Let's Talk About Electra Distortion Clones

When it comes to the Electra Distortion circuit I'm very late to the party. I mean so late that the party was 30 years ago, but I still showed up in a Hawaiian shirt with my RSVP in hand type late. I have always been amazed at how simple circuits can sound so good, and so different with small tweaks, and the Electra circuit is a great example of that. I've unknowingly built a few in the past, because I was so unfamiliar with the topology. I just thought they were really good sounding little circuits with very low component counts. I guess we all learn at our own pace.

Lately I've been in a bit of a transistor usage mood, because I have so many of them laying around. I have a good stock of 2N3904s, and some that I consider specialties such as BC108s, BC109s and 2N2222. While most people probably wouldn't consider them anything special, I think any transistor that costs more than a dime each certainly is. I've been looking for almost any excuse to use up the D1302 and C1740 transistors that I have, because they're perfect for an Electra circuit. The only slight problem is they're ECB pinout, but because Electra circuits are low component circuits, all I need to do is swap a few things around and it works just fine.

The latest one I have built is a COT50 clone. Again, I'm impressed with the sound that comes out of this little circuit. On the list to still be built I have a Lovepedal Woodrow, Tchula and a Mythos Golden Fleece. All of which I can't wait to get started on, but I have to pace myself or I'll be building 100 circuits just this one year. I swear I would, if I'm not careful. Last time I took a count on how many projects I had left I was sitting at a total of 45 this year, the same as last year. Since then I've added even more. Will building over 50 a year serve any purpose? I don't know, but there's no excuse not to, I guess. If you know of any good Electra circuits let me know!

One Delay Is Not Enough

I think I've made it abundantly clear that I'm a fan of Gary Moore. Along my journey of building guitar pedal clones I've been known to build a few pedals simply because they were on Gary Moore's pedalboard. The newest addition to that club is my Deep Blue Delay clone. Although I've already built a few delay pedals, that doesn't mean I shouldn't build another one. Right? My delay pedal journey started with a cheap one I bought off Scamazon, then I built my Disaster Transport Jr., then the Faux Analog Echo, and I like them all. These are all PT2399 based delays, but they still all have their own thing. I've never used an analog delay, so I can't say how closely an PT2399 based delay comes to sounding like an analog, but the repeats don't sound perfectly replicated as it decays, so it's at least trying.

The day started out sunny and comfortable, so I decided to get out and build the Deep Blue Delay. Everything went fine, actually better than I expected. When testing time came I used one of the fake TL072s from Scamazon I have an abundance of, to see if the pedal passed sound. Thankfully it did. Then I installed the PT2399 to see if it would echo, which it did. Except... the repeat control did nothing and the repeats were a bit lower than the dry signal, even when Mix was maxed out. I did a quick knifing between the gaps and realized I didn't put a resistor where it actually should go. One mistake is all it takes! I moved the resistor up one spot and voila! It works perfectly now. The repeats can now be varied, and the volume of the delays came up too. It's a really nice delay!

When it came to the op-amp in this one, it was suggested to use an OP275 or AD712, which wasn't going to happen. I know when a circuit doesn't have a lot of gain one of my fake TL072s will work just fine. It's a delay pedal, not a distortion, so I'm glad these fake chips are useful for something at least. I still have one more PT2399 that I'm not sure what to do with, but I'm sure I'll find it a purpose at some point. I truly think unless it's a Memory Man clone I don't need any more delay pedals. I say that now, but the future is always probable to change.

This is circuit build number 115. Remember when I was excited to get my 100th build completed and be completely done with builds? HA! I was so naive a few months ago. With 115 builds done, I have 15 builds left to go. I know, I know. Trust me, I know. I'm currently going through a bit of a phase with two well known, and easily modded, circuits. I'll be posting more about them in their own entries later.

A Pickup Review: DiMarzio HS-3

When I was about thirteen I asked my brother to teach me how to play guitar. Part of his instructions included a list of guitarists to listen to for inspiration. Many of those guitarists are still favorites of mine to this day. Randy Rhoads, Paul Gilbert, Eddie Van Halen, Eric Johnson, Vernon Reid, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jake E. Lee, the list goes on and on. The one whose speed caught my attention the most at that age was Yngwie Malmsteen. After years of listening to Yngwie I had decided I needed to add a strat to my arsenal. Naturally I want an Yngwie strat, but that was, and still is, far beyond my realm of attainability.

