DIY Guitar Effects

Op Amp Muff on FuzzDog board. Wanted to try one of these for a while now. Definitely has it’s own thing going as far as Muffs go, I’m into it!

Phase 90 on Fuzzdog board. Wanted to build one of these for ages and despite having made a couple of other more complex phasers (Lovetone Doppelgänger) I’ve found myself wanting something simpler. It’s such a classic phaser sound and nice and minimal so just what I was after and takes up less space on my board!

Complete! This one is a BB Preamp built on Fuzzdog board. Recently bought a Diezel VH-2 amp and wanted something to hit the front end with, saw a vid by my new fave gear demo guy, Zach Wish of this pedal and it sounds great so thought I’d give it a try! It’s perfect tbh, just adds the right amount of ‘something’ that previous ODs (OCD, Timmy, Klon to name a few) haven’t delivered for me. Well chuffed!

Next up is an SFT with one half of a Super Duper 2 in 1 (so basically a Super Hard On with an extra volume knob) used for a boost. Includes an order switch so you can either run the boost into the SFT for more gain, or after for a big volume kick to use as a pseudo 2nd channel. Loads of tones on tap!

Not gonna lie this build was a nightmare from start to finish, just about everything that could go wrong did! Got there in the end though and happy to have it finished and sounding good as is a build for a friend.

Lastest one done is a PedalPCB Thermionic Deluxe based on the Friedman BE-OD Deluxe.

This has all the hallmarks of being my main OD/distortion, great balance of hot rodded Marshall type tones with enough tonal flexibility to dial it in perfectly.

Finally built myself a Rat! This one has a few of the usual mods such as the Reutz mod and clipping selection (silicon/led). Built on PCB Guitar Mania board, thanks Gonzalo!

A few months ago I bought a cheapo Chinese Rat clone, the Tomsline Black Teeth, it’s a great little pedal for £25. I’ve always been curious about the hype for the vintage spec Rat, LM308N etc so thought it would be interesting to build one and compare. It was pretty easy to get them sounding more or less identical so sorry mojo chip guys, it’s all bollocks!

Modded my Micro POG and gave it a new look while I was at it!

The mod itself selects between the two rows of pots, giving you two presets in effect. Really handy for me as means no more leaning down in the middle of a song trying to still play and move the knobs at the same time cos I forgot to do it in between!

Madbean Aquababy based on the Boss DM-2. Been wanting a classic analog delay and they don’t come much more classic than this! It definitely has a ‘thing’, hard to describe but it’s just what I’d hoped, lovely!

DBA Fuzz War v1 on Guitar PCB Mania ‘Death by Fuzz I’ board. This thing is really picky about transistor hFE, after much faffing about I discovered that they need to be <380hFE, anything over that and it resulted in a low buzzing oscillation! Matched them all in that range and it was fine.