I didn’t realise how long its been since I last updated the blog. I really should try and update it more often!

Pics below are for the latest one of my builds.

This is the Rock section of the Catalinbread DLS on a PCB I did with switchable treble bleed caps. Sounds good, just like my Catalinbread DLS. I freekin love this circuit; I will have to try and upload some soundclips ASAP.
The paint is ‘vintage/old’ hammerite for that paint ‘mojo’ 😉 . It absolutely stinks so god knows chemicals are in it! I really like the way this one came out. I used my 3PDT boards again as well. They are coming in very handy.

The 3PDT PCB’s and connectors have also allowed me to build a new ‘test’ pedal that I can use to check new circuits/designs out etc easily.

I have used Aluminium knobs on this build which I really like; I may use them again in the future.

This is my ‘Gravy Boat’ fuzz that I built up using my own PCB design, with one of my 3PDT PCB’s as well.

The PCB has board mounted pots, and one of my 3PDT PCB’s, which made for some neat looking guts.

The circuit is similar to a Fuzz Face but with higher gain and a few other tweaks. There is also a trimmer control mounted on the PCB to get the circuit working at its optimum bias voltage. The input cap is switchable with the toggle switch to get a bit more variance in tone.

The Gravy Boat currently has a couple of 2N3904 transistors in there, but I might see if I have anything more ‘mojo’ knocking about that I can stick in. It sounds great as it is though so I may stick with the 2N3904’s.

Been a while since I last posted so firstly; happy new year!

Just before Christmas I completed a custom build comprising of 3 circuits, switchable by rotary control, with standard latching and momentary bypass footswitches. The guy I made the pedal for was really nice and had a very clear view of what he wanted in terms of the circuits and the pedals operation; which made things very easy for me!

The 3 circuits that he decided upon were a treble booster (with frequency control), a ‘SHO’ style booster and an ‘Eternity’ style overdrive circuit.

The photos below were taken at various stages of the build. Shielded wiring was used on the input and output connections to reduce noise. The finish is purple hammerite; achieved through the old school method of mixing the red and blue versions!

Enclosure prior to measuring and drilling for the control knobs for the 3 effects. The 3 circuit LED indicators, rotary switch and footswitches have already been drilled:

Enclosure after drilling for the control knobs and with the customers selected choice of knobs from the various options available at SJ Effects:

Picture of the enclosure after the purple hammerite had been applied. I was really pleased with the result and have used the same finish on some of my own builds; Prince would love it thats for sure!

Enclosure with most of the wiring done, excluding the bypass footswitches. The thicker grey cable on the left and right hand side of the enclosure is the shielded cable connecting to the input and output jacks. The wiring took a while to complete for this beast!

The finished article, the customer was really happy with the result, and came to pick it up in person which was really nice. I don’t usually get to meet customers so it was great to get a chance to chat with him!

If you have any custom effect in mind that you would like building please do not hesitate to contact me; be it a simple Fuzz Box through to a complex beasty like the one pictured above!

I had a couple of hours to spare last night, and while playing around with some of my pedals I came to a scary realization; I own six different variants on the Big Muff!

There is definitely something magic about this circuit. All the variants I own (or have built) have something unique to them.

Heres a little roundup on the different Big Muff’s I have bought/built so far (I will also do some soundclips when I get a chance):

Earthquaker Devices Hoof:

I bought this pedal a while ago after hearing that Dan Auberach from the Black Keys is a fan (the Black Key’s are one of my favourite bands).

It is a variant on the Green Russian Big Muff Circuit that uses LED’s as clippers (instead of 1N914 diodes) and germanium transistors in two of the amplification stages. The tone stack is also flexible as there is an extra mids control that lets you go from scooped to boosted mids.

I really like this pedal as it has a ‘raw’  and open tone to it that is really good for single note riffing (ala Black Keys of coures!). Like most Russian Muff’s it is a lot less saturated than, say, a triangle variant Big Muff. I went on the Earthquaker Devices website one day on a whim and managed to snag a one-off pink variant that they were selling; bonus!

BYOC Large Beaver:

The BYOC (Build Your Own Clone) Large Beaver is one of the first BYOC pedal’s I built and it remains one of my favourites. This guy is a really nice sounding variant on the Triangle Big Muff circuit and has a lovely, smooth, tone.I called mine the Hair Biscuit.

The gain and tone controls are also usefull at most settings which cannot be said for some Muff circuits.This guy also comes with a mids switch that allows you to go from traditional scooped, to beefy boosted, mids!

For what it costs this pedal is a killer muff. If you don’t want to mess around sourcing your own parts and choosing/modding an existing circuit I think this is the way to go for high quality muffage on a budget (as long as you can use a soldering iron).

For you guys like me in the UK you can buy BYOC kits at the excellent Vibe-o-Tronic here: http://www.vibe-o-tronic.co.uk/products.php?brand=1&type=1.

EHX Little Big Muff:

I bought this guy a while ago and it is still stock; I have done no modifications to it. For what it costs it is a cool pedal, plus its housed in a 1590BB enclosure and is solidly built, which could not be said about some of EHX’s pedals that they used to build!

