Digital Clef

New stuff (and some bugs)! I ordered a few PCBs from GuitarPCB.com. It's becoming one of my favorite place to order PCB from. Instructions are clear and the PCBs are top quality. Barry (the owner) is always helping on the forums and so far I've had nothing but success. The new stuff Here's what I ordered in the last few weeks: two different Big Muff Pi circuits ( Big Muff Pi Muff'N  built to the Skreddy Pedals Mayonnaise Muff specs, and the Big Muff Pi Opamp ) many One Knob Fuzz (they are so fun and easy to built and incorporate in anything that needs a fuzz) 4-Track Fuzz (which sounds like the distortion on old recording equipment when audio levels are maxed) Industrial Fuzz (based on ZVex Fuzz Factory) Sriracha Fuzz Ratt Deluxe a few Emerald Ring octave-up daughter board Plexi-Plus (similar to the Marvel circuit) Bass Driver (SVT preamp-style) Bass OD Add-Verb reverb Mini Me  MN3207-based with CD4047N clock driver chorus a few Buff N' Blend their 3PDT Vari-B...

  Sourcing parts and figuring out where to get what can be difficult. There are many things to consider before purchasing from different vendors. The scarcity of some parts and the increase in both prices and transit times, both caused by the ongoing pandemic situation, throws yet another wrench in that complicated problem. This post discusses where different components can be acquired from. Links to the different vendors are provided at the end of the article. Caveat: the prices mentioned below were taken from each vendor's website on July 10th 2022, and are in Canadian dollars EXCEPT for Tayda Electronics which uses US dollars. Selecting a vendor 1) Vendor location Yes, this is important. Knowing where your vendor is doing business from and where they are shipping from is vital to make an informed decision. In Canada, if you purchase from a vendor who has established offices in Canada, you do not have to pay for import duties if the items are shipped from a different country. If...

  (Editor's note: It originally wasn't supposed to be a gear review, but here we are...) The One-Knob Fuzz, originally introduced in the late 60's, is THE original One-Knob Wonder. Designed by engineer Dick Denney, it is surprisingly simple and effective. It has neither a tone control nor a fuzz control. The only knob is, in fact, a volume control. Along with the FZ-1, the Fuzz Face, and the Tone Bender, it was one of the first fuzz pedals available on the market. I'll attempt to explain the circuit to the best of my knowledge. Circuit analysis It is an extremely simple circuit. The transistors have a fixed bias, and there's no fuzz control. It's always on, and always maxed out (as it should be). There's no tone stack and no frequency filtering either. It was designed as a silicon fuzz, and the original schematics calls for BC109B and BC108B transistors. Since they can be difficult to find and expensive to acquire, functional equivalents can be used instead...