This is a library of perfboard and single-sided PCB effect layouts for guitar and bass. I'm not an electrical engineer by any stretch of the imagination, just a DIY'er who likes drawing layouts. It is meant for the hobbyist (so commercial use of any of these layout is not allowed without permission) and as a way to give back to the online DIY community.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

GodCity Brutalist Jr

Here's a really cool distortion based on Providence Stampede and designed by Kurt Ballou of GodCity Studio. He's actually made his business card a PCB you can build this circuit on, and if you can catch them while they're in stock you totally should. But while they're sold out, you can build one using this layout. Fits in a 1590B or a 125B with top mounted jacks if you prefer.


Tuesday, September 26, 2017

EWS Little Brute Drive

Found this one on FSB and haven't seen any layouts for it, so I thought I'd give it a go. Originals are in 1590A enclosures with the Tone and Volume controls as trimmers, but I've laid them out as external controls. There seems to be some discrepancy on the taper of the gain control in the schematic, unless EWS uses a dual-gang pot with different tapers. I'd just go with a linear taper and hope for the best. Should fit just fine in a 1590B with board mounted pots.


Friday, September 22, 2017

Maestro Bass Brassmaster

The Brassmaster was originally designed for bass and also picked up by guitarists. The circuit is very unique and originals are hard to come by. I was able to lay it out to fit in a 125B with board mounted pots.


Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Pladask Delay V3

Don't know much about this one. Stumbled across it on the Tagboard forum and thought it was an interesting design. It can apparently do normal delays as well as some lofi craziness. Schematic and discussion here. Laid it out for board mounted pots to fit in a 125B.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Wampler Sovereign

Here's another Wampler take on the JFET mu-amp design. This one adds a op amp stage at the output and features a Big Muff-style tone stack. This one's pretty versatile and a great sounding distortion. Ian sent me his perf layout of this one and I refined it a bit for what you see below, so a special thanks to him. Schematic can be found over on FSB.


Tuesday, September 12, 2017

TC Electronics Spark Mini

Here's a work-a-like for the Spark Mini. It'll be a bit of a squeeze, but it should fit in a 1590A. The original is all SMD components, so the transistors listed below aren't the same as the original, but through-hole equivalents. Other NPN and PNP transistors can be used (2N5088/87, 2N3904/06, etc.). Here's the schematic for reference (requires FSB login).


Friday, September 8, 2017

Escobedo T.M.K.

Here's a really cool one designed by the great Tim Escobedo. T.M.K. = Too Many Knobs. (And you thought the Fuzz Factory had too many) It's part fuzz box, part noise maker and would probably be just as much at home on a synth rack as it would be on a pedal board. This can get pretty gnarly and should fit in a 1590B.



Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Valve Wizard Engineer's Thumb

A little blog update: You may have noticed there wasn't a post yesterday and that there is one today. Why on a Tuesday and not a Monday? Some big-ish changes are coming to the site in the near future, which (along with a bunch of other small things) is taking up a lot of my free time. So don't freak out. I'm still here. Layouts are still coming. Just not quite as frequently (2 a week instead of 3). Now that that's out of the way...

Here's the 5-knob version of the Engineer's Thumb compressor. Been meaning to do this one for a while and decided to do it in Eagle. It's generally considered a Dyna-Comp/Ross Comp killer, and uses one side of an LM13700 chip in place of the old CA3080. This one will fit in a 125B with all 5 pots board mounted. The Bright switch is off board, but that's just 2 wires. If you don't feel like etching, you can get a board fabricated off OshPark. Original info on the circuit by the designer can be found here.



Build doc here with schematic, BOM, and drilling template.

Friday, September 1, 2017

Death by Audio Kill Kill Filter

It's a Fuzz and Filter Friday! Here's DBA's Kill Kill Filter. At it's heart is a stripped down Big Muff (only one distortion section without clipping diodes) with a footswitch selecting 2 different pots in the tone stack. Schematic can be found over on FSB.