First of all hi and thank you for all the great info on this site I can loose hours reading it all

I'm having the same trouble with both of the builds I've done, first was an npn boost by Gus? I think that's what it's called and second was a bazz fuss, when making these I socketed everything so I could have a play with values an types of transistor/diodes etc
now once built I hooked them up to my tiny terror an tweaked away until I got the sounds I like (after spending hours debugging each of...

Hello everyone,

I have a new model Soviet Big Muff that I transfered to a new case and now I can't get it to work again. If I plug the power cable in, the input jack cuts out. I get no sound in bypass or when it the effect is switched on. It's just like the input gets muted. The pots still change the sound of the resonant hum , so I gotta have it almost right. If I unplug the power, bypass works as it should.

I loosedly followed this image:

This is my build:

When I plug it into...

Hi, completely new to this forum but have tinkered with a few things over the years....I have an old 80` Ibanez Sonic Distortion that I bought new when I was in my early teens (I`m 42 now). I plugged into it a few days ago and didn`t get any output in bypass mode, but it works fine when you kick in the distortion part of it, so it is sort of like a killswitch right now. I changed batteries, tried a 9 volt power supply and it is the same. Pulled the switch out and cleaned it a bit, still the...

Hi...again! So my last patch of pedals causes me troubles :x First my meathead clone, and now my Maestro Fuzztone clone.
The isue with this one is that I have to strum really hard to make the fuzz coming out, like there is some kind of gate or compression.
Otherwise, it sounds good. What could it be?

edit: tweaking the trimpot didn't help.

I use this vero layout

And here the guts:

Thanks for your help...again!

hello, i build a jfet based preamp and i found that on a transistor amp the signal gets about doubled but wen i plugged it into my jcm900 it was louder when i putted it on passive than when i used it! so i pluged my guitar in the effect loop on the back and there it was louder on the preamp again!

howe is this possible? (on the normal input it was less loud then the passive but i did lose quite a bit of hum from the long cabele and stuff.)

Hi guys!!

I dont realy know if this is the place to put this, but here it goes.

I have a tech 21 tri-OD to repair. Its oscilating, making tons of noise everytime the drive for each channel goes over the 80%.
when I got it, I realized that it must had some current problems, that lead to 2 resistors being burned (the ones on the +9V track)...

So, I've been working on it, repaired the burnt components, but still makes this horrible feedback, noise, and what else... I noticed it was probably...

I built a Klon clone and everything is great except that it drains the battery when I leave it. The LED turns on even when there is no plug in the input or output jacks. Any ideas?

Preparing to build this one from Madbeans's new layout (thanks, man!!) and would like any thoughts on using 2n5458's instead of the 2n5457.
I have a load of them on hand and only 3 2n5457's. :slap:

i just built a drive using this layout -

when i first wired it up the volume pot increased volume to a point then quickly got softer and then nothing. i realized that the vol 1 and 3 wires are mislabeled in the layout and should be reversed so i did that. now at zero the signal cuts completely and as i increase it gets loudest at around noon and then decreases in volume till it's at about 50%.

i've tried different pots just to be sure i didn't have a hardware problem, but same issue occurs,...

Hey everyone! this is my first post on the forum, but i've been browsing off and on for the past few weeks and finally decided to join.
i'm in the process of soldering up an FX pedal i designed and i just placed all the components into a temporary housing for testing (before i go punching holes on the real box) and on test one...it sorta works. :lol: let me explain my problem.

when i bypass the 3PDT switch -- for the pure, bypassed clean signal -- i get this motor-boat, machine gun type sound...

Hey guys, i've completed the ToneClone Cranked AC kit, and i've got a problem.

The DC jack was missing from the kit so i've used only the battery clip in the meanwhile and I think I might have connected it the wrong way.

As you can or can't see from the pictures, i've soldered the battery clip's red wire to the wire leading to the 9v connection on the PCB, and the black wire to the output jack's left or upper terminal if we look at it from the front.

When I turn on the pedal the led...

I was taking a look at the trace side on one of my pedals while digging through guts and i noticed this on the bottom of the pcb. its the small white piece that is bridging the two cable terminals together as can be seen in the photo below. is it a surface mount component installed upside down to conceal the value or is it something else? any help and input would be obliged because im stumped.

Hello

Changed R6 from 4.7k into 2.2k, tested, no problems.
Changed D4 and D6 from 1s2473 into 1n34a germanium & 1n4001 in series, tested, no problems.
Changed D5 from 1s2473 into 1n4001, tested, no problems.
Changed C3 from .047uf into .1uf AND changed LED from red to a green one, tested, and now there's a problem: some high frequent beeping tone.. which changes in pitch when turning around the 'drive' pot.. what could that be? Could it have to do with the LED or is it the capacitator? Any...

I built an 18v Powered version of the Colorsound Powerboost (ala Gilmours) and power it currently with a 9v power supply, and it works fine except for a little un-biased sounding. The problem is when the pedal is off, the dry signal has low output, and sounds a little gritty and unclear. Any ideas what might be causing this? The switch maybe?

I would like everybody to benefit from my experience with my pedals suddenly becoming sensitive to picking up radio stations.

First I tried to remedy it by putting a resistor in front of the first stage, has worked for me in the past.

But after picking my brain for some days it turned out to be a loose wire in the power chord to my (tube) amp !!

It had got loose and was causing all this radio interference.

Has any of you had something similar happen to you ?

Alf

Hi everyone,
Total diy stompbox nOOb here.
I have just (kind of) finished a tonepad Ross Phaser which sounds awesome except for one little issue.
There is a pop/tick/trip/skip at the start of every phase cycle. The higher the rate the faster the pops, lower the rate slower the pops.
I have rigged the PCB out of the enclosure to ensure the problem is not due to any of the off board gear, still pooping.
I have checked all my solders which look okay and I have swapped around the 3 matching ICs,...

Hi all.
Im new here and at the DIY field. I just finished building my first stompbox called the Tweak-O. which is a drive-booster/fuzz kinda thing.
but I'm having a problem with the drive pot.
Its a 250K pot. and the problem is that from about 7 o'clock to 2 O'clock theres no real change in the drive. but from 2 and upward theres a gain boost and volume drop.
what could be causing this? i'v gone over the wiring and everything 3 times and everything is as it should be.
all instructions and...

I mis-wired a battery clip to power the AquaPuss build. I simply wired a plug to a 9v batt. and mistakenly put + on tip.

The board was complete with transistors and all other parts but no chips. I got a dead short and didn't notice it until the battery got quite hot.

So I finally figured out what I did and corrected the battery polarity. Problem is I still have a short and battery still gets hot.

Any idea which parts might have likely failed so I can narrow things down?

Thanks.

Oh, also I...

Hi,
Recentely, I got my first breadboard (a Beavis Board), and I've started trying to build some simple pedal designs (a Electro Harmonix booster and a fuzz face). I've been using the beavis board layouts from the websites. My problem is that I am getting no sound or a very reduced sound. The booster is much quieter then the normal signal, so I know thats wrong lol. The other wierd thing is I got the booster to work one or two times, but then it wouldn't work later on with the exact same set...

This is my first try at doing anything on stripboard. It's supposed to be the HAO Rust Driver. I've built it up according to this diagram Presentation1.jpg , and then wired it into an enclosure without any switching, just to check that it works and, well.... it doesn't. Nothing, NADA, zero. So I'm sure i've done something stupid. Can anyone help? The only variations from the diagram, are C500K pot instead of B500K, and 0.068uf input cap instead of 0.056uf. I've checked voltages but don't really...

I've built ROG Umble pedal and it has knocked a few other Dirt boxes off my board. My only problem is it gets what I would call excessive hum. Is there any way to eliminate or tame it down some?

I did do a search and I found some info about using a 100 ohm resistor followed by a 100uf Electro to ground at the start of the +9v in?? Would something like that work? If so where can a learn a bit more about this type of thing?

To let you know I followed the Schematic and perfboard layout on ROG...

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a few points on how to check the voltages inside a tube amp, a friend of mine was checking what output a transformer had in his old radio (valve) and he put the MM+ on the live and MM- on neutral and nearly blew himself up..

I'm looking for a few pointers on how to be safe when measuring voltages in a tube amp, I'm confident in working with the caps drained etc. but now its a step up!

Thanks :)

HI there!! i'm new one here .i have one EH little big muff and i don't know why when switch on the effect that come out the Pop noise , very serious !! how to solve this issue.
thx~

I put one of these together last night according to this schematic
and it works as intended, nice aggressive fuzz but I was sort of hoping for more destruction... And the fuzz pot actually doesn't do very much, there is a slight shift in timbre and maybe maybe slightly less fuzz in one end, but nothing significant.
The scoop control does a whole lot more on the other hand. In the original configuration it notches the midrange alot, almost too much. Sorta like a low end mess with some fizz on...