MONTARBO SINFHOTON - VERO LAYOUT

after seeing THIS VIDEO, I was once again intrigued by the MONTARBO SINFHOTON. after finally hearing it, i figured I would whip up a vero layout. you can find it in THIS THREAD ON FSB. I'll try and get around to building it soon, but it has been double checked by another forumite who could only find one small correction, which is detailed in the thread. later, I will also post a layout for the earlier two knob model. a nice modification to this circuit would be a pot on the input for gain, as it is fixed in the original.

ASSLOAD OF PAIA DOCS

HERE is a link to the Paia forum with 4 pages worth of projects and their original documentation.  included is the ubiquitous Rocktave Divider among others.  unfortunately many designs use the now extremely rare 4136 ICs, so the layouts will have to modified or redrawn.  none the less, the schematics are there, along with breakdowns of the circuit as well as construction instructions.  check it out.  i'm sure there is something there from the Paia workshop that you haven't yet seen..


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FSB forumite roseblood, pointed out to me that you can get the 4136 on eBay pretty easily. he's got a vero layout that uses a 4136 for a dual tube screamer circuit. check it out over at freestompboxes.org!

MONA LISA OVERDRIVE LAYOUT

i was asked to post a layout for the MLOD, so here it is.  enjoy!  i tried this circuit out with 2n5457, j201, and j309 fets.  they all work fine..  the Q2 position is where most of the magic is.  try different transistors for different tones.  i enjoyed a 2n5210 with an Hfe of 250-300 there, myself.  it had nice midrange content without sounding muddy.  the images are at 600 dpi, a current limiting resistor for the LED has been added, and the gain pot can go up to 10k  that's all you have.  this circuit is a great sounding boost/light OD/ line driver/buffer. i hope you dig it!

take it easy!

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LAYOUT IS VERIFIED.

gigelmargel's CRANKED AC

here is a pic of an assembled cranked ac pcb put together by FSB member gigelmargel.  looks great, and thanks for verifying the project!  the full project files can be found here-

http://apocalypseaudio.blogspot.com/2009/11/wampler-cranked-ac.html

IBODOG'S GREEN BOMB VERO

i just thought i would post a link to ibodog's green bomb vero layout over in his diys gallery.  the layout is verified, and there are a number of other nice layouts over there, too.  click on the title of this post for the link.  thanks, ibo!

TOECUTTER V.1 REV.C PCB LAYOUT

recently there was a request for a Toecutter pcb, so i made up this version of V1 because i still think that it is probably the best sounding version. it isn't verified, but it is checked in eagle, so it should be good. i hope you guys enjoy it, and be sure to let me know if you get it built!

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just a little tip- for a wider variation in the gain control use a larger pot- say 500K.  personally, i like to keep it up around the upper end of the gain range, so 100-250K is usually what i like to go with.  also,  a 100K volume pot will brighten up the sound a bit, and changing the 4K7 resistor to 10K will add more gain, but i think it loses some of it's crunchy magic.

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spencerpedals made this great post about The Toecutter over at FSB, i thought i should share it-

"Re: RnFR- The Toecutter

by SpencerPedals » Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:42 pm

Finally got around to breadboarding this with some low-leakage pirated germaniums, house numbered so I have no idea exactly what, and it will rattle your fucking skull. I've liked the clip since I heard it, but didn't have a closet full of parts. If anyone's ever heard the stuff from Slow Burn, the tones you get are almost identical. I always test pedals through an old school solid-state Crate and then if nothing explodes, I run them into my Ampeg V4. This thing definitely comes alive in the later (as most do) and with tuning dropped to C, is probably even lethal to small animals. I don't have any pets, so I can't say for sure. Actually I do have a snake and I didn't check, but she may very well have perished. I have V1.1 on the breadboard but with a 500K gain pot from V3 and used Q1 and Q2 in the 80's hFE and Q3 in the 120's. I'll be seasoning to taste over the next few days/weeks and report what I settle with. And if you're not a fan of growly loudness, it actually sounds very sixties fuzz when you turn the gain down and screw with the bias. Not my territory with this one, but versatility is there. More to come."

great stuff! glad to hear he's diggin it!

GREEN BOMB FUZZ TAGBOARD LAYOUT

here's a tagboard layout for the GREEN BOMB that i built up today.  it's got a great deal of variation due to the wide range of gain and the phase cancellation.  lots if tones, but it always has that great FuzzRite buzz.  it's going to be a fun fuzz when i get it fully built.

