Quicklime Girl

[jcpst]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

Here’s chuck’s thread about this circuit:

Thread 'This Week on the Breadboard: The Quicklime Girl'

Jan 11, 2026

This was inspired by Music6000. He sent me pix of a pedal he bought called the Canaglia and a link to a schematic on FSB. A simple circuit, 3 knobs, basically an Electra driving a SHO. I made a couple of improvements to how the GAIN & DRIVE pots are connected and here it is.

This is a setting for medium overdrive with low-output pickups.

Knobs (L-R): LEVEL - DRIVE - GAIN


The GAIN knob controls how much diode clipping we get and the DRIVE knob controls how much MOSFET clipping we get. Even with the Tele's bridge PU, it was a little bottom-heavy, so I reduced C1 from...

• Chuck D. Bones

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I like it- I can get that blown-out sound, and the gain stages provide a variety of tones. It was fun with a tele. Thanks @MichaelW for the board!

 

[Aleph Null]

Do you hear much difference between Gain and Drive?

 

[MichaelW]

Do you hear much difference between Gain and Drive?

There's definitely a difference in my build. One sounds like a SHO and the other sounds like an Elektra. The SHO has more headroom and can really push an amp. The Elektra breaks up earlier. Those two controls are also interactive and there's a lot of good sounds by playing with the two then managing the overall level with the Vol. I've been using it primarily as a boost, so fairly clean with just a little "character" then hitting a fuzz or overdrive or my amp with it. It took me a minute to warm up to it but man I love this circuit!