This led to a pair of attempts at what I called Project YJM on a budget. I took any strat style guitar and tried to make it look and sound as close to a YJM strat as I possibly could. The key ingredient though has to be pickups. While I see a lot of people getting really close to Yngwie's tone with stock pickups, I felt my projected needed DiMarzios for authenticity. I eventually found an HS-3 in stock on Scamazon, so I bought it. When it arrived I couldn't have been happier. My banana yellow partscaster was finally ready to have its day as my YJM strat clone. Once the pickup was installed I noticed two things; firstly this pickup was microphonic, like REALLY microphonic. Secondly I noticed just how weak the pickup was. I knew it was a low output pickup, but I didn't know it was this low output. 

To say the least, I hate this pickup. I thought I knew what I was getting into when I bought it, but apparently I didn't. Unless you have another HS-3 or HS-4 in the other positions it's impossible to match the volume and gain. Currently my project YJM strat has a cheap unknown brand single coil in the neck and the HS-3 in the bridge. I can't lower the neck pickup enough, nor raise the HS-3 enough to get them to match. It's such a weak pickup. I understand the concept behind it; allow the preamp and amp to do the overdrive, not the pickup, but I honestly think a pickup's contribution to the overdrive is part of the whole package. Sure, Yngwie's tone sounds great, but this pickup just doesn't appeal to me. Not anymore.

Another of my favorite guitarists, Jero Ramiro, plays what appears to be a YJM strat, and it sounds like a YJM strat, but every thing I can find says he's not using the HS-3, and I can see why. I hate to dump on this pickup, but I just can't see why this pickup costs as much as most other strat pickups and does far, far less, and even then it's less than that. 

I did search around as to why this HS-3 was microphonic the word "fake" was floated around in a few places. The reality being I don't think anyone could possibly fake such a low output pickup. You have to plan to fail as badly as the HS-3 fails, you can't fail this badly on accident. I contacted DiMarzio and they said to send it to them for potting. This was during the pandemic, so that was an impossibility, and thus this pickup is what it is. And certainly at some point this pickup won't be in this guitar anymore.

If you're considering a DiMarzio HS-3, try to find someone who has one, or try a guitar store that has something with one installed already in stock. It might be your dream pickup, but for me it just fails on every level except for the fact it's kind of got me addicted to humbucking single coil pickups. That is this pickups one singular saving grace. I guess.

Pedal Builders Anonymous: Admitting I Have a Problem

Hello, I am addicted to building pedal circuits. I suppose there are far worse things to be addicted to, but it has become a bit of an obsession as of late. About a month ago I had seven builds left to go. I've since built ten circuits and I now have twelve left. See what I'm talking about? I swore 2024 wouldn't have anywhere near as many builds as 2023. I just checked and if I complete all of my current kits that I've put together, I'll be at the exact same number of builds for both years. That's if I don't add any more to the list!

My most recent build is the Cornish CC-1 clone. It was one of the last larger builds I have on the list. Everything works, with the exception of I had wired the bass control backwards. Mine does have a bit of a clean bleed that I've not heard in the demos of the actual pedal. I've x-acto knifed the gaps and made sure everything is in the right place, but still the clean bleed persists. It's not a bad circuit, it's just not exactly what I was expecting.

This one is short because if I talk any more I'll give away the plot to a few upcoming posts. Stay tuned, take care of yourselves and hug the ones you love. If you can. My arms don't stretch 2000 miles, so I can't. Currently. But she's more than welcome to come get that hug!

A Little Fuzzy Muff Diving

I don't know if many of you will remember the op-amp Muff Fuzz I built a few years ago, because I had nearly forgotten about it myself. Anyway, I remembered there was also a transistor version, so I decided it was time to try that version for myself. The goal with this was to see how the two differed and try to be clever by putting together two Muff Fuzz circuits to see what happy accident I could create. The problem being, Electro-Harmonix already thought of this and made a pedal called the Double Muff decades ago, so I'm S.O.L. there. Undeterred I still needed to test how different a transistor version sounded from the op-amp version.