WAMPLER - CRANKED AC

recently while browsing a certain clone kit site, i stumbled across the schematic for brian wampler's cranked ac design. having been on a serious ac kick a while back, i was never able to find the schematic, so this was kind of a cool find. the cranked ac at first looks like your run of the mill jfet type distortion box until you notice that wierd parallel fet configuration. ecaxtly what this is supposed to do to the sound i don't know, but it is a rather interesting little tweak. i'm sure that this could be adapted to just about any transistor type, and wonder if it has any of the same kind of properties as stacking ic's.

i redrew the schematic and made up an eagle verified pcb layout which should work ok. if anyone gets it built please let me know .  you can keep up with all of the latest on this subject HERE.


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LAYOUT IS VERIFIED!

3PDT DAUGHTER BOARDS

recently i've gotten right sick of trying to jam my nice, thick, 22 gauge, solid core wire into switch contacts.  many times i'd end up marring the insulation, or just not liking the appearance.  a remedy was to design a daughter board to connect all of the wires to the switch.  after a bit of talk with my friends over at FSB, i decided to expand on the idea, and built a few different versions.  V1 is a simple board with connections for each lug on the switch.  V2 has a resistor added for limiting the power to the LED.  version 2.1 adds a pad for connecting DC and the other side of the LED.  finally, V3 adds to this a spot for a power filtering electrolytic capacitor, and polarity protection diode.  in the future i may add more designs, possibly adding R.G. Keen's MOSFET polarity protection scheme, and a voltage divide for use with op amp circuits.  there has also been some talk of making a group buy for printed PCBs.  we'll see if that ever comes to pass in the future.  you can check out all of the layouts and keep abreast of the latest news HERE.

APOCALYPSE AUDIO - PANZER FUZZ

my latest creation is an uber-high gain fuzz-tortion designed around the soviet GT308B germanium transistor. since this seems like one of the more common russian germanium transistors that people buy, i thought it would be a good candidate to include in my next project. the 308B has a gain that usually hovers around 75 in most specimens that i have seen, except for some batches marked with red dots that have a gain of around 20 points less on the Hfe reading. as with most other soviet Ge's, their leakage is pretty much nil, this allows for excellent stablilty, easy biasing without trimpots, and no need to do tedious gain/leakage checks. i thought the 308 would be the perfect candidate to design a high gain fuzz around because of it's relatively high gain compared to other russian Ge's, and i haven't done anything along those lines since the Toecutter, which although it is doomy as hell, it is in itself not all that terribly high gain anyway.

the controls of this guy are as follows- gain, lo drive, hi drive, tone, and volume. the lo drive control is basically a full range gain control for the 2nd stage, and the hi drive control is i gain control for the 3rd stage that is concentrated only on the high frequencies. with all of the gain and drive controls turned up, you get an all out doomy grind with plenty of bite for on the top end. rolling back the gain control gives you a great crunch tone that i would describe as medium-high gain. the tone control is a heavily modified version of one that i saw on the AMZ site. i added 2 more caps, and adjusted all of the values for a nice even sweep. turning it all the way up also brings in a little bit of low end as well, so you get what sounds like a little dip in the midrange, too- adding to the metal tone of circuit. don't get me wrong though- this isn't one of those ultra-scooped metal zone P.O.S.'s. this thing has a ton of low end and has been tuned to have a bump in the high mids as well in order to cut through the mix and add some nice grind to the tone.

i did this write up of the basics of the schematic for culturejam's new circuit design forum circuitworkshop.com.
it can be found HERE.

