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Nutcase. Bonkers. Chainsaw massacre it is.
But we all know that.
Here is the Zvex Fuzz Factory in Aion version with three extra controls (soft/tone/body) for more extra confusion and interactive nuances.
Amazing to have 8 pots to fiddle with in a circuit that has only 7 fixed resistors...

Hours of chaos and fun.

AC 125 and OC44 GE transistors, 1776fx relay bypass, laser decal, acrylic faceplate. There ya go.

Fat Driver.
Pedalpcb take on Catalin SFT.
Quite versatile I find personally I like the lower gain settings best with bass dialed lower treble higher. There's certainly a lot of doom to be had with voice switch upper position and gobs of gain. Can get a bit too bassy IMO, but that's of course just a matter of taste.
Quite  versatile pedal for sure.
My usual thing with laser waterdecal acrylic faceplate, 1776 fx relay. There you go. Taxi please.

What took me so long to stick these in a box...!?!


I had the Dirtbaby lying around for quite some time, and finally it's in the box. Very very nice circuit, really impressed how it pulls of the BBD feel and sounds, great fun! Great job there Brian!
I'm glad I have a second pcb floating around for another project. Has just jumped up the queue a few notches...

I think Brian was thinking of discontinuing this, if you don't have one already I'd highly recommend it now. Finally.
And to add to the cavernous feel I added the good ol' Rub-A-Dub on a homebrew designed oshparked board. Love that reverb sound that this does.

Switching as usual courtesy of 1776 fx finish line relay boards (am I getting a frequent and endorser user discount by now, Josh...?). Just trying to twist the arm there...
Laser decal with acrylic faceplate, my usual roll call these days.

Finally built the pedalpcb Deofol and combined it with two selectable boosters in front of it, both on my own designed pcbs oshpark fabbed. Always was curious about the Okko Diablo which this circuit is a take on.

In front there's the EQD speaker cranker circuit, modded with selectable clipping diodes, and the Lovepedal Tchula circuit. Each booost can be pre-selected with toggle, activated with right foot switch. Tchula has been changed so the toggle does the job of footswitch on pedal switching to higher gain adjustable with vol pot.

One of my guitar heroes Josh Smith uses the Tchula as his main usually always on sound. Of course his actual magic comes as usual from his fingers and playing, but hey, nice to have this also in arsenal.

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7un7HfLngks​​​

Anyway, then there's the Deofol / Okko Diablo, sounds great too and as I had the rev 1 board mine whistled as well so I did the fix of putting the 39K resitor on lug 2 of gain and 10n to ground which works just fine IMO. I don't know how close this sounds to the original but it's a great pedal and I spent some time dialing in the trimmers for my guitar (Tele) and gear, that was a worthwhile thing to do... tweaks it just right I find. I do like the lower gain settings and there's so many shades with the feed and body control to be had. Noice. And of course hitting it with boost in front or behind, adds versatility.


The photo of graphic I took myself in Burke's Pass, Canterbury, NZ. Tweaked in photoshop, so 'Rustbucket' was the name to go with it, flat tyre included. Also a homage to a busy dashboard with all the knobbies and switches.

Laser decal with acrylic faceplate. Relay bypass switching with 1776 fx finish line.

I dig the sounds of Joey Landreth, Ariel Posen, Josh Smith and those guys use the Hudson Broadcast OD at times.
I can see how it works well also for the slide guitar tunes and the low C tuning that Joey uses I believe.
Built on pedalpcb board with acrylic faceplate of laser decal, this is how I roll these days.

Nice character in this. Will be fun to get into over the holiday period.
On that note Merry Christmas / Merri Kirimete to everyone here, have a good one!

Haven't been building for awhile because I was busy with making music and touring, which is a good excuse in my book.
So back into it here's a fun screamin' box, need to play Snoopy's White Xmas on that now me thinks...
Pedalpcb boards of Distortion 250 into Backfeeder / Boss DF-2 Feedbacker.
Relay switching bypass, acrylic faceplate over laser waterdecal.

.... 16 coaches long.

I do love me some steam locos. So time to make some boxes with a bit of steam action on it.
Full Blast is Pedalpcb Hyped Fuzz, certainly a full on type of fuzz. Two different unique fuzz voicings and a boost in middle position of switch.

Acrylic faceplates over laser decal. Relay bypass courtesy of 1776 finishline pcb.







Runaway Train is Pedalpcb Derailer circuit, aimed at the high gain Marshall type grind of Trainwreck soundz.





The build doc call for OPA2134 op amps which I will give a go once I have them on handm for now I chucked in some TL072 to stoke the fire.

Lots of knobs, firepower and possibilities in this cockpit for sure.
Pedalpcb take on John Hollis Omnidrive, a very clever piece of circuit hacking and I'm impressed with the first test flight.
Great sounds and tweakability, will take me a while to get through what it can do.
Dig it already though and it's great to have this grinder in the stable that's not just another slight variation.

I might add a protective thingy of sorts to prevent the toggle switches to get accidentally knocked when foot switching, mostly to make sure I don't damage one of the levers. Taking it out and replacing switch is too much of a PITA to leave it like this. But for now it's take off and fight for glory, princess and empire.

... is firmly embedded in these.

I think the first stompbox I bought was a secondhand Fulldrive, don't quite remember which version, but it was blue and had scratches on the outside, the inside smelled like beer and bar floorsweepings.
I loved it and still sold it after starting building pedals, so it's good to have a Fulldrive back in the stable of overdrives (which is a bit overcrowded I have to admit but I do enjoy it) without the boost section which I never quite liked on the original and I named it 'Gearbox' because it drives everything harder.
So this is smaller in 125B and has relay switching and I won't sell it (because it's not worth it as we all know..  after all, only the original blue smelly scratchy box would get a decent price these days...).









And then the 'Evolution', BuGGs version of VfE Scream. Versatile to the hilt and sounds great.

Sparky booster, built on pedalpcb ember boost board (BuGGs take on TC spark booster).
Nice versatile push to things after it, amp or other drives. Quite versatile I find and relatively low noise, so a already higher gain overdrive or distortion doesn't get too much more noise when pushed with this. Maybe helped by the low noise pricey OPA2134 opamps.

Switching courtesy of 1776 finish line relay, graphics are laser water slide decal with acrylic face plate over it.










I named it in 'honour' of Sparky, one of the misfits sidekicks staring in classic kiwi soap comedy 'Westside' and 'Outrageous Fortune'.
https://outrageous.fandom.com/wiki/Barry_Gibbs
Worth checking out...

And don't we love some overdrive goodness...
Here's one built ob pedalpcb 'Pauper' pcb which is BuGG's take on Analogman 'Prince of Tone'.
Very nice sounds in there and great tweakability with internal DIP switchiness and pres trimmer.
I even had the 'magic' MA856 diodes to make the Unicorn more sparkly and weepy.

Acrylic face plate over laser decal, relay switching with 1776 finish line.

A lot of knobbies here to fiddle and drive one nuts. Hours of fun to be had.
Two overdrives in one box, first is pedalpcb.com "Skylight OD', sounds great.
That pumps into pedalpcb.com "Lamb Chop", dual path overdrive with clean channel to mix in.
Lotsa tweaks here, some are very subtle and if you don't like lotsa knobs probably not your thing. I find it good fun and I don't mind twiddling around. Some unusual controls there with 'feel' (called 'texture' in original), 'impedance', 'curve' (adjust corner freq of OD path), 'filter' (adjust clean path only).

Switching with 1776 relay boards. Acrylic face plate over laser waterslide decal.
The box is actually recycled from another pedal that I didn't really like, I filled the previous pot holes with automotive filler, sanded down, drilled new pots. Hardly visible and I guess you wouldn't know if I hadn't told ya...

Post number 2000... let's make it a build report, one full of dopamine...

Very nice and super flexible fuzz here on BuGG's pedalpcb.com 'Marsh' Fuzz.
Dopamine seemed a fitting name, and the original that this is made after is played by one of my current idols, Josh Smith.

Relay bypass courtesy of 1776 fx, those work great for me.
Acrylic face plate over laser decal, that's how I roll these days most of the time.

Nice cleanish with a bit of grit and airy, transparent and all those unicorn tears sounding boost and drive.
What else to say? Made on a ProfPoopy pedalpcbdotcom 'Six String Singer' board (google any of those and you shall find...).
Acrylic faceplate over laser waterslide decal, relay bypass from 1776 effects (I'm running low Josh, order will need to come soon...).



Miscalculated the position of name a bit too close to stomp.... ah well... next time...



This is why it sounds 'airy (fairy)': look at all the empty space... 

Just a heads up that I have recently ordered the obsolete XR2206 function generator chip from two different ebay suppliers, one turned out dodgy (got my money back) and the other sellers were good (I ordered twice there).
That's of course no guarantee that they all will be good, but if you're looking for some I'd recommend this seller:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/XR-2206-XR2206CP-XR2206-Monolithic-Generator-DIP-IC/323100987480?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
The chip is used in the Catalinbread Pareidolia. Also in cheap function generators on ebay.