Well, they do sound different. I read one review of the transistor Muff Fuzz as a fuzzy overdriven amp with a torn speaker, and that pretty much hits the nail on the head with this clone I've built. I used old transistors, as I do, which were in the 500 HFE range. Almost all of the resistors were used stock as well, with the exception of needing to make the 2.7k, because it's a super odd value although it shows up sometimes. I used 82nf caps instead of the two 100nf, because I'm all out of 100nf. I'm temporarily using an A100k volume, but I will be removing it later. So there are clearly reasons why this sounds different, apart from op-amp vs transistor, but I didn't know just how different they would sound until I tested them together.

I first tested them each on their own, to get a base line of what each sounded like. Then I tested with the transistor version running into the op-amp version, which became an aggressive distortion that I quite like. Then I tested it with the op-amp version into the transistor version and it just sounds like a boosted transistor version. The transistor version sucked all the distortion out of the op-amp version and made it sound way too mellow. Now I'm wondering if I should build another transistor version to see what two of those sound like, or if I should build another op-amp version and stick it on the tail-end of the transistor version I already have to get that aggressive distortion I liked so much. In the name of science, I almost have to at least build another transistor version. Seriously.

Freaky Fuzz for the Fourth: Finalized!

In the original post I wasn't exactly sure which input cap I was going to use. After testing I really liked the 22nf and some error/oddball caps I have that are marked 104 (100nf), but read 40nf when tested. I'm not sure if my tester just doesn't like these caps or not, because there genuinely seems to be quite a bit of different between 22nf and 40nf, but that's what I went with. Instead of my original idea to just use the one I liked best I went with an on-on switch to choose between the two.

I usually test my circuits with a strat, so I had to make sure humbuckers didn't make this circuit too bassy. After testing it with humbuckers it sounded pretty good. I even did the Kami test and both the overdrive-ish sound and the fuzz sound came out really nice. I've been thinking about building another and tweaking it a bit to just be an overdrive, but that's a potential project for the future. If I had one complaint about this build it would be that it's a tinge bright. I expected it to be bright with the 22nf input cap, but even when I switch it to the fuzz setting it's still bright. Again, this is only if I had one complaint. For my purposes it's perfectly useable and I'm glad it's my 110th build.

The update is now I have seven projects left to do. Yeah, builds keep being completed, but the project number never goes down. Three of these projects still require parts, four of them should be ready to go. I've seen a few smaller projects I might be adding to the build list. It really depends on size of stripboard, because I really want to find a purpose for my scraps. It also really depends on other parts, but mostly on stripboard size.

Freaky Fuzz for the Fourth

Yadda Yadda Yadda, Sam doesn't like fuzz. WRONG! I've been lying to you, the readers, and myself. I'm sorry. I promise to do better from here on. I've built numerous Bazz Fusses, a Fuzz Face clone, a Muff style clone, and countless other fuzz circuits that I'm currently forgetting. Most of them danced sonically in my head for brief moments before being packed away and forgotten. The Seymour Duncan Tweak Fuzz however, it's a different beast.

The layout popped up, I searched for demos and immediately I recognized how highly tweakable this circuit is. Which is the whole purpose of the original pedal. In some cases, such as the Diaz Texas Ranger, I love the idea of switchable input caps. I never thought this concept would be what won me over to the dark side of fuzz though. The original layout was a bit much, with all the input caps, so I decided to slim it down and use sockets as the input device. This way I can pick and choose what input cap I like best.

With capacitors ranging from 10pf to 1uf I've decided to go on a bit of a journey. The circuit can sound like a nice mellow overdrive or a hairy, velcro ripping fuzz. The only drawback is if you expect it (by which I mean my slimmed down version) to clean up crystal clear, because it doesn't. It's still a bit fizzy, but it does clean up with the guitar's volume control. Anywhere between 4.7nf to 150nf seems to be my favorite, with each value giving the sound its own unique qualities. I tried a 470nf and that's when we reached velcro territory. I've not been brave enough to get into the 1uf world yet, but I have to try, just to be thorough.

The only changes I will suggest are C4 should be sockets, and to use an anti-log, or C/reverse, taper for gain. There is a teardown video on youtube that states the gain pot is C2k, I used a C1k and it works fine. Other than that it's verified, it sounds pretty good and it's highly tweakable. Once I've decided what value I like best as the input cap I will remove the sockets and solder it in. Either that or I'll find a good overdrive sound and good fuzz sound and make it switchable between those two.

Vox Treble Booster: A Circuit So Nice, I Built It Twice!

Welp, I did it again! Just out of curiosity I checked my parts boards to see if I had enough to do another Vox Treble Booster, and I did. At this point it wasn't even a question, I had to build another. Scraps of stripboard that may otherwise go unused, 1/8th watt resistors and transistors I may otherwise never use. It just felt like I being guided by some supernatural force to build another one. It took all of 5 minutes to solder together and it's a really nice little treble booster.

Dime for size comparison.

 Do I need two of them? Probably not, but I wasn't using the parts for anything else. I did add a 1meg input resistor on the second build, just in case. I figure I'll find a use for them at some point. No biggy!

Double Treble!

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm addicted to treble boost circuits. I can't explain it, I don't know why, I just am. Maybe because the majority of them are simple to build. It's not completely that though as I just love the sound of a treble boost. None of my amps are particularly dark. I guess maybe a top end shimmer seems to connect with me deep down in my soul. I can't fully explain it.

As the 2024 build season continues on I find myself still searching for circuits to build, and the exceedingly simple Vox Treble Booster crossed my path. Super simple, super low components and this particular layout gave me a reason to use parts I'd never used before. My collection of 1/8th watt resistors were going unused, as were my collection of ECB transistors. After finding the tiny little scrap of stripboard I needed I threw it all together. This one doesn't use a potentiometer, so that's even better! I plugged it in and let it sing to me. It is truly amazing.

The next one is a bit of a modification that, admittedly, I'm not sure I got right, but it does a bit of what I want it to do. The Joyo Roll Boost has been on my radar for a while, because it's another super simple circuit. I decided to lower the input cap and see if it works. Well, it does, kind of. The Joyo Roll boost seems to take inspiration from the MXR Micro Amp circuit, and with a lower input cap I find there is a nice shimmery top end. The boost throws my amp into overdrive, as it should, but sustains that treble I'm so fond of, without cutting out all the bass. If anything I'm finding it a bit too bassy, but it is what it is. I like this little one too, but not as much as I love the Vox Treble Booster.

These are circuits 107 and 108, and I still have four kits ready to go, and an additional four projects that still need parts. When I planned to stop at 100, I was dreadfully wrong. That's not a bad thing though, because it's keeping my mind busy. Who knows what else I'll be throwing into the mix, but I'm super glad these circuits worked out. I may tinker with the input cap on the Roll Boost, or I may just leave it alone. We'll just have to wait and see. I have another build planned for the fourth of July, just to have that date in my logs as having built a circuit on that day. I'll post about it on the fourth. Stay tuned. Or don't, I don't control you. I appreciate you though!

Nostalgia Is a Hell of a Drug Part 10: Mom's Porcelain Dolls

As a child I was at the mercy of my parents and their collections. While my Dad mostly collected regrets, Mom was into antique teddy bears and porcelain dolls. The issue being she displayed them on the top bunk of the bunk bed in which I slept for many years during my youth. You should already know how creepy antique porcelain dolls are, but the things they did in the dark was downright unnerving. I believe that items that are well loved by their owners are kind of imbued with a part of that person. Since teddy bears and porcelain dolls whole purpose is to become a favorite item for someone, that only assures these items had some kind of spiritual connection to their past owners. Trust me.

The things started innocently enough, things like I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear porcelain clanking against porcelain. No biggy, maybe I wiggled about while I was asleep. As time went on things became a bit more sinister, such as the ones with criers in them would go off without warning. For those unfamiliar with a crier, it's a cylinder that has a diaphragm in it and when turned 180 degrees the diaphragm slides down and makes a crying like sound as it moves. The effect is only repeated once the item, be it doll or bear, are turned upside down. Meaning since these dolls and bears were sitting upright there should be no reason for their criers to be going off in the middle of the night.

Now, I won't say I ever experienced one peaking over the edge of the bed and watching me sleep, but it's creepy enough to have them moving about and crying for no real reason. I'm pretty certain some of these were trauma aids from one of the world wars, or even many sinking ships of the early 20th century. These weren't 10 year old dolls, back in the 90s, these were 1800s, early 1900s porcelain dolls and raggedy old teddy bears. These were well loved by some mischievous little scamps and after they had outgrown them these items were passed down and eventually sold to my Mother. After which they would haunt me in the darkest hours of the night as I tried to sleep, as a mischievous little scamp myself. I've often wondered what items I've picked up from my many thrift trips that might have some connection to a mischievous little scamp.