the input cap(.033) was chosen to roll off just the bottom end of the input signal, there will be plenty more of that to come. the first stage is a basic booster using feedback biasing(1M resistor), and a .47 uF bypass cap for more gain throughout the full frequency range of the guitar. the emitter resistor(1K) was chosen to limit the amount of output from the first stage, and the 470pF cap rolls off some highs and stabilizes any oscillations that might happen.. next we have the gain pot(500K) and a 2K2 resistor setting the minimum amount gain available. the .01/220K combo allows highs to pass easier than lows trimming some of the fat off of the boosted signal. stage 2 is biased the same, as is stage 3. i find this technique of biasing easy and simple, allowing for fewer components as well. the .047uF cap rolls some high end off of this stage. the lo drive pot is a 10k pot going through a 47uF cap to ground. this isn't really just low end getting boosted per se, more of a full range gain control for this stage, but with the lows rolled off by the .o47 cap it definitely has some of that feel to it. the 100K/.1uF combo are doing negative feedback duty, reducing the overall gain a bit, as well as taming some noise and adding stability. next, the .0047 cap is more low pass filtering, and the .068 is hi pass,interstage coupling, and DC blocking. stage 3 also has some more high end filtering grom the .0022 cap to the 9V rail, and the bias values have been tweaked by ear a little. the hi drive pot is a 1K connected to ground through a 100uH inductor. turning this up adds a decent amount of sizzle to the sound. the 680/.1uF to ground were added to round out the frequency response of this stage a bit. the tone control is a tweaked version of jack orman's swtc2. i changed some values and added the .0033 and .01 cap to ground. the final .001 cap is rolling off a bit more of the very top end. finally the volume control has a 2K2 resistor to ground to limit it's lowest value. the mosfet and 1M resistor are there for reverse polarity protection, and the 100uF cap is for power filtering.

attached is a pcb layout, that is of yet unverified, but it has been checked in eagle, so it should be good. i'm going to try and get some clips done soon- they won't be the highest of quality though, but you should be able to get the idea of what is going on. hope someone out there can give this one a shot- it's really a killer!


XXXXXXUPDATEXXXXXX  it looks like the size printed on the layout is a bit small.  if you measure it out to that size, then increase by 10% you'll be perfect.  sorry about that!

2, NO, 3! NEW DIRTY BOOTS VEROS!

dudes! made up a few new veros for the db. the first one is a small layout for box caps and radial electros for you guys that like those little baby boxes. the second one is for axial caps vintage style and specifies the specific type of caps that i have been using for my builds. of course, sprinkle your mojo to taste. i'm callin this on v5.2 because of the added reverse polarity protection diode as well as a limiting resistor for the pre control. haven't decided at the exact value for that one, most likely around 50-100K, or just put lug one straight to ground like before. the third one is just stupid small. i call it rev2. good luck you masochists! take er easy!

GARY HURST MK1 VERO LAYOUT

here's a layout i made up today while trying to stay awake at one of my corporate gigs. it's for gary hurst's version of the tonebender mk1. a kind of finnicky crcuit, it is said to work best with leaky trannies, we'll see when i throw it on the old breadboard later. looking forward to building this one up after i heard some killer clips at the DAM forum. the layout can be easily changed to vintage specs as well, if that's the one you are after. the schemo can be found HERE.
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here is a shitty pic of the verified board.

JOE DAVISSON'S SIMPLE CAB SIM VERO LAYOUT

i made up this layout and built this up tonight so that i could work on fuzz designs in my headphones late at night. layout is verified.
schematic can be found HERE.

TONE FACTOR ULTRA LORD VERO LAYOUT

the ultra lord is a high gain fuzz that was created by andrew carrell and licensed to the Tone Factor brand. i haven't had a chance to build it yet, but apparently it sounds awesome. the origin of the circuit is originally based of a circuit called the dirty sanchez which carrell designed in order to have something that was a cool sounding, high gain fuzz, made from easily available radio shack parts. the ultra lord is a tweaked version of the dirty sanchez apparently taking it's sound to it's full potential. the UL looks to me like a bazz fuss running into a darlington pair with a mark hammer modded shin-ei fy-2 style mid scoop control on the end and a sag pot for the voltage. a combo of some nice snippets. here is vero layout that i made- it is unverified, but thoroughly checked. if you make it, let me know!
the schematic can be found HERE.
the thread for the ultra lord at freestompboxes.org can be found HERE.

new vero layout- Roland Double-Beat Fuzz

i was workin on this thing the other day, finally got it finished. as of yet, unverified. hell, i haven't even put it on the breadboard yet. but the clips i've heard are pretty sick, and i have yet to see someone else do a layout for it so that makes me feel special. HERE is a link to the thread over at freestompboxes.org- my favorite haunting ground.

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this pedal originally had a wah after it, but this is just the fuzz section of course.

schemo can be found here.

and here is a clip. watch out for that fuckers toes though. they'll gitcha.