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DS-1 Orange Distortion from the BYOC kit.
Yep, the ubiquitous "orange distortion" DS-1.
This kit has the original chip and many useful mods.
There's the trendy "seeing eye" mod (Led clipping), but I also added two other clipping options on a three way toggle, including a vintage germanium and asymmetric choice.
Did the improved (heightened) mid range response- so you won't sound like a bee in a bottle, substantially broader tone sweep, has genuine true bypass of course, top quality components- including the original funky in-line ic (that's the one the ebay guys pay $ crazy for), and my favourite mod of all, a pregain control, so you can get some really great od type sounds from it.
IAs mentioned, I added asymmetric/led/ge clippers too. Tempted to try the "Muff" mod at some stage too, but it already so versatile.
I know I'm slagging a $50 pedal, but this it is a cool circuit used by countless guitar heroes over the (particularly '80's) era. (Vai, Satch, Stern, Navaro, geez...just about anyone) They cop some flack, and yes you can "upgrade", buy overpriced clones (Jemini?) or pure BS "upgrade" mods,(geez led clippersband a blue status led... :roll: ) but at the end of the day it's just a spanner. This one is much more. I'm very happy with it -in fact I've used a modded one (secretly) on and off for well on 20 years! Very happy with this one. Kudos to Keith and I'm hoping for many more simple, but wisely tweaked pedal kits down the line...(B G Fuzz guys! check it out!)

In caseyou're wondering, controls are Internment, Evisceration, Mood and Embalm.






I wanted it to be a little orange somewhere...

A "Bonamassa Custom" spec'ed build of the classic Germanium Fuzz Face circuit.



Spent way too much time getting the trannies biased to the "correct" voltages supplied by a TGP member - could have just used trimmers, but not pig headed ol' me.



I breadboarded then hard wired the suckers using vintage resistors that were remarkably off spec- great way to find just the right values tho!...until winter sets in. 



Low gain NOS Russian GT308 and MP39B transistors. With exactly 9v DC supply, Collector of Q1 is 0.91v and Q2 at 6.59v.
Voltage inverter added too.



Sounds great to me though- loud, chewy, germy warmth and great clean up!

Was approached a while back about contributing to the electronics of one of these very unusual "harmonic" guitars that "New complexity" builds. The instruments have extra strings, pickups behind the bridge as well as in front and certainly generate some strange and haunting sounds. I've always been a sucker for weird and wonderful, and remember a great sound page (those are plastic 45's you'd get in the middle of magazines) Mid 80's there was one I really liked that featured homebuilt instruments- name of the dude escapes me now, the name of the tune I do remember "Legs Akimbo" (named after his dog, shame on you! dirty minded folks:P )...Anyway, it won the Hottest New Player or whatever competition, and really was great stuff and SO unique.
The instruments Lewis builds I think work in a similar way. What he asked me to do was build tremolos that would work on one half of a humbucking pair to create a kind of phasing sound when combined with the other coil. Both the fore and aft pickups have these. Apparently there's a mythical Sonic Youth guitar that does something similar too. I also designed a custom buffer system to make all this work too- mercifully, I left figuring out how to wire it all up to him! Anyway it works, check it out! Best sounds are at the end IMHO. I never got to play it, but would sure liked to have a go.

So I was recently was declined by a customer who wanted to a certain boutique fuzz.
Low parts count, no mojo, 2x 10cent transistors etc. Said I'd do it for virtually nothing, but the dudeprefered to spend way too much on "the real thing" :roll:  (which is really actually a colorsound pedal anyway)
Decided to build this, for sale very cheap, less for domestic, if anyone here wants it- primarily to piss him off... yes, I can be shallow.
graphic is funny, but possibly offensive... best of both worlds in my opinion. was thumbing my nose at the cork sniffers...
Art is St Dennis


Acid etched,
Running BC108 and 109s, all vintage P2P construction. Rips, as this circuit does.
Open to offers, shipping is currently included. PayPal gift please



Also had this interesting request, asked to do a foot-stomper-able vol control so the dude can go from rhythm to solo. Initially I thought, just use your "volume pot man!", but it's true, that can be a bit hit or miss, not to mention the problems with tonal change as the vol gets backed off.
I know there various treble bleed circuits, and believe me I've tried (and use)  many of them, but I've found this little box works really well- gonna have to build one for me now, it's works great with my 'Wreak!



