Cremulator — All Mosfet Tone Bender

[Aleph Null]

Cremulator is an all-mosfet Tone Bender. The main advantage to using mosfets is that the biasing required makes the circuit much less sensitive to transistor beta—no need to test dozens of transistors! It also cleans up better than the BJT version and gets just as wild. I added a versatile tone stack to complete the design.



The enclosure is an LMS limited run that I got for Christmas.



The layout was just for shits and giggles, but I do think it sounds cooler with all the components on the 45°.



The Fuzz is a volume with a treble bleed placed after the initial boost stage. I choose this approach because it keeps the control from crackling and it doesn't darken or get muddy as it is turned down the way a more traditional implementation would. The fuzz section looks like a Fuzz Face because it basically is. Unlike a BJT implementation, R5 is needed to get Q2 to bias properly. C5, C6, and C7 are all added to reduce noise and to keep the clipping from getting too fizzy. The Tilt control is a pretty standard BMP tone control. What makes it special is the Mids control. The high pass portion of the Tilt has a set knee frequency of 1.2kHz, but the Mids control allows the low pass portion to be shifted from 390Hz at the lowest to 4.8kHz at the highest. It scoops the mids that make things muddy, it boosts the mids that make things cut, or it leaves them flat.

I'm really pleased with this circuit.  It does the thing I want from a Muff. It does the bloated Fuzz Face or Tone Bender thing. Plus it chugs and grinds in a way that those other pedals can't.

Here's a demo:

As always, I have extra PCBs. If you're interested, DM me!

[gordo]

Crazy range of tone/drive going on there.  I like this one!

[jessenator]

Fantastic as always.

The tone shaping between mids and tilt has this prickly octavey tone that I haven't gotten out of a muff. then you can, like you said, pull it back into muffly territory. Now I just have to riff on that MOSmuff you got me musing about.

[Aleph Null]

Now I just have to riff on that MOSmuff you got me musing about.

You could probably keep the baising from the original muff and slap some mosfets in instead of BJTs, at least as a starting point. Use the Cremulator tone stack. The extra cascaded stages in a muff are a big part of that saturated sound, the tradeoff being it doesn't really clean up. If you left out the clipping diodes, it might clean up a little more.

[Aleph Null]

Crazy range of tone/drive going on there.  I like this one!

Thanks! I'm really pleased with it too! It might find a permanent spot on the pedalboard.