What’s on *YOUR* workbench?

Finished up 4 builds tonight and they all passed a quick play test:
401K Compressor, Pro10 Blue, Aion Argent, and a Kliche with BAT41 silicon diodes.

The wire color on the Aion sort of bugs me with the power being yellow and ground red (ugh), but that is a JST XH style cable I bought pre-assembled to make these a little easier to build and service, if something goes wrong.

Edit: just occurred to me I can remove the pre-wired connector pins and "remap" them for the wire colors...might be more of nuisance than it is worth though.

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Yet another breadboard monstrosity: this time the Two Tone fuzz.

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When I revived this boyhood hobby of my misspent youth, I recalled the endless frustration I endured with PNP circuits and Germanium transistors. While my electronics theory knowledge was (and remains) spotty, I struggled to grasp why PNP circuits were wired bass ackwards. Tone Benders, Fuzz Faces, and their ilk remained mysterious, hit or miss, affairs that sometimes worked but more or less always sounded like dog breath, with no offence to dog-lovers intended.

I was inspired by coming across this Two Tone (in a troubleshooting thread IIRC) and felt in the mood for a spot of breadboarding yesterday afternoon. Harked back to the early days of my revival of interest in all things electronic. As you may know, age and nostalgia go together like JFETs and problematic biasing.

Anyway, 'get to the point,' I hear you collectively groan.

This is a wonderful, versatile, and easy assembly, which offers a very wide range of fuzzy warm tones. I used some AC128s from my stash (all around 100 hfe) instead of the Russians called for, winged the on-on-on with a type 1, which means it doesn't quite behave as it should (I'll rectify this on my next Tayda adventure), used 100uF caps having no 120uFs at hand, and so on. All this sleight of hand still culminated in a very useable pedal, even for someone who's not generally a fuzz lover or aficionado.

Build it by all means, folks, well worth the effort IMO.
 
mybud said:
Yet another breadboard monstrosity: this time the Two Tone fuzz.

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When I revived this boyhood hobby of my misspent youth, I recalled the endless frustration I endured with PNP circuits and Germanium transistors. While my electronics theory knowledge was (and remains) spotty, I struggled to grasp why PNP circuits were wired bass ackwards. Tone Benders, Fuzz Faces, and their ilk remained mysterious, hit or miss, affairs that sometimes worked but more or less always sounded like dog breath, with no offence to dog-lovers intended.

I was inspired by coming across this Two Tone (in a troubleshooting thread IIRC) and felt in the mood for a spot of breadboarding yesterday afternoon. Harked back to the early days of my revival of interest in all things electronic. As you may know, age and nostalgia go together like JFETs and problematic biasing.

Anyway, 'get to the point,' I hear you collectively groan.

This is a wonderful, versatile, and easy assembly, which offers a very wide range of fuzzy warm tones. I used some AC128s from my stash (all around 100 hfe) instead of the Russians called for, winged the on-on-on with a type 1, which means it doesn't quite behave as it should (I'll rectify this on my next Tayda adventure), used 100uF caps having no 120uFs at hand, and so on. All this sleight of hand still culminated in a very useable pedal, even for someone who's not generally a fuzz lover or aficionado.

Build it by all means, folks, well worth the effort IMO.
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That’s gives me so much anxiety just looking at it 🤣
 
Had the hot plate going this morning to do the fv-1 for the deflector reverb and decided to knock out some 2n5457 and some j201 adapters. Most of the time I will solder the smd’s straight to the board but its always nice to have a hand-full on hand for through hole projects.
 

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Audandash said:
Had the hot plate going this morning to do the fv-1 for the deflector reverb and decided to knock out some 2n5457 and some j201 adapters. Most of the time I will solder the smd’s straight to the board but its always nice to have a hand-full on hand for through hole projects.
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Oh you've just given me a really fun idea for a pedal.. truely unique.

The Fridge Magnet Pedal..
 
I’m fixing this guy’s KRANK amp. The tubes were bad and broken, and worse off, the power transformer was broken and the PO tried to use JB Weld and string. SMH. So I cleaned it all off and made some brackets for it. Now it’s nice and solid. One wire was broken- easy resolder- and he’s getting all new set of tubes.

