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Haven't seen any build reports on this so I thought I would put one up. It sounds quite good! I really like the flat mids mode, my only quibble is that I wish it had a touch more gain in flat mids mode. The Silicon and Mosfet clipping sound pretty similar to me, only slightly different but I think I prefer Mosfet. Overall it's a very nice sound. I think it will end up on my board if I can figure out which other pedal to bump off. :-D I had a little trouble with electrolytics that were too tall for my 1590b, other than that it went right in.

My workspace was locked down due to home repair projects and family visits over the holiday, so I'm just now getting this one out. It's a mkII with a Small Bear Flying Dutchman transistor set using a snazzy Aion Deimos board. I ended up adding an 82n to the output cap on the back of the board to bring out a little more low end, which seems to also have helped the mk1.5 mode have a little more going on. The Dutchmans sound great!

Hey gang, here's a Monolith Oracle fuzz I finally got all put together recently. Several years back I bought some 2N1309s by mistake and had always hoped to be able to use them in a build someday. I recently saw a layout for the Oracle which uses PNPs and still works with negative ground power, the 1309s sound great in there. Closing out 2021 with a nod to one of my favorite films of all time Big Trouble in Little China because why not. :-D

Hi Folks,
We've been on kind of a Brian May excursion around the house so I tried out a Glam on vero (large knobs), which I liked a lot except for the slight slapback delay from the 2399. And that led to the Porkbarrel (small knobs) which was a pretty tight fit and nearly a disaster when I drilled for a full sized 9v jack (fixed with a couple washers).




I'm not sure what happened with the clearcoat on the Stone Grey Distortion, it's gloss on every other pedal except for this one. I used some Micro Sol on the decal hoping to get fewer air bubbles around the drill holes so maybe that did something to the clearcoat, or I just didn't shake the can enough. I was getting oscillation in the upper range of the distortion so I added a small buffer which took care of it. I'm not really a high-gain guy but this one it pretty nice.  And, pink LEDs are trending!

Continuing with 2021's theme of Poorly Planned/Poorly Executed Builds, here's my Lucky 13 and 808. The 13 is a Basic Audio Lucky Number that is now on my board because it sounds excellent and responds surprisingly well to picking dynamics. Tried to disguise the offboard spaghetti with zip ties.



The 808 is two TS variants, a Hudson Sidecar and Nucleon's Son Of Screamer that includes a focus control like a Zen Drive. Also features the Cludge of the Month: 2 chunks of hot melt glue stick to keep the Sidecar board away from the cable tip. I used a generic OC44-type PNP from a failed attempt at a Rangemaster for the Sidecar which is held in place with a comfy piece of foam. Currently on my board as well, they sound great! And, clear knobs are currently trending in Austin, TX!

2020 was the Year of the Tonebender around my desk. From left to right: DAM/Solasound MKII Hybrid, Solidgold Fx Rosie, and Effects Layout Earthbender (EQD Black Ash). The DAM design sounds characteristically sludgey but cleans up surprisingly well by rolling the guitar volume down. They're all great but the Rosie is probably my favorite, just a great overall sound with a very useful external bias.





Vying for most poorly planned build of 2020 is my Tube Bender. A great sounding circuit that I realized was too wide for a 1590b only after making the decal. Some things never change. Not an actual Tonebender but including it here because sound-wise it's sort of related?

This started as an Effects Layouts Silver Fox board (BJFe Silver Bee) that I wanted a little more gain out of, and a Strange Master I never boxed up. I put the Strange Master in front of the Silver Fox and found out they sound pretty great together. I made a little demo vid since it's easier to just hear it than describe it, and I'm terrible at vids but hopefully you'll get the idea. Here's the Prickly Pear:

Hi Folks,
Here's an NPN Superbee I completed recently (except for forgetting I still need to glue in the LED). OC139s from the fine folks at Pedalhacker.

Hi Folks,
Here are a few fuzzes from BJF/Moodysounds built from layouts over at tagboardeffects: the Sparkle Face, Bonebender, and Bonebender2. I put the Sparkle Face into the Ace of Spades box I already had, the Bonebender is in the hammertone box, and the Bonebender2 is the 1966 black-on-black. Both Bonebenders are using GT404s and really sound fantastic. They were super easy to bias, much easier than the Mark1 I made, in fact the hammertone Bonebender sounded great from the first so I never even tried to adjust the bias. Thanks to Bjorn and Moodysounds for putting these out for the DIY community, and to the lads at tagboard for the layouts. Definitely worth a build, all three.

