Tube Screamer Page

Finally! I was trying to make that happen like ages now. Well made TS stripboard is really hard to design, specially to me. It isn’t possible to make one without jumpers (as well as most IC based FX’s). For some reasons I don’t like jumpers, so all my entries to design it was instantly trashed. The other main reason is… well… I hate OD/Distortions in general, I’m a booster/fuzz bloke. Tubescreamer is a part of music history, almost as much iconic as all well known and loved users by over last 30 years, on top with my personal hero SRV!

Anyway… It’s done now, and I do quite like it. I couldn’t get away with jumpers (I use 0-ohm resistors instead) but it’s still quite nice. Doing this I had couple purposes in mind. Firstly – all none polarized caps at 5mm raster (two stripboard rows) and Panasonic SMF’s as a type of my choice. 100uF and 47uF’s the same – 5mm raster. Why so big? AM Silver Modded TS uses Sanyo OsCon type caps, and those values I have are 5mm raster. The other E-Cap (10uF) is 2,5mm radial, so standard stuff here.

What else… ah, yeah! The size 🙂 Will easily fit into small B sized Hammond (or similar) enclosure. I was going to make it for 125B really, it’s similar size to real TS-9, that’s why my layout shows ins and outs in upper position, nor side located. I’ll go with 125B anyway, as I have some evil plans for this project. Of course I won’t shy to show of.

Few more things needs to point out:

– Transistors. Originally seen 2SC1815 low quality noisy Q’s was changed to accommodate more ordinary pinout wise, and better quality in general 2N4401 transistors for in/out buffers, as recommended by GGG instructions.

– Optional Clipping Diode Switch pads are shown for future project extension, but you can easily crank yourself what it is, and what it does

– One none original part to standard TS series in input pull-down (anti-pop) resistor (2M2)

Two layouts for classic exemplars:

Ibanez TS-808 Tube Screamer

Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer

As we all know, TS series was, and still is Poo-Teeque Cart-Horse, so expect shitload of variants very soon

UPDATE 10/06/2012

Here You can find layouts for simplified TS type circuits without input and output buffers:

Son of Tube Screamer
Son of Clay Jones Overdrive
Son of Clay Jones Overdrive with added Bass knob and switchable clipping section

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…more coming  very soon

[0.15″ pitch veroboard] Colorsound – Power Boost / Overdriver

Two different effects, shared (almost) the same component layout.

Very lush sounding units I must admit.

As most of effects from Colorsound line classic and adored!

Power Boost was recently reissued by Macari’s with Castledine  Electronics colaboration

Transistor info: Factory schemo shows BC109C’s but AFAIK those ware never seen in reality. What we see usually is BC169B’s or BC349B (and mix of both) in vintage units, and reissues with BC184L (also seen in vintage Powerboost) or BC184C. Use any NPN Silicon’s with similar spec.

Big hug and high fife to monkeyxx from FSB forum for cool mod ideas.

What you get below is two versions of Power Boost named as Early, and Later spec, and an Overdriver. Another three docs contains the same shit, but in different flavor as per monkeyxx instructions – added master volume control, changed drive pot taper.

Taste it, you’ll love it

– Power Boost Early Spec

– Power Boost Later Spec

– Overdriver.pdf

Modified:

– Power Boost Early Spec (Monkeyxx Mods)

– Power Boost Later Spec (Monkeyxx Mods)

– Overdriver (Monkeyxx Mods)

Diaphanous Exploder

I was working on this circuit since 2006. It’s completely new design, never seen in effect pedal industry ever before. Surly I took little from other designs, mainly from different 70’s mixing consoles.

So What it is?

Diaphanous Exploder.pdf [click to download] is transparent booster (or boobster if you push it harder), skill driver/shifter, and penis enlarger.

This short description says all. Idea behind this project was to have three pedals in one with minimum controls. I did flow with current fashion during design to build as much transparent pedal as possible. If you ask me, you can’t get much closer in transparency field as this!

Also, what I was missing searching over past few years for perfectly balanced and transparent boobster/overhype pedal is to have more control over speed and feeling. Here you can set perfect balance between that two with just one twist of single knob. How fucking cool is this?

Layout shows full off-board wiring, with shielded in/out jacks. No mains socket, you really have to run it from single carbon battery for best performance. Use 2W CC resistor for perfect sound/noise ratio, and have fun!