The sound is ok but is a little bit too ‘trebly’ for my tastes; it does not have the warmth and ‘creaminess’ that  some of my other muff’s have. It is a very high gain, saturated, pedal. For the money these things cost you can’t really go wrong; it just lacks that certain mojo!

Skreddy Mayo Clone:

Straight off I should say that this is my favourite Big Muff that I own.

Skreddy is a very well regarded pedal builder who is kind of the ‘Master of Muff’s’ if you will!

One of his most popular variants is the Mayo (no longer in production) which is based around a particular triangle era Big Muff that he noted all the component values down for and then cloned.

I built a clone of the Mayo with some mods (switchable flat mids and switchable input cap’s) which you can see below:

Part of the Skreddy Mayo’s mojo is supposed to be in the transistors he used (2n5133’s) which are rare as hens teeth, and even rarer to get in the right hfe (gain) range. I built mine with BC549C’s and it sounds good to me!

This thing absolutely ripps for smashing pumpkins Siamese Dream era tones. If I had to choose one of my Muff’s to take on a desert island this would be the one.

Civil War Big Muff Clone:

The Civil War Big Muff is well regarded as a particularly tasty fuzz to use with a bass guitar. I like playing bass, and like playing it even more with fuzz, so built one up.

This thing sound like the depths of Hades when you plug a bass into it and crank the tone CCW!

I built mine including some old ‘mojo’ capacitors I had knocking around. Whether this improved it in any way I cannot say. The tone is quite similar to that of the EQD Hoof but is a tad bit smoother and not as ‘raw’, probably due to me using diodes as clippers and not LED’s like the Hoof.

I would say its not as flexible as the BYOC or the Hoof as the bass on this thing can get a bit silly if you are not in the mood for a bit of doom riffage! On bass guitar this Muff wins hands down though.

Way Huge Swollen Pickle:

If a Big Muff variant was judged solely on having an even better name than the original then this would surely take 1st place!

I bought a Way Huge reissue Swollen Pickle a while ago as I was kind of fascinated by the build of these pedals. The Way Huge line are built like tanks!

The pedal has a lot of controls (there are two extra control hiding inside the pedal), perhaps too many to be honest, and for that reason it is a bit more fiddly to ‘dial in’ than my Mayo clone or BYOC  Large Beaver. However, when you do dial this thing in you are greeted with a wall of fuzz; this thing really roars!

It seems to alway lack the certain ‘mojo’ warmth that I get from my Mayo clone, BYOC and hoof for some reason.

I am always amazed by the build quality of this pedal. For a mass manufactured pedal this thing is Triple-A-Top-Gun Engineered. The enclosure is some custom designed anodized aluminium job, the pedal uses relay switching and the whole thing is built on very high quality SMD PCB’s. Other big pedal manufacturers should take note!

I have started designing my own PCB’s rather than using veroboard.

This makes prototyping new circuits great fun; its really cool to have PCB’s of your own design drop through the letterbox!

I have been using the Dorkbot batch pcb service, which is brilliant if you want small quantities on a reasonable lead time.

This service has become something of a hit with the DIY pedal scene and I can see why; great products at a great price.  And to top it off the PCB’s are purple 😉
Below are some pic’s of one of my first designs; its  the buffer stage from the famous (and rare as hens teeth) Klon overdrive pedal.

Also pictured is my own design for the ubiquitous SHO boost. The board is so small it fits on to the back of a pot!

I built it cornish style in a heavy duty enclosure as I was sick of my 1590A enclosure buffer shifting around all the time.

I have been lucky enough to come across a stash of vintage Germanium transistors (Texas Instruments and Mullards).

The first pedal I have built with some of these is a fuzz face with mojo components in a massive enclosure.

I can honestly say that this pedal sound fantastic; its my favourite fuzz face I have ever built.

The pedal is a  PNP configuration using a TI 2G371 and 2G345A. It also has mallory caps for the mojo factor.

The only mods were using a 100K vol pot for a brighter tone and replacing the 470 Ohm output resistor for 1K for a higher output level.

Do big enclosures, axial components etc. add to the mojo? Who knows but it certainly looks cool!

Next in line is a Tonebender MKII in a similarly ridiculously oversized enclosure 😉

Been a while since I have updated the blog!

Below are some photos of a Woolly Mammoth clone that I built.

You can see the handpainted finish that I apply to a lot of the pedals I build (if requested by a customer).

The pedal was christened the ‘Mother Fuzzer’!

This thing sounds great on bass; pure low end woolly fuzziness!

If you would like to contact me about a custom pedal build please click on the email link on the right or visit Dr Tweek’s builders collective page and drop me an email (SJ Audio Effects):

http://www.doctortweek.co.uk/shop/page/35?shop_param=

You can see a selection of some of the pedals I have built below.

If you would like to discuss me building a custom pedal for you like the ones seen below please do not hesitate to contact me via the Doctor Tweek builders collective page (http://www.doctortweek.co.uk/shop/page/35?shop_param=).

Serendipity (Hermida Audio Zendrive Clone)

Serendipity (Zendrive Clone) Guts

Custom Big Muff Build with mids and input cap swithes.

Custom Big Muff gut shot

Red LLama and One Knob Fuzz 2in1 pedal

Red Llama and One Knob Fuzz gut shot