Colorsound One Knob Fuzz On Stripboard
November 14, 2024This One Knob Fuzz by Colorsound is a great DIY pedal project is you’re looking for an easy or beginner guitar pedal build. As the name would suggest, there’s only one knob (for volume) and, being a fuzz pedal, there aren’t that many components to work with. Like so many single knob pedals, like this […]
Lumpy’s Tone Shop Lemon Drop On Stripboard
November 7, 2024Here’s a fun pedal build project: Lumpy’s Tone Shop Lemon Drop. This pedal actually comes in a variety of names though. I wasn’t familiar with Lumpy’s Tone Shop, but found the stripboard layout on Tagboard Effects. In looking into this pedal, it looks like Lumpy’s Tone Shop is now going by the name Electric Majik, […]
Ibanez Tube Screamer (TS808) On Stripboard
October 28, 2024https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBg-8j0x-a0 The Ibanez Tube Screamer is one of the most famous and sought after overdrive pedals around. The original TS808 and Boss’ OD-1 are classics that everyone wants to recreate. Well, here it is, the wiring schematic and stripboard layout for the TS808 model Ibanez Tube Screamer, or pretty close. I have an article on […]
Catalinbread Karma Suture On Stripboard
October 15, 2024Here’s a fun and great sounding DIY guitar pedal build: the Karma Suture by Catalinbread. It looks like like this pedal is no longer in production, so if you want one, you’ll have to build it. To be specific from the get go: this is the silicon version of the pedal; I went with the silicon […]
What Are Decoupling Capacitors?
October 2, 2024While not as prominent in guitar pedals as coupling capacitors, decoupling capacitors are used in electronics and guitar pedals to help direct currents as needed. This is usually to smooth out DC electrical signals or prevent noise from AC signals. This may seem very similar to coupling capacitors, but there is a big difference. Coupling […]
A Brief History Of Fuzz Pedals
September 24, 2024I love fuzz pedals. I love making fuzz pedals and I love playing guitar through fuzz pedals. Although different overdrives or distortions won’t sound the same, I find the variance in sound between these types of dirty pedal is much smaller than the variance in sound you get from different fuzzes. One fuzz circuit will […]
The Difference Between NPN And PNP Transistors
September 20, 2024Transistors come in a lot of different types, but in this article, I’m only going to be talking about bipolar junction transistors (BJTs). Specifically, I’m going to be talking about NPN transistors and how they’re different from PNP transistors. A transistor is a component that’s very commonly used in guitar pedals and other electronics. If […]
How Does A Drive, Gain, Or Distortion Knob Work?
September 17, 2024I’ve touched on this subject a lot, but I want to approach it differently now. Namely, from the perspective of the potentiometer that is controlling the gain in an overdrive, distortion, or fuzz pedal. When talking about this before, I’ve mostly gone through how clipping diodes work in guitar pedals and how they cause clipping […]
What Are Coupling Capacitors?
September 13, 2024In guitar pedals and electronics in general, coupling capacitors are important to keep different parts of a circuit separate and to prevent DC power and other noise from moving from one sub-circuit to another. All in all, it’s quite simple, and that’s really the explanation… but if you want to know more, read on for […]
The Difference Between Silicon And Germanium Transistors
September 11, 2024In the world of guitar pedals (and electronics in general), transistors are made from one of two materials: silicon and germanium. There’s a difference between these two materials and how they affect what a guitar pedal does, and it’s important to use the right kind of transistor in guitar pedal builds if you want to […]
