedal may sound crazy but you'll be amazed at how well it works. it gives you two options via the Boost Contour blend control. With the boost on and it dialed round to counter-clockwise, your distortion is multiplied and you have the solo sound you have always wanted. Pinch harmonics are just there, in places you've never found them before. With it dialed round to clockwise, your pedal turns into a fuzzy monster... Tweak the EQ and you can get tone that will remind you of the Smashing Pumpkins right round to some Pink Floyd kind of fuzzy solo tone. It's all there, waiting for you.

Think about your favorite high gain tone. Is it a high gain with the mids scooped out, or is it roll your hand across the knobs to get that in your face, fuzzy, brutal attitude-melting distortion. Whatever you are looking for, this is probably the only pedal on the market that can satisfy all of those options. This pedal should come with a public health warning.

Video of rudeez' build:

And as promised with these more complex circuits, here's the BOM from DIYLC2.

Type	Value	Qty
Capacitors	100n	2
Capacitors	100p	1
Capacitors	100u	1
Capacitors	10n	2
Capacitors	10u	1
Capacitors	1n	1
Capacitors	1u	7
Capacitors	220n	3
Capacitors	220p	3
Capacitors	2u2	1
Capacitors	330p	1
Capacitors	33n	1
Capacitors	470p	1
Capacitors	47n	4
Capacitors	4n7	2
Capacitors	560p	1
Resistors	100K	2
Resistors	100R	1
Resistors	10K	7
Resistors	1K	6
Resistors	1M	3
Resistors	33K	2
Resistors	470K	5
Resistors	47K	5
Resistors	47R	1
Resistors	4K7	1
Resistors	680K	1
Transistors	2N5089	1
IC1	TL074	1
IC2	TL072	1
Diodes	1N4148	5

Wampler Black 65

A few requests for this so I thought I'd better get it sorted.  Info from Wampler about the original:

Over the years, we've had tons and tons of folks asking us when we were going to produce an overdrive pedal that emulates the sound of a cranked Fender® amp.

When Brian decided that he was going to see if he could do it, he wanted to ensure that it was perfect. Looking back at it now, we think he must have spent a good 9 months breadboarding and prototyping lots of different ideas, a/b-ing each one with various Fender® amps, tweaking and changing until he found the sound that was accurate.

Once he got a sound that he was 100% happy with, he took it to Nashville studio ace Brent Mason to test it out. To be certain, Brian also took several pedals by other companies that are supposed to do the same thing. Brent knows Fender® amps better than anyone, and Brian knew if Brent thought it was good, we were onto a winner. Long story short, Brent LOVED it!

We've heard guys say they hear The Twin®, some say Vibrolux®, some say Deluxe Reverb® when they play this pedal. Whatever they hear, it still has that "Blackface" type of sound that we were looking for. When you turn it up, it's going to break up more like the amp would if you turn it up.

With the additional of the boost switch, you can increase the gain to make it sound like the amp is being driven harder.

Wampler Ecstasy

Info about the original:

The Wampler Ecstacy uses a very simple control lay out but produces an incredible vasriety of tones that let your guitar do the talking thanks to transparency and awesome responsive gain that reacts just like a top end tube amp! Use the Ecstacy's two band EQ (high and low), Smooth/Open/Crunch switch, gain and output volume settings to set the basic distortion tone that you're after then use your guitar's volume and tone controls to choose between full on grit (both on full) choppy crunch (volume halfway tone full), singing solos (volume full, tone backed off) or even cleaner tones (volume backed right off tone full) and so on. You can even control the pedals grit with your playing dynamics and pick attack, just like a top end tube amp that costs ten times the price of this magic little pedal from Wampler!

Here's what Wampler say about the Ecstacy overdrive pedal

When Brian created the Ecstasy, he was working on creating a pedal that would go from clean tones to distorted tones while adding a bit of warmth. He wanted something for himself that would be dynamic, have a great sounding "gritty" tone to it yet be able to respond to the volume knob like a tube amp. Everything about Brian is in the dynamics of sound and if a pedal can't work with him dynamically, then he just can't use it. Out of this search, he developed the Ecstasy Drive.

The Ecstasy is his take on that elusive "dumble" tone and feel - smooth creaminess yet crunchy when you need it to be, yet the tonality is much more transparent than other "dumble sounding" pedals. Very responsive tone controls that interact with the pedal - they don't just "color" the sound. The controls actually affect the response and feel of the pedal, just like a great tube amp.

If you love the sound of your clean tone, and just wish you could have more "hair" on the note... a little bit of grit without any change in tonality, the Ecstasy will do that with ease. PLUS it's extremely flexible... with the toggle switch in the down position you'll get a hint of fuzz along with the overdrive, it's reminiscent of the tones that "Eric Johnson" may use. With the toggle in the up position the tonality is super smooth, creamy yet crunchy when you dig into the strings. This is reminiscent to the famous "dumble" tone, though it's really much, much more than that. In the center position, the toggle will give you tons of crunch, or roll the gain back a bit and push the volume up and you have a superior clean boost with a 2 band EQ that's extremely transparent, but variable so you can actually turn it into an awesome treble booster just by cranking up the treble and turning the bass down.

Wampler Pinnacle

Many thanks to Equinox for supplying his traced PCB layout for us to create the schematic and layout from.  This is based on the current version which I think was first released in 2011. 

Info about Brian's fantastic original:

Zeke Clark, Edward Van Halen's longtime renowned guitar tech played through a pinnacle and this is what he had to say:

“I've played tons of pedals that promised that “Brown Sound”... this pedal NAILS it better than anything I've ever heard or played.” - Zeke Clark, former tech for Eddie Van Halen

Sometimes you need extreme gain, sometimes you need mild overdrive...this pedal does that with an awesome “Brown Sound”! It has an extremely tweakable EQ - from scooped mids to tons of warm mids, all with the turn of 2 knobs.

This pedal has 4 knobs -- two separate tone controls that act as a sort of parametric EQ, gain and volume. It also has a 'bright' switch that adds a ton of variety and is very handy when playing a dark sounding amp, as well as another toggle switch that will give you high gain “Brown Sound” tones.

Wampler Tweed '57

Info about the original:

The Wampler Tweed 57 is the heart and soul of a mids 50s Fender Tweed amp. Just think Eric Clapton playing Layla: that tiny Fender pushed to the absolute limit for that crunchy yet 100% Fender tone.

We all know that when you need a pedal that nails the sound of an amp there's only one place to turn: Brian Wampler obsessively A/B tests his boutique pedals with the real deal to make sure that the tone is nailed, especially the details that other amp emulators miss like the way the overdrive reacts to gentle playing or rolled off volume/tone.

As well as EQ and Gain controls the Wampler Tweed 57 features an input simulator, an important detail for getting the authentic fender sound!

Wampler Plexi-Drive

In the words of the maker Brian Wampler, this was designed to sound "sort of like a cross between a "Marshall 18®" and a "JTM45®", and those who have purchased the Plexi-Drive agree that it's very accurate! The bass boost toggle switch adds fat, full bottom end which is very useful in lower gain or lower volume (bedroom practicing) applications. For band volumes, cutting the bass out a bit really helps the tone cut through perfectly."

Some people experienced popping which can be due to the input being connected directly to the first JFET gate.  This is a modified version which adds an input capacitor and anti-popping resistor.

Geiri's demos of his dual build with Les Paul and Strat: