The Ritual

BuddytheReow

Breadboard Baker
Update: See post #2 with cleaned up gut shot and other circuit inside.

Here's another BtR original. These are 2 one knob fuzzes that I made switchable in a single enclosure: a NUT FUZZ (my design) and Phantom Octave Fuzz. Both are stripboard builds. Both of these builds use a LED: one a red and one blue. I snagged a few multi-color diodes that I wanted to use as well. When bypass is engaged the diode is green, when in the NUT FUZZ mode its red, and Phantom Octave it's blue.

Edit: Besides the multicolored LED, I also wanted to have the "magic eye" effect of having a LED light up when signal passed through. Flip the switch to the "red" channel, the indicator LED glows red and the other LED lights up when I play. Flip it to the "blue" channel, and the indicator goes blue and the other LED lights up when I play. IDK. I thought it sounded like a cool idea at the time.

These are heavy, low end fuzzes and work pretty well on bass besides a low tuned guitar. I had a lot of fun on my lunch break just messing around with some heavy fuzz riffs. If I had a camera I would record a demo, but it sounds great to me. I like the Nut Fuzz one better, but both are in a similar ballpark in terms of sound; one is more octave-y than the other.

Since these are stripboard there's a rat's nest, but I tried as best I can to keep it to a minimum. Oh well, I still had a blast putting this together.

Yea, I know I messed up on one of the diode holes being offcenter.


Here's the pedal in bypass. This is the only pedal I've made that has a LED on when disengaged. I'm used to it now.
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Here's the "red" channel with signal going through it.
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Likewise with the "blue" channel.
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aaaaaaand....the rat's nest gutshot. Yeeeesh....
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This pedal was complete nearly a year ago and it's just been sitting on my workbench with next to no usage. Why? I wasn't happy with one of the circuits inside (the Phantom Octave I found via Tagboard). I kept telling myself I needed to put something else in it's place and have been tossing around the idea of a fuzz face circuit. It took me months to pull out a breadboard and start working things out. I finally found something I was happy with and needed to add a "magic eye" LED that lights up when signal goes through it. You can read more about it here and how the magic eye fits in.


Once I built it on stripboard I needed to take out the phantom octave and put this one in there. Looking at the gut shot in the first post, this was in MASSIVE need for some cleanup inside. Yes, it worked, but gosh, was it messy. Especially for a one pot circuit! I took an afternoon (well, really it was all day but had to jump back and forth with work but it probably added up to an afternoon) and tried my best to clean up all the wiring.

So, here's the breakdown of the circuits....

RED Channel. This is my Nut Fuzz: a one-knob fuzz that is very bottom heavy with an octave tinge thrown in there. This is basically half a muff circuit with mismatched diodes thrown in the clipping section (red LED and 1n4148). Like I said it's bottom heavy, but the highs are still there. The red LED is the "magic eye".

BLUE Channel. My take on a Fuzz Face and is essentially a tweaked DAM Meathead. I call it the Butthead Fuzz. Only the capacitor values were tweaked and an extra circuit block was thrown on there to give me the "magic eye" effect and I felt the circuit was different enough to rename it. I used a superbright blue LED from my stash. This one is much darker in tone and a little lower in volume than the Nut Fuzz. There is a difference in tone when using either your bridge or neck pickups, so it's not like the highs are non-existent.

I only use humbuckers in guitar or bass right now, and there is a difference in sound when the volume knob is cranked, knocked back just a touch, nearly off, and everywhere in between. The Butthead Fuzz cleans up much better than the Nut Fuzz. These circuits are different enough to put them in a single enclosure, but they also share similar qualities since they're both 2 transistor fuzz circuits. I think she's finally done and I can get some more time on the pedalboard with this one.

Oh! One other thing. The gut shots. Here's the guts as of 10 months ago.

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And here's the updated one after about 2-2.5 hours at my bench. Is it better? I think it definitely IS an upgrade, but still on the messy side. One of the drawbacks of stripboard. Especially that star grounding in the bottom left. At least the channel selector switch is cleaner.

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