Hi Folks,
Here's a Fuzz Face variant I built up a while back from Storyboardist's Jack Deville (Mr. Black) Vintage 2-Knob Fuzz layout. I had tried a couple Fuzz Faces before but had never been that impressed, maybe I didn't understand how to use them, but this one sounded interesting so I gave it a try. It was ok, but it wasn't until I got it back out, put the right pot values in  and tried out several different MP38A's that I found out I really like this circuit a whole lot. I was looking for something that would dirty up my super clean Fender amp, and it sounds great with my Tele. The enclosure is one of BLMS powercoats that I relic'd up with some steel wool and sandpaper, I thought it came out kinda cool looking.

hi guys,
I built up a fuzz face recently with some MP38A's and I'm trying to track down some michrophonic behavior when the pedal is on. I first noticed it when I accidentally bumped the pedal with my foot and it made a really loud popping noise. So I started tapping around on it, the jacks, DC jack, stompswitch, enclosure, etc., thinking it might be a bad solder joint or something but wasn't able to isolate where the issue is. I can get the popping sound by tapping pretty much anything on the outside of the pedal. I suppose it could be a cold solder joint somewhere but was wondering if it's possible for transistors to be microphonic? Any ideas?

Hi Folks,
Here are a few dirt pedals I've put together recently. The builds themselves are my usual messiness but I thought I would put them up in case someone might be interested in how they sound.

Rullywow Glasshammer - I built a Son of Clay Jones overdrive several years ago and it's been one of my favorites Screamer flavors ever since. I did not realize that this is pretty much the same circuit until I already had it finished, still that much of a noob I guess. But the sound is still so great, and the clipping switch is a nice addition.  Maybe they sound slightly different? Placebo effect? 



Aion Fractal (Pearl OD-05) - Another Screamer-derived circuit. The parametric tone control can get an extremely wide range of sounds, all of which are pretty great. The sparkle paint went on a lot darker than I expected making the decals illegible to my aged eyeballs. :-/



Aion Corona (Boss OD-1) - I really like my Dist+ build so I gave this a go as well. They sound similar but I think the OD-1 is more balanced overall, I can hear more mids with it anyway. I set mine up with stock 1N914 clipping and also Fulldrive2-style mosfet clipping, and the diode lift setting sounds pretty close the my Dist+.



Nucleon Jubilee JFET drive - This one sounds very similar to my Boneyard 2, which I like quite a lot so it's nice to have a similar yet different sound. The Nucleon has a tighter low end and a lot more midrange and overall gain (my Boneyard2 build was not super high gain).



these last two are new-ish builds that went into old enclosures from previous builds. I left them messy. I dunno, they work fine as-is, and they're not exactly all-new builds anyway. The first is a BJFE Little Green Wonder that replaced an SS-2, which replaced a Kingslayer. Sonically, it gets into Screamer territory but without as much midrange. I like it quite a lot and I don't think I will be switching it out any time soon. The brown enclosure had one of my very first builds, a Yellow Shark, that I liked but I wished it had more clarity. So I put in a Bearfoot Sweet Honey, which is exactly what I was looking for. I'm thinking of putting the SHOD and HBOD in a 2-in-1 at some point. For now this still has the remnants of my old wiring on the switch. I kind of shocked myself when I opened it up after so long and saw how bad my wiring was back then. Forgot to add: vero layouts are from Guitar FX site.

Brian posted a link to the Sweetwater website on his FB page a few weeks ago where you could sign up for their Holiday give-aways. I figured it would just get a bunch of spam from them (which I do now) but maybe I would get a discount code or something I could use to buy some strings. Then last week I got an email from one of their reps saying I won a Roland G-5 VG Strat! I kind of thought it was a scam, since I pretty much never win stuff, but the guitar showed up yesterday and is really nice. It's got the Roland modeling setup installed and when that's switched off it's a regular MIM Strat. I have to say, Sweetwater's reputation for great customer service is for real. Their rep was really great on the phone, in spite of the fact that I've never purchased anything from them, the guitar set-up out of the box was really great, came with a gig bag, and they even emailed pix of the guitar along with the tracking numbers. So, a huge thanks to Sweetwater and to 'Bean for the give-away link!