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Photo Jul 22 2025, 9 33 25 AM.jpg

My custom Sunn Model T chassis in route so I figured I better push hard on the two preamps I have in progress.

This one is Diezel VH4 channels 2 & 3/4 (4 is basically just 3 with another gain stage). Working through the last bits of chassis layout and drilling. I do all the major design on the computer, but I am doing the final small stuff like board standoff holes by hand, at the end, in case I need to nudge things.

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My car needed some suspension work in the rear so I decided to take all of it out so I can get ahead of some rusty brake lines before another winter. This is the hardware from the suspension after a night's soak in evaporust. I still have to clean off more rust, it's going to be terrible.

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Next is the gas tank, which "should" be easier. My pedals are on hold while I come up with new inspiration
 
20250722_134022.jpg Borrowed this out of curiosity. I'm a longtime ehx H.O.G. user so there are many things I would miss (most importantly the freeze gliss) but having new intervals to mess with is really fun. Throwing it in dual mode on the M2 and M6 get you some fun chords that you can't do with any of the ehx stuff that I've played, not sure what the pog3 is capable of. The momentary octave function is also cool but there's a weird transition back to dry at the end of the swell so I would likely never use it.

It also sounds a little different when you dial out the clean signal. Not bad, nether the ehx or the psi sound great without the clean signal blended in like the oc2. There's just a noticeable tonal difference and my 20 years of playing the ehx versions leads me to prefer the familiar.

I have no love nor hate for the fuzz. It's a good fuzz which provides a nice amount of fat in psi mode and seems to function well both before and after the octave which not all fuzzes can claim. It's just not very sexy either. More versatile than a regular muff but I wish I could get either lower gain or some crazier tones too. It's a just bunch of tepid medium fuzz to me.
 
Mentaltossflycoon said:
Borrowed this out of curiosity. I'm a longtime ehx H.O.G. user so there are many things I would miss (most importantly the freeze gliss) but having new intervals to mess with is really fun. Throwing it in dual mode on the M2 and M6 get you some fun chords that you can't do with any of the ehx stuff that I've played, not sure what the pog3 is capable of. The momentary octave function is also cool but there's a weird transition back to dry at the end of the swell so I would likely never use it.

It also sounds a little different when you dial out the clean signal. Not bad, nether the ehx or the psi sound great without the clean signal blended in like the oc2. There's just a noticeable tonal difference and my 20 years of playing the ehx versions leads me to prefer the familiar.

I have no love nor hate for the fuzz. It's a good fuzz which provides a nice amount of fat in psi mode and seems to function well both before and after the octave which not all fuzzes can claim. It's just not very sexy either. More versatile than a regular muff but I wish I could get either lower gain or some crazier tones too. It's a just bunch of tepid medium fuzz to me.
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What's the brain box running
the DSP?
 
falco_femoralis said:
My car needed some suspension work in the rear so I decided to take all of it out so I can get ahead of some rusty brake lines before another winter. This is the hardware from the suspension after a night's soak in evaporust. I still have to clean off more rust, it's going to be terrible.

HgWOONz.jpeg


Next is the gas tank, which "should" be easier. My pedals are on hold while I come up with new inspiration
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Replacing rusty brake lines is always a good investment. I’ve blown a couple, and it’s a bad feeling.

I’m also a big evaporust fan, but de-rusting every bolt is pretty intense.

My rust-land strategies involve liberal antisieze on any reassembly and a heavy annual coat of fluid film.
 
Erik S said:
Replacing rusty brake lines is always a good investment. I’ve blown a couple, and it’s a bad feeling.

I’m also a big evaporust fan, but de-rusting every bolt is pretty intense.

My rust-land strategies involve liberal antisieze on any reassembly and a heavy annual coat of fluid film.
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Before reassembly I'm going to fluid film tf out of the underside of the car and blue loctite every bolt. I don't know how I feel about anti seize as I've had that back bolts out on their own before, but loctite prevents rust forming inside threads as well
 
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