Recent content by PedalBuilder

What kind of tube screamer is that?

Despite the Tone Bender name, it's definitely a Big Muff. It's similar to some of the Ram's Head-era Big Muffs, but with a few differences. First and foremost, Q2 has no clipping diodes, which increases the output volume significantly and results in what sounds like heavily asymmetrical...

Is that the LT1054? I don't mind SMD, but those appear to be even more expensive—the SOIC-8 package is over $8 at Mouser and Digikey.

Have you tried adding a small capacitor (between 5pF and 20pF) between pins 2 and 7? According to the data sheet, that will increase the oscillator frequency. On a side note, the price for these things has really jumped. I bought a bunch of them in March 2023 for $1.85 each. It's not even three...

Thanks! They're my own designs and I don't have a website. The gerber file for the Hybrid Fuzz Driver Deluxe PCB is available here. If you're interested in any of my other PCBs, feel free to message me directly.

I used these knobs from Tayda. Just make sure to use spline shaft potentiometers. The enclosure is Tayda's Metallic Dark Gold. I should probably get around to doing a build report for this one.

Those look really good! If you hadn’t said so, I would never have guessed that those were your first PCBs. Is there anything that you learned from designing/building them that you would do differently next time? And do you happen to have the gain/leakage figures for the GT108G in the Burns Bender?

Here's my take on the Monolith Oracle. The original is described as being a modified Tone Bender Mk. I.5, although it's biased like a Fuzz Face. Either way, it's the familiar feedback amplifier topology followed by a Big Muff-style tone control. The schematic is at the bottom of the post. The...

Sure! Here are the voltages with Balance turned all the way up: (If you're still having trouble, start a thread in the troubleshooting forum. Lots of us have successfully built Buzzarounds and would be happy to help.)

If you want lower gain, try the GT309A: hFE Leakage 75 10 73 0 66 0 64 0 58 0 57 0 56 0 55 0 54 0 54 0 53 0 52 0 51 0 49 0 49 0 49...

GT309E are solid. Average hFE is 82, with very low leakage. Here are how mine measured at 70ºF with my DCA55: hFE Leakage 153 11 138 15 135 0 134 0 133 0 130 10 116 0 106 14 102 14 88 0...

Picking a favorite fuzz pedal is like picking your favorite offspring. With that said, the Rotobone is a strong candidate for my favorite fuzz. Enough has been written elsewhere about its trumpet-like tones, the glassy cleans when you roll back the volume knob, and its wide range of more...

I strongly recommend against relying on Fuzz Central for information about the Tone Bender Mk. II. It is an outdated and unreliable source of information. Among other problems, it incorrectly recommends biasing Q3 to -4.5v (you actually want somewhere between -7.5v and -8.75v, depending on your...

This one is about as straightforward as they get. What is it? As the enclosure subtly hints, it's not actually a Tube Screamer. Rather, it's a Rat. I used a Motorola LM308HZ for the op amp and a TO-18 metal can 2N4393 for the JFET. The enclosure is a matte black sand 125B from Tayda, UV printed...

Yep. One of the internal trimmers (Octave) controls the resistance between the collector and base of Q2, which sets the intensity (and location on the fretboard) of the suboctave undertone. It's very much a set-to-taste control. I had good results from starting with the total Q2 collector-base...