Hi guys, we're looking forward to travelling to the US again in mid June until mid July, visiting my son and his wife.
They are living in Columbia / Missouri. We've been there last time in Aug 2015 for their wedding and now we are blessed to have a Grandchild coming, I'm getting elevated from 'old fart' to official Grandpa, woohoo. The must be an official badge that comes with it, right?
We got some greatly appreciated travel tips and insider hints from you guys on the forum back then when we've been to places like San Francisco, New Orleans, up the Mississippi, Memphis etc.

This time we are flying into Chicago and will stay with family for about two weeks, after that we are ball parking to maybe travel to New York and then make our way to Chicago to fly out again. We haven't really put any details and travel itinerary in place, just hoping to get some hints and ideas what you guys would recommend off the cuff.
Any suggestions and comments appreciated!
Things we are interested in:

• museums, art, architecture
  cool and unique music shops
  some nice markets, vibrant suburbs or quarters to check out (and which ones to avoid... )
  hints for accommodation that doesn't break the bank and also doesn't have us ending up in a dodgy area and place
  ideas for how to get around. For example: Is the train journey from New York back to Chicago worthwhile?
  what towns and places would you guys recommend checking out in that Missouri/New York/Chicago 'triangle'?
  what cool music clubs would there be in New York and Chicago and places? Not so much late night techno clubbing (we've outgrown that and with my Grandpa badge I won't make it into those, after bedtime etc...  ), more like blues and jazz and stuff.

Thanks! Looking forward to the trip!

Howdy, I found an old etched board of early version Fatpants booster (just one vol pot), any idea where I would find build doc please?
Cheers!

Howdy, I've scored a bunch of NOS RCA3401 chips, are there any pedal related or otherwise interesting projects that would come in handy with these?
Cheers!

What better way to finish up 2018 by boxing up two fuzzy boxes of goodiness and rocking it out while the neighbourhood is extra tolerant of noise today...!

Bad Kitty is a based on  Katzenkoenig as per THC schematic. Experimented with a few trannies to settle for the favourite growl, ended up with all BC548 and tested for HfE, settled on a matched set that was all around the 280 HfE mark.
Great versatile fun box, singing sustain and grit, many tones in different combination of tone and sensitivity. Like it lots.

Being a HUGE Wallace and Gromit fan AND a dog owner it was high time to have a pedal with Gromit graphics...
The Lovetone Big Cheese made a crackin' candidat. I messed with the circuit a bit, admittedly, I know sacrilege... but nothing too major. I used a 2P4T small rotary because I have a tone of them and they are great space savers.
That meant I had to put the 'velcro' type setting on a separate switch as the original does that with a 3P4T rotary instead and it allowed me to introduce and extra tone setting on rotary. his also means that the gated 'velcro' type sound is available on any rotary setting and I have even two slightly different versions via the on/off/on toggle (called 'bones'...). So a bit more versatility, soundwise however no changes to the core circuitry. Just more options.
Very cool fuzz too. Rippin'...

Relay bypass courtesy of 1776 finish line, acrylic faceplate over laser printed water decal.







Guts 'Bad Kitty':



Guts 'Big Cheese':



Have a fab and happy New Years everyone out there, stay safe and sound!

Here's a pedalpcb.com Mesmerizer that I stuck into a wah shell. The wah pot controls the depth of effect, the two extra knobbies on side are speed and volume.







Since the pedalpcb mesmerizer had a fault in charge pump section of pcb I plugged in an external chargepump board similar to MBP roadrage idea. Works just fine. Also added a klon buffer on output as I found that helps to make it compatible with all sorts of other pedals in behind. I had on another mesmerizer build found that I had a funny interaction/volume drop with some pedals after this. The buffer solved that for me.










The donor shell was from a defunkt IK multimedia Stealth pedal, hence the label on treadle. Nicely built shell and works just fine, only I had to make new side panels as the original ones had too many holes for what I was planning. I could have left that, but i did prefer the exercise to make new side parts out of aluminum brackets. A bit fiddly but worth it.



Bypass is courtesy of Finish Line 1776 effects relay bypass, made an acrylic LED bar to sit on front which I quite like.
Very nice pedal with UniVibe/tremolo/phaser flavours.
I added an extra 1/4 stereo jack that can be utilized as expression pedal which disconnects the treadle pot from circuit board when stereo jack is inserted. In that case I can't use the inbuilt circuit, just the expression function obviously. But good to have both options.
Dig it.