Hi Folks,
I got these finished up all right around the same time so I figured I would post them as a group.

Two Monkeys is  KOT-style setup with a Morning Glory and one of Rutger's Atomic Blue Overdrive PCBs. Switches tend to be set and forget for me, and interfered with the decal design so I made them jumpered. I'm really, really happy with the sound on this one, a great combination. My first two-in-one, too!



The Xenon is a Son of Screamer-type circuit built on one of Rutger's nice Nucleon boards. He added a focus control, like on the Zendrive, making at a really flexible and great-sounding circuit.



96 Tears probably would have been a better name for a Wah pedal, I'm not sure why it seemed like a fit for this but here it is. This is a Fairfield Barbershop built using the GuitarFX vero layout. I'm still kind of on the fence with this one, I guess I need to figure out how to best use it. It's probably the most transparent drive I've played. I know that's a cliche, but it doesn't seem to color the tone much at all, just adds a little top and bottom like a loudness switch on a stereo. The Sag gets sorta synthy at higher settings.



Madbean's 8-Ball. I'm surprised I don't see more build reports for this circuit because it really sounds great, very well balanced. I really like this one a lot and expect it to get a lot of use!

Hi Folks,
This is Juansolo & Cleggy's Superjudge circuit on one of Ben Rullywow's slick fabbed boards. A really aggressive version of the crunchy Marshall sound, the guys did a great job tweeking this one out. Sounds best loud, as you might expect. The paint is a dark grey hammertone over copper metallic. It didn't quite come out like the test paint sample I made but still looks pretty OK, and the build also includes my signature melted wire. :-/ Still, big thanks to all involved for a great little project!

Hi Guys,
This uses the snazzy red Grind Customs board. So many misadventures along the way with this one I was really glad to finally be able to use it. I had soldered in the board-mounted pots and then got the impression that I had reversed the Gain and Volumes labels on the decal, so I unsoldered the pots and wired them in so I could reverse their positions. Then realized the decal was actually correct, and had to put the board-mounted pots back in. Then when I did a pre-box test there was no sound at all. It was either a bad charge pump IC or a cold solder joint somewhere because it came to life after I went over it a few times. I probably could have done top-side jacks had I planned it out better. Sounds very good now, excited to have it on the board!!

Hey Gang,
Here are a couple British-flavored circuits I finished up recently. The first is a Marvel Drive using the layout from Guitar FX. There are great Plexi sounds to be had all over the place with this one, very flexible design. For some reason the long format layout really derailed my attempts to organize the offboard stuff. Zip-tie holds the spaghetti a little tighter at least.



This is a Bluesbreaker version using one of Rutger Ockhorst's Atomic Blue Overdrive boards. I'm really glad to have been introduced to this circuit. It sounds excellent and I'm looking forward to trying out all the other variations now that I've been made aware of it. The paint is not exactly gold, but looked more gold to me than the actual Rustoleum gold at Home Depot. :-/

Hey Gang,
Here's a Tonebender MKI I've been tinkering with for a while and finally got to a place where I think I can close the lid on it. I used the Gary Hurst layout from over at the Guitar FX Layouts blog and a set of OC75's from Small Bear. Crazy how the tiniest tweak on the trim pots can either make or totally wreck this circuit's sound. I added a couple vidyas to demo the range of the Attack pot.



http://youtu.be/sygN8KiBiTY

http://youtu.be/wyZb10SCWjI

Hi guys,
I'm looking for a little sweepable mid peak circuit to add on either before or after a fuzz build I'm doing. I'm not really interested in a full range Baxandall because I only have space for one knob, and I'm pretty sure just a mid peak would do what I want. I tried out the Idiot Wah but couldn't get it working (guess that makes me the idiot :-/ ). Any other suggestions?

thanks!
Gray

Hey Folks,
Here's another "why did I wait so long to make one of these" builds. I was so surprised at how much I like the sound of this. It cleans up really nicely with a slight volume knob roll-off or light picking and the dirt has a lovely grain. Highly recommended if you're looking for a sweet Plexi sound. The only problem now is what to do with the other pedals made redundant by this one, because there are several, and they're ones that I like a lot. This is another one with a Minecraft theme, for no particular reason other than I couldn't think of a good name. Eek, just noticed the pube-like thread of hot-melt glue down on the LED. <sigh> there's always something. . . . .