Utilises the classic Stephen's Micro Buffer so there's no "toanzuk-a-ridge" with two passive vol controls in series. Dude wanted a bypass and  status led for the buffer, so, with all the requisite switches it's something of a varsity phone box.

 

Anyway, that wraps up another day.

Built this one a while back, had it back in to add modulation. Don't think I posted it because it wasn't etched, but I like the pic and will etch it one day.



Modulation is one of Rej's cool little P-LFO boards, beneath the main board.



This one is a custom built dual delay.



Name the movie anyone?...
It wasn't exactly "Citizen Kane", but worth a look for the cameo by Steve Vai. 



Dual filtered delays, one with Tap tempo and modulation.

Just finished this multi-effects box for a trumpet player...



It's a preamp, Delay, Analogue Flanger (Current Lover) and Reverb.



Guts are a complete mess, this one was cobbled together with considerable consultation, trial and error to get it working well with the mic & powered monitor system the dude uses.



Etch is Miles, his Bitches Brew album being one of the primary inspirations for this rig.



I must admit, despite my reluctance to take this job on, it turned out sounding great. Reverb and delay were no-brainers, but Flanger on trumpet is an incredible sound.

Rotten comp.



Built for Ken "Jamo" Jameson, my local butcher. When you love BBQ, like I do, you need to cultivate a good relationship with your butcher. 



Dual Drive
A Zen/BB Preamp.

A "Hardwired" Mouse. 





Bit of a rat's nest inside, a reflection of my state of mind this week. :|
One of the ever witty CJ's "Snitch" boards
6 position rotary, 3 hard, 3 soft clipping. I ditched the si/si hard clipping for Ge/Ge, but other than that... I love it, it sounds ripping!

Meatball envelope filter.



Pretty fun pedal, but a painful build for a number of reasons.
Taylor's projects are great, but his multilayer boards are extremely easy to wreck. Either get it right the first time or suffer the consequences. Desoldering nearly always will lift traces or worse, cause shorts. I had to rebuild the LED section on vero as swapping the Leds was too much for it. Luckily, despite having no less than 10 controls, it's a relatively simple circuit.



As I discovered was the experience of other builders here, all my Tayda LM1458s didn't work, but luckily I had one RCA chip which worked perfectly.
After considerable trial and error I found 3mm yellow leds worked best with my LDRs. Green 5mm seems to be popular, but I don't think it is about the color so much as the pairing of the leds to the ldrs. Green Leds just didn't put the sweep in a useable range with my ldrs.

Apart from a couple of days tweaking, the painful part was when I managed to plunge a small flathead screwdriver into the tip of my left index finger. Ouch! Won't be playing guitar for a couple more days at least. 
When I can, I'm going to play it a while, but have plans to fiddle with it a bit more too- going to try adding a LFO for a bit of fun

I'm a big fan of the ROG projects.
Having built quite a few English Channels, I was very interested in the new Britannia project.
It has a lot of interesting features. Jon Patton did an extensive review, mine is going to be shorter...Build one, it's fantastic!



Etch is a bit flawed, missing some letters from 'Brilliance" and 'Volume", oh well.
It's likely the result insufficient heating of the toner there. (there's all that extra metal beneath it for the screws)

Plenty of room inside, I'll probably retro-fit a second stomp and booster of some sort in there too, just haven't decided which one yet.
I've got a verod Fryer Booster which seems a likely candidate, or maybe a Stratoblaster.

Been a while  , so here's a few recent builds.

A couple of Booty Thieves (Kingslayers).







I've been constantly futzing with the diodes in these. This one has Mosfets at the moment.







This one's a P19 Muff with a clean blend. Built for a bass player.





I'm not quite sure what's going down with Satan and the Nuns in the picture. Looks like they're passing him babies. 



A couple of SHOs.







A Muff with clean blend paired with the Spackler.





And a couple of Fender Blenders.

Mayhem Machine
True bypass looper with a Feedback loop.
Literally endless fun. 





MDMA Mini
Highly recommended.

BD-2 and Delay, my "travelling light" pedal.



Socketed a few things to fool with later...



