Create colorful mosaics of all your favorite characters from the new movie Dolittle!

Always a fan of the MXR Distortion+/DOD 250 as you all have probably figure out by now. Here's VFE's take on the classic circuit. Bunch of extra controls and mods including soft clipping, along with bass and tone controls. Schematic here for reference.

Here's a simple clean boost circuit built by JHS. It's really just the Tim Escobedo Duente JFET boost with a fixed resistor instead of a tri...

Since the Zakk Wylde overdrive from last week was based on the SD-1, I figured I might as well go ahead and lay that circuit out as well. This doesn't have Boss switching so you can wire it up for true bypass. I've added some extra pads around D3 if you want to change that to a germanium (which seems to be a fairly common mod to this effect).

For those of you who didn't want 1590A week to end last month, here's another mini layout for you. It's an early iteration of the Rebote Delay that features a simple JFET stage at the input, followed by the PT2399 delay stage. Simple, yet effective. Note: mind the 3 electrolytic caps on their sides in the middle of the board. Here's the schematic for reference.

The XB-70 is a clone of the Captain's personal '77(?) Guild Foxy Lady, which were built by Electro Harmonix and generally very similar to Ram's Head Big Muffs. In the Captain's own words, "It sounds like torn leather soaked in piss and salt smushed lovingly into ears... It is a brute of a pedal, has a really intense roar at full tilt, like any good Big Muff really." I used my old Ram's Head layout as the starting point, but altered the pot placement and it should be a nice fit in a 125B now.

This is a library of perfboard and single-sided PCB effect layouts for guitar and bass for pedal building enthusiasts.

One of the higher regarded Big Muff derivatives out there, the Mk III is Skreddy's latest version of their Mayonaise BMP. On the board is a dip switch which allows you to switch in or out 2 extra capacitors to the tone section. You could wire these as external SPST switches (you'll need 2 of them) if you like. I used my Triangle Big Muff layout as a starting point, but there are several changes so the two aren't interchangeable. But like the Triangle layout, this one is designed for solder-side mounted right angle pots and should fit just fine in a 1590B.

I can't remember how many times I've been asked to do this one. I started laying it out ages ago, but got frustrated or interrupted and never went back to it. But here it is now, better late than never. The layout is for board mounted pots and it will fit in a 125B enclosure. Just couldn't seem to get it narrow enough for a 1590B. Schematic can be found here.

Here's the Boss OD-1–the first of the tube screamer-type overdrives (yes, the first TS wasn't an Ibanez). It features asymmetrical clipping diodes (where a stock TS has symmetrical clipping) which gives it a thicker, more edgy sound. Initial versions of the circuit used a quad opamp, using 2 of the opamps as in the input/output buffers, but this was later replaced by the more common transistor buffers and a dual opamp to save cost and use more readily available parts back in the late 70s/early 80s.

Here's a layout for the Eric Johnson Fuzz Face. Had someone ask if they could build it on the basic Fuzz Face layout from last year. Since there's a few extra components in the EJ version, I thought I'd make a specific layout for it. Should still fit in a 1590a though. Q1 is a BC183 (hfe ~250), and Q2 is a BC183C (hfe ~650). Use the trimmer to bias Q2 to 3v.

Part of the last request included a cab simulator to run the headphone amp through. The ROG Condor is a great cab sim and has a fairly low parts count. It uses a JFET amplifier at the input, boosting the signal to drive the following 3 filters (Bridged-T notch filter, High-pass filter, and Low-pass filter). Much more info on the circuit can be found here, as well as a few mods. J201 apparently sounds the best for Q1, but similar DSG pinout JFETs will also work. Any dual opamps can be used for the 2 ICs, so socket and try the usual candidates (TL072, JRC4558, etc).

Here's a cool dirty reverb effect by Death by Audio. It uses a Belton brick like many other designs, and offers clean reverb with the gain control turned all the way down. But when you increase the gain, fuzz is infused to the signal. You can mount the Belton brick to the board from the solder-side (best to do this once the rest of the board has been populated). It'll probably be too tall with the brick to fit in a 1590B, but a 125B should work just fine.

The Phantom Octave is an octave/ring mod type fuzz that's very interactive with guitar pickup selection and volume/tone controls. The LED pads are for the one that's under the knob in the video below. You could use it as the on/off indicator, but it might be hard to tell if it's on when signal isn't passing through it. Should be able to squeeze it in a 1590A. From the manufacturer: Equal parts mysterious and ghastly, the Phantom Octave is a shape-shifting octave fuzz monster! No controls? They're not necessary--they're at your fingertips! The Phantom Octave is extremely interactive with your pickup selection, picking intensity, and your guitar's Tone control. Like its namesake, the octave will disappear with picking intensity and by rolling back your guitar's Tone control. Octave effect is strongest with low-output single coil pickups.

