When I think to use guitar pedal effects as outboard, in a recording setup, I have a very slick setup (IMHO!): I use one or two Radial Engineering EXTC500 interfaces that I have wired as ADAT IO in my studio. It’s really slick! I can send any DAW track (mono or stereo) out to a…
When I started building and experimenting with guitar effects circuits, I quickly found commercial breadboards to be too limiting. Assembling circuits on the bench was fine, but adding reliable audio connections was difficult, never mind taking the circuits from the bench to the floor to play with them! My original solution is detailed in this…
I’m building out my new home studio, and it badly needs some acoustic treatment. Since this is a bedroom studio, I can’t go heavy on modifications, but I do want to control reflections as much as I can, plus as an avid DIYer, I’m happy to get my hands dirty. In this blog, I’ll walk…
Have you ever felt like your fuzz pedal could use a little more character, a touch of that unpredictable magic that only a half-dead 9V battery can provide? Meet the Undead™, your new favorite companion in the quest for unique and gritty tones. This circuit is designed to emulate the gradual ‘death’ of a 9V…
Klone Ranger™ has ridden into town to protect the innocent vintage tones, and the new silicon tones as well. He’s an equal opportunities tone protector with a mask!! The second member of our Art Series of pedals, a boutique-like Klon clone, offering very complimentary tones to our first pedal – the Hi Scream. Re-inventing lost…
The 3PDT universal footswitch kit is now available for purchase in the store. Developed as a fast and reliable way to add an ON-ON stomp switch to a guitar or synth module build for true bypass and LED switching – or whatever else can make use of the 3PDT functionality! A huge value for rapid…
I’m thrilled to announce our first pedal is finally available for sale, and we called it Hi Scream™. Inspired by the legendary TS-9 Tubescreamer overdrive – originals of which are now selling for crazy prices, if you can find one at all! Re-inventing lost or rare vintage tech – with a modern twist – is…
I recently bought an old and (ab)used tube screamer that was making annoying buzzing, crackling and popping noises when turned on, and I thought the fix(es), as well as my debugging approach might be useful to other owners… First, yes I know pedals like these high gain overdrives are inclined to pick up mains hum,…
A design series on embedded electronics and audio design. Applying power to pedals should be a simple thing, but as designers we have to understand that if something can go wrong, it absolutely will. Or said another way, if a user can do something stupid, they will… So I thought I’d dig in on what…
An audio circuit test probe is a really simple, but useful tool when testing and debugging audio circuits. The one I’m presenting here is a little over the top(!) – you can build an equivalent much simpler and cheaper – but this one’s for me, and I like making things! Fundamentally, what I ‘m building…