The Tayda Drive.
No schematic on the site, and I haven't had time to trace and identify it, but it sounds good. Smooth & warm with plenty of mids.





I'm feed up with the assault on the marine environment down here, there's been Japanese whaling, scrapping of marine parks, dumping and proposed mining of the Great Barrier Reef, and now a barbaric and pointless "shark cull."
I'm going to sell this one and donate the money to the Sea Shepherd.

Codpuss.   
One of the 2009 Aquapuss boards, I've had a couple of these for years, but never built it.
Discovered one chip that worked in my pile of about 30 dud mn3005s. Turned out to be a re-branded 3008, so I built the double chip adaptor board from the instructions at Smallbear and paired it with a 3008 I had.



...then lucked across a couple of real MN3005 recently. :lol:  ...so I see a dirtbag in my future.   


The Coddess likes these, and so do I:



...but I kinda like the chrome chicks too.  :?



It's the first anniversary of the Codtone Expandra board, I got to build this one incorporating  pretty much all my favourite mods. (still available HERE...shameless plug.)



It looks stock, but it's got a three way gain toggle (no forbidden mode, but a bit more gain in distortion mode), toggle for stock or "broad" voicing, (the latter retains a bit more presence and bass) and asymmetrical clipping with a fet.

Here's a custom "English Professor," ROG English Channel & Professor Tweed (Vox Top Boost & Fender Princeton amp emulators) in one box with a custom switching system.



Right hand switch is effect/bypass, left is English/Professor with a bi-color LED and centre is cascade feature that places the two effects (Vox into Fender) in series for some ripping higher gain tones.



Was something of a task to wire. I put this pic on my Facebook page and asked "What is it?" 

My favourite reply was "...a PITA"   



Got Fairchild J201s in the Vox and 2N5457 in the Fender. Took a while to bias everything. Needed to shield the output cable to stop it whistling in high gain mode.



Left hand Led is a 3mm yellow/blue which came from Mammoth.

First build of 2014; the 'Freak Fuzz.'



Derived from a Ge FY-2, my turret layout, ditched the "fuzz' control, tuned the bias (Q2 is at 4.49v), added switchable output caps for a bit more beef and a polarity inverter IC for the  PNPs.



Trannies gains are Q1 = 67hfe & Q2= 79hfe.



Working on a clip...

Here it is, my first ever Cubase recording....
Playing is rough as guts, it's all improvised, no eq, mastering or any idea about anything much... ...but sure had fun!
Guitar is a tele with the fuzz on everything except the first arpeggiated chord. Different tones just by using the guitar controls.
[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/captain-cod/freaky-fuzz[/soundcloud]

...Oh, wait a minute... it's just more pedals.

A Darkside with BC550s, could be my favourite Muffesque circuit yet...
Image and name was the customer's idea.





A Rub-a-dub, long brick, on perf (thanks Jon) with a short/long switch (thanks Rej)





The Fuzz-E-Mite (say it like Vegemite  :wink: )
A Fuzzrite in a slanted box.



BC109 (hfe~400) and 2N2222 (~150) is how I like it. The switch is a "Phat" control.
The inclusion of a lighted pot & board calculated to turn the stomach of the point to point purists. :lol:

Nautilus, Mutron III+



Water's a tricky etch, but I tried to capture the dynamics of the moment.



Sorry about the focus. :oops:
Stock build, but a C-taper pot for gain

CJ/Peyote's Spasm Chasm.

I've used this etch before for a Pharaoh build which I gave away, I liked it though, so used it again.



Built more or less stock, though I've made the mids pot a 3 position switch and socketed the trannies and diodes. Trannies are 2N5089, though I'll be using this build to try others too.
Got leds at the first clipping stage and an on/off/on switch for si/none/ge at the second clipping stage. This gives quite a range of tones. The tone stack on this is a bit different to a regular muff and overall it's quite dark and certainly high gain. I actually clipped off the second 560pf smoothing cap to brighten it up a little.

Lovely board to work with, a worthy successor to the Gruntbox.

A pair of Supreaux Deaux:













And, inspired by the confluence of Rej posting his PTP power box and me finding a 20v 1A wall wart-  a regulated, filtered power box for my mini board.
Top 3 are regulated to 15v, bottom 4 are 9v. Put Paul Stevenson's automatic polarity correction too.