Here's Wampler's Plexi-Drive, another Marshall-in-a-box pedal. The original unit uses a 470µ capacitor for power filtering, which seems like...

Here's another plexi-in-a-box pedal. Fairly simple in comparison to others. I've drawn 2 layouts for this one; one stock and one with an adj...

Got a little simple boost/preamp for your Thursday. Should be a pretty easy fit in a 1590A. J113 alternatives would be J201, 2N5457, and probably a couple other JFETs that are obsolete. 😑

The Ghost Echo is a nice little reverb unit, and uses the Belton BTDR-2H-L digital reverb module, as well as a PT2399. I'm not going to lie, this layout gave me some issues (at one point it made DIYLC crash). Even had to use a jumper (which annoys the heck out of me, as you may have picked up on). You won't be able to squeeze it into a 1590B, but a 125B should be a good fit. The Belton brick can be mounted directly to the board from the solder-side. Here's what EQD's website says about the effect: Vintage spring reverb emulation capable of providing a little atmosphere all the way through to vast depths in one tiny box. The attack control sets the delay of the initial pick attack on the wet signal only. When playing staccato this registers as a slap back type echo hitting the reverb but when playing fluid lines it adds a massive depth and “fattens” up the sound. The dwell control is a fine tune function that enhances the decay and the depth controls the intensity of the reverb. Update: If you're having a hard time getting unity volume, try replacing the 10k resistor of pin 9 of the TL074 just above the 2.2uF cap with a 17k resistor (or something close to that).

Found a trace of this over on the Tagboard Forum. It appears to be a highly modified Fuzzrite with an added gain recovery stage and a lot of value changes. The Saturation pot increases the output cap of the first stage, and the Fuzz pot is a pregain control. Originals use PN2222 transistors for Q1-2, which is a TO-92 packaged 2N2222A, so either will work just fine. Here's the schematic for reference and I there are fabricated boards for this in the store.

Here's a simple overdrive circuit adapted from the National Semiconductor "Ultra High Gain Audio Amplifier" and Jack Orman's "Minibooster" by Andrew Carrell (Dragonfly). It should easily fit in a 1590a.

This layout is the legendary Klon Centaur, but without the charge pump. The charge pump is present in the original to keep the 2nd opamp from clipping. But since there are diodes before signal even reaches that IC, it may not matter. Check out this thread on FSB for more info and schematic. Without the charge pump, the circuit was much easier to layout for a smaller footprint. Still a fairly large board, but should still fit in a 1590B.

Got a request for this one. It's a barely modified Tube Screamer with a clipping switch to go between silicon and red LEDs. The switch is a SPDT on/off/on by the way. Gearmandude really seems to like it.

Happy #FuzzFriday! Got a request for this one. It's the classic silicon Fuzz Face circuit with a few added components.

Got a request to redo the LPB-1 with the pot board mounted. Can't say I'm opposed and it only took about 5 min to layout. :) Easy fit in a 1590A. If you want to make the Screaming Bird treble booster, replace the two 100nF caps with 3.3nF.

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A while back Brian Wampler shared a bunch of mods to the classic MXR Distortion Plus circuit in Premiere Guitar magazine. It adds a tone control, a switchable soft clipping stage, a compression switch, and a bass boost switch.

It's New Years Eve and time for the last layout of 2019 and I'm pretty sure it's the 800th on the blog! So here's the Mostortion. Why is it called that? The CA3260E opamp at it's core is MOSFET based. Unfortunately, this chip has been discontinued, so building a straight clone may be a little difficult, but a regular dual opamp like a JRC4558 or TL072 will work just fine as well. It's pretty similar to a TS10, just with a MOSFET chip and 3-band EQ, which is pretty handy. Schematic and more info here. Should be able to squeeze it into a 1590B.

The latest iteration of the OCD has quite a few differences from the earlier models. There's an added transistor stage at the output after the volume control, and a JFET buffer that can be toggled for buffered or true bypass. I've laid it out so it will still fit in a 1590B with board mounted pots. The off-board wiring's not the most intuitive, so here's a diagram for wiring up the buffer switch and 3PDT bypass footswitch.

Here's a cool MOSFET-based overdrive from Crazy Tube Circuits. Apparently it's based on a Neve console input channel stacked 3 times. With t...