Buffered Splitter

Another cool project finished up! This right here is a buffered splitter. What can you do with it?? You can plug your guitar in and play two amps at the same time for example. That`s cool, right?  I think so!  You can use it for studio work, or in your live rig. Anything you can think of really. Anywhere you would need two equal signals from one source. Lots of options!  9 volts and you`re good to go! Project file by "culturejam" can be found here.

DOD 280 Compressor clone

Just finished this one. It`s a DOD 280 Compressor clone. Pretty transparent compressor, but with a lot of push and squeeze on tap. Haven`t played with it a whole lot yet, but so far I like it! Project for this one can be found over at tonepad.com. Tried out some new finish and labeling techniques...came out pretty cool, I think.

Underneath a boring knob lies a classy one...

Well, sort of... I`m so tired of the boring "Boss knob"! Don`t get me wrong, it`s a nice looking knob..but we`ve all seen it a thousand times..! It`s one of the cheaper knobs to buy for us DIY`ers so many of us use it quit often. So..how about modifying its appearance?
Wonder how it would look if I removed the inlay at the top of the knob? Hm..My guess is that the inlay is glued to the knob so some heat should do the trick to get it off. I threw some knobs in some hot water and let em sit for a while.

Next I took a fine needle and tried to lift the inlay off the knob. Not much room to get the needle between the knob and inlays edges. Watch your fingers! I got the inlays off at last. Like I suspected they were glued down with a little dab of glue. After a little cleanup I was supprised how cool the knob now looked! A little circular pattern was hiding under there. Have a looksie, and judge for yourself.

Hula Loop

Hi there! Just finished a tiny true bypass loop pedal. A nice tool to have for sure! If you have a tone sucker on your pedalboard a tb loop can fix that. Or if you have more than one pedal you`d like to activate at the same time...hook em up to a loop pedal... voila! You can even bypass your whole board if you`d like! Ain`t she pretty?



Layouts for loopers can be found at beavisaudio.com

Battle Fuzz (Russian Green Big Muff)

Here`s a cool little build I`ve been working on the past week. I wanted to build a Big Muff but I wanted a little more than just the scooped muff we all love..?? I decided to go with the Green Russian version as a starting point. I wanted to make it as versatile as I possible could and still keep it pedalboard friendly.

The tone section of the muff circuit is really where you can shape the character of the fuzz the most. I spent some time with the duncan tone stack calculator and came up with a cool way of getting a lot of tones out of the circuit. By changing a couple of resistors and a cap in the tone section you can dramatically change the overall tone from scooped to bassy, mid hump or whatever you`d like. With three toggles I figured I could switch between two pairs of resistors and a pair of caps in the tone section...this gave me a couple of scooped modes, bass mode, "flat-ish", mid hump+ Cool!

Etched my own board, did the whole military look to the enclosure. Put the toggles and and jacks at the top to save space on the pedalboard. Tight fit!! Very happy with the pedal! Sounds awesome! It can be tuned to whatever guitar or rig! Very versatile, just what I wanted!

Some pics of the "Battle Fuzz"...

Swirly Orange Squeezer

I decided to rehouse my orange squeezer build I did some time ago. The circuit is kinda picky about power and the layout of my old build wasn`t really working out as planned. So, battery power only and a smaller, more organized enclosure. JRC chip for some nice squeeze...!

Red Spit Fuzz

Red Spit! This is basically a Way Huge clone of the Red Llama, or a 70s Craig Anderton Tube Sound Fuzz... It all depends on how you look at it. The Red Llama is really just a tweaked Tube Sound Fuzz. Oh, well... So, mine is somewhere in between those two. I didn`t have all the exact part values so I used what I had. Sounds good! The 4049 hex inverter IC is really what makes this circuit. Old school dirt! Fuzzy and thick with humbuckers, and nice clear overdrive with single coils.

It`s too cold outside to paint yet so this one is done with a brush and hammered paint. Clear sticker printed on my inkjet. Nothing fancy, but it works!

Project can be found at tonepad.com or in the book Electronic Projects For Musicians.