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For everybody's reference, here's a spreadsheet with the measurements I've made of the germanium transistors in my stash. All measurements were taken using a Peak Atlas DCA55 at approximately 70ºF/21ºC...

Continuing my Big Muff building bonanza, here's my take on the Emanating Fist Electronics XB-70. The XB-70 is essentially the same circuit as this 1976 V3 Big Muff that Kit Rae traced, but with a R11 in the below schematic changed to 10k: It was a nice, straightforward build with no...

At the beginning of the year I had ten Big Muff PCBs fabricated. I used two of them to build these V7A/V7B Big Muffs. I pulled the values from Kit Rae's website. As Kit explained, there isn't much difference between the two circuits: I flipped that around here. I used parallel 390pF and 53pF...

The Ibanez Standard Fuzz is an interesting variation on the Univox Super Fuzz. The two circuits are largely identical, with the following changes: The Super Fuzz's complex two transistor input stage is replaced with a simple JFET amplifier; The phase splitter transistor is biased using a...

In the latest installment of my Big Muff binge, I built a Violet Ram's Head. Takeaway here is that you should build one, too, if you haven't already. Build it right and you get a smooth and articulate muff that sounds good all the way through the tone control's rotation. I'm generally a...

Put this together last weekend. I used the @cdwillis schematic from this post as my guide. The Dope Priest is a great sounding Big Muff variant made by D*A*M's Emanating Fist Electronics brand with some interesting component value choices—470Ω emitter resistor on Q1, 150Ω emitter resistors on Q2...

Bottom line up front—this thing is seriously awesome. For those not in the know, it's a modified fuzz face that uses an op amp servo circuit to keep the bias stabilized at a wide range of temperatures. So having said the most important part, on to the build. I went slightly premium on this...

Here's my take on the Univox Super Fuzz. I was going for something a bit different and more flexible than the original, so I borrowed some features from the now discontinued Wattson Classic Electronics EFY-6. The main changes are adding an octave control that goes from no octave up to full...

This is a pretty straightforward and fun build. The Terminal Fuzz is an improved clone of the Shin-Ei Companion Fuzz. The Terminal cicuit incorporates the output boost stage from the General Guitar Gadgets Companion Fuzz and adds two additional controls: a 250k pot wired as a variable resistor...

A few months back my name came up in the Mystery PIF thread, and @tcpoint generously sent me this PCB and a matched set of MMBF5457 JFETs. I finally got around to building it over the weekend. It's a fun build and I highly recommend it! This was the first build where I soldered SMD transistors...

After building a Dizzy Tone and a Buzzaround, I set my eyes on their close cousin, the Tone Bender Mk. III. Like most early fuzz pedals, the component values of the Tone Bender Mk. III and its variants changed frequently during their relatively short production period. Some values remained...

What to say? It's a Tone Bender Mk. II with a few slight modifications. Sonically, it's unmistakeably a Tone Bender Mk. II. I tuned it to have a little more gating and less cleanup. It does the Zeppelin thing in spades—whenever I turn it on, I invariably find myself wanting to start playing...

This has been in the works since January, but I only got around to building it today. That was a mistake, because the Dizzy Tone is an awesome circuit. I want to give a shout out to @peccary, whose Get Rad! Dizzy Elk project was a big inspiration, as were the curvy traces on some of @KR Sound's...

Here's my take on the classic Interfax Harmonic Percolator. I'll lead with the pictures of the build; the full write-up is below the last picture. Background I had always been kinda meh about building a harmonic percolator until I heard this demo of the Latent Lemon's Hurts: The gnarly...

Backstory Two of my first builds were Jordan Boss Tone derivatives, the PTD Mini-Bone/Trumpeter and KMA Fuzzly Bear/Teddy Rupture. Although the insides of the enclosures are far from my best work, they are still some of my favorite builds. Both of them offer a wide range of tonal options, from...

About a year ago, after lurking in the Bring out yer Diptrace thread, I decided to dabble in making my own PCBs for circuits that Robert was not offering for sale. Many boards later, I decided to take the plunge and try cloning the Spaceman Sputnik II/III. It took quite a bit of on and off...

I've been playing around with a circuit (Spaceman Sputnik) that has two footswitches: one for engaging/bypassing the effect and the second for engaging a feedback loop feature. I would like to have the LED for the feedback loop turn off when the effect is bypassed and the feedback loop is still...

I've had a bunch of fun lately building (and playing through) silicon fuzz pedals, so I decided I'd branch out and have some fun with germanium, too. I picked up several different models of Soviet transistors from alexer1 on eBay and on a whim also bought a set of 100 Chinese 3AX31C germanium...

Some folks on FSB did a trace of the Suhr Reactive Load, which turns out to be a slightly modified version of the schematic that Aiken Amplification put up a number of years ago. It looks like a pretty simple build, but having a PCB would be really nice. It's not quite a pedal, but hopefully...

Can I substitute the LT1054CP charge pump for TC1044SCPA specified in the parts list? Or, alternately, can I use a NPN germanium transistor and omit the charge pump, or would I need to jumper the socket (1 and 5?)? Thanks!