welcome to Apocalypse Audio, your haven for DIY guitar effects in the end times. so, start prayin to the fuzz gods, savin up those parts, and remember, when the big one goes off- keep your transistors shielded from those pesky electromagnetic pulses!

27.3.11

GREEN BOMB SOUND CLIP

here's a clip of the Green Bomb that FSB forumite pillof made a while back. I stupidly forgot to add it to the blog. thanks pillof!!
GREEN BOMB SOUND CLIP

FEATHER FUZZ #1- and POST #100!!!

hey, it's post number 100! let's party!! man, this blog has been fun so far, so I'm looking toward 100 more. thanks to everyone who has been following along with me, your comments mean a lot, and I hope to see you around in the future. here's my latest pedal that I'm rather proud of, I think it's fitting for the big 1 0 0.

i've been commissioned by a great band out of Champagne, IL ,called the Dead Feathers, to create a couple of fuzzes for them. they weren't satisfied with their current fuzz tones, and i told them i'd be glad to give them a hand. the first one is for one of the guitarists that plays mainly fingerstyle guitar. he was looking for something with a decent amount of attack, and they are into the garage rock/sixties style stuff, so i thought the Green Bomb would be great. i added the addition of a JFET input buffer, because i feel it evens out the inconsistencies that can come from playing with ones fingers, and it gives the signal a bit of extra oomph that might be needed to keep the attack when playing without a pick. i did the layout on vero, as i don't have a pcb made up for this particular design yet, and made a few modifications when i tuned the circuit by ear. the pedal has some cool, old, low gain, two-tone, T-106, Si transistors i picked up a while ago from a surplus guy on ebay, and pretty much run of the mill metal film resistors, box caps and a couple ceramics in the filter sections. the electrolytics are some nice audio grade ones i just picked up from a dealer in poland. another thing i did with this build, is instead of snapping off the tabs on the pots, i drilled the extra small holes, and mounted them properly- thats not something you see a pedal builder do everyday!;) Dirk Hendrik would be proud! the finish is an awesome plum sparkle with dark green heathkit knobs, topped off with extra large rubber feet and a green led. it really looks killer in person. the pedal is sounding really cool too, and i think he'll be happy with it. stay tuned for the second pedal- it's going to be an all new design.
disregard the scuff on the the tone knob.^^^ it's getting replaced.




sorry the 2 pics above are kind of blown out, i took them indoors in crappy light.  although, they do kind of have a cool early seventies grainy b movie style to them that i kind of like!

24.3.11

transistor testing app note

HERE is a link to a cool .pdf app note on transistor testing. it should come in handy when you aren't sure if you've got a dud or not.

23.3.11

NEW FUZZ CIRCUITS IN THE WORKS

I just wanted to give you guys a heads up- the next generation of Apocalypse Audio fuzz circuits are being cooked up as we speak. I have been putting one of the latest through it's paces during practice with my latest project, and it's coming through excellently. the idea was to have one pedal that can clean up into a nice overdrive with the rollback of the volume knob, and can be turned up into a nasty, but musical, old school sixties style fuzz with tons of gain on tap. I wanted to be able to use one fuzz, and be able to get multiple tones, with enough gain that no booster was needed. this would allow me to simplify my pedal setup considerably, which has become a sort of mantra of late. what I ended up with was a sort of 3 transistor fuzz face/fuzzrite/big muff frankenstein hybrid that has enough flexibility to be usable with any rig and go from wooly, to cutting, to clear, whenever you want. it also is able to clean up in a sort of jekyll and hyde fashion- for overdriven chord work, or single string stun gun action with the flick of the wrist. stay tuned for schematics, project files, and demo videos soon.

NAT SEMI APP NOTE 31 - AUDIO OP AMP CIRCUITS

HERE is a link to national semiconductor app note number 31. it's a virtual bevy of op amp circuits. from the most basic to the obscure, they all have an example in this application note.

THE GERMANIUM REVIVAL

fsb moderator, and good buddy, GregG posted this link about the revival of germanium with hybrid Si devices. it's a really fascinating read. Ge kicks ass! FTW!

LINK