This Week on the Breadboard: The EHX Ripped Speaker

Chuck D. Bones

Circuit Wizard
With some mods, of course. Here's the stock circuit:

EHX Ripped Speaker Fuzz.png

I could do without the opamps. I tossed the input buffer and replaced the active Tone circuit with a BMP-style Tone circuit followed by a MOSFET buffer. Gets the job done with a lot fewer parts. I've tried the active Tone circuit with other things and while it's clever, it has limitations. I redid the FUZZ control, tweaked a few component values and here we are. I tried Ge for Q3, but ended up liking Si better. I used a BC109C for Q1 on the breadboard. This baby has plenty of gain, over 80dB. The RIP pot varies the bias on Q3 from cutoff to saturated. Gating can be splatty, mild, or fully open. There's no clean setting unless we back the guitar's volume knob down a ways. Definitely some vintage fuzz tones in there.

EHX Ripped Speaker Fuzz - cb mod v1.0.png

Knobs (L-R): LEVEL - TONE - RIP - FUZZ
Q4 on thr far left, Q1 on the far right.
EXH Ripped Speaker cb mod v0.5a breadboard 02.jpg
 
No, it's simply an optional unity gain buffer. I considered a boost stage, but the signal is plenty large without a boost.

To delete the buffer, remove R16-R20, C8-C9 & Q4. Pin 2 of the LEVEL pot is the output.
 
So leave it in there & it will work anywhere in the chain.
It a touchy subject as I read years go about Lovepedal & MXR not gelling with other pedals because of impedance issues.
 
Lucky for you to get the Tone & Rip right, you realize I have to move my LED now! ;)
The layout demanded tone and rip to be in those places else it would be messy..

As for the LED, mine's always in the same place :D You can have the LED in any colour you want, but the location is always 0 mm / 12.7 mm!
 
Those are some interesting transistor footprints.

Why even bother with SMD pads for parts that are so easy to get in thru-hole? Q2 & Q3 can be pretty much whatever you want.
 
Those are some interesting transistor footprints.

Why even bother with SMD pads for parts that are so easy to get in thru-hole? Q2 & Q3 can be pretty much whatever you want.
You must have missed the single footprint on the Skull Valley.
I checked to see if sheep had 3 toes!:D
It's good that the pinout is labelled.
 
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