EDIT: No, I’m not an diabetic 😉

It was April’s Fool project 🙂

[0.15″ pitch stripboard] D*A*M – Grease Box GB-80

Grease Box… Dirt pedal desirable almost by every fuzz freak! 🙂 If You don’t want it You didn’t heard about it before or You already have one 😛

Seriously – very unique sounding fuzz box – D.A. Main wrote that “The Grease Box is a fuzz box that thinks, to some degree, that it’s an overdrive.” and this is perfect description! When we look at schematic – it’s MKIII or MKIV Tone Bender circuit with fixed output cap instead tone control and few component values are changed.


Lot’s of mids, crunch, gain and volume gives You lot of joy during playing. Sounds great on palm muting and power chords, too! It’s doesn’t have low gain Fuzz Face clean up, but it still have very nice dynamics!

Me likey!

In following days will add another layouts for this project!

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IMPORTANT UPDATE 13/06/2012

Due to D*A*M counterfeit pedals that recently appeared on the marked all D*A*M straight layouts will be removed from turretboard.org and will be replaced soon with our own works and interpretations.
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Rock On!
b.man

[0.1″ pitch stripboard] Jen (Gretsch Playboy) – Harmon Booster

I don’t know what it is, I never build it before, quite recently I heard about it first time. It’s called Harmon Booster, but AFAIK it’s more like overdrive.

Guys on interwebz says it’s cross between Tube Screamer with Big Muff voicing. Cool description! It may be fun.

The real one was build on PNP silicon BC318C. I did my layout with offboard wiring for negative ground powering instead.

Up to you how you’ll wire it up.

Also LED limiting resistor was added on board, and 3PDT switch wiring is showed

Report back how you like it, I miss your emails 🙂

Big thumbs up and credits to SonicIV  for schematic

Get your project file (PDF) here

[0.1″ pitch Stripboard] Jordan Creator – Model 6000

Basically early 70’s BMP clone that has some unusual component values. Few sources on-line reports that this unit sound quite unique to classic Big Muffs. Sound of this unit is often described as  somewhere between a Big Muff and an early ProCo Rat, angry fuzz/OD hybrid, but a lot smoother than older brothers. Originally build into foot controlled wah-wah enclosure where you can set the volume by foot.

Jordan Creator – Model 6000 with full off-board wiring

Current project is revised 06.06.2012. It fits now into standard Hammond B type enclosure, and contains more common parts raster

Big Muff π Family

Collection of few Big Muff variants. There’s no such thing as standard BMP schematic – To many variations was issued, and even the same model from the same year of production could sound different, since EHX didn’t care much about part selection.

Since I’m a BMP freak myself, you can expect many variants here on my website now and in future! All layouts are presented with full off-board wiring.

Current stripboard layouts are different than what it was here before. If you was working on one of previous versions email me, and I’ll send you old files. New layouts are way better routed and are cooler in general. Firstly – old layouts was done for odd parts I had on hand, some very unusual and hard to source. Current layout was designed to fix that, plus I had few more goals in mind:

– typical part raster, 5mm for most caps – ceramics, or film (easily takes Panasonic SMF’s), 2,5mm for clipping/blocking caps
– all resistors 1/4w and flat on board
– no jumpers (I’ve failed here, but still less than before)
– small enough to go with Hammond B
– it’s for .1″ pitch stripboard

One extra part unseen on schematic is 2M2 anti-pop resistor on input. Unusual 4nF ceramic cap in tonestack you can substitute with any closes value, like 3n9

All layouts bellow based on Kit Rae schematics

47 Ram’s Head

Ram’s Head 73#18

1973 Violet Ram’s Head – 1st Version

1973 Violet Ram’s Head – 2nd Version

And now – different layout for kind-off the same crap. The problem with layout above is lack of space to accommodate can type, radial e-caps. So I’ve started from scratch. Electrolytic caps needs more space, and here you have it. Also drawing this I was thinking about it as a universal layout for future triangle variants – most of those Triangles contains e-caps in different, not always the same spots. That’s why you see 2,5mm raster for non-polar capacitors – as it’s the same raster as most of electrolytic radial capacitors I have . My advice is to use WIMA MKS02 series caps for 100nF. Even 100nF-150nF/63V are 2,5mm. 10nF is 5mm in my layout – use MKS2 here, or anything 5mm, choice is wide, it’s common raster part.

Like I said, layout is different to the ones I’ve posted earlier, it’s bigger… but still fits small Hammond “B”, it’s not as nice as the ones posted before, has many trace-cuts, and jumpers (whom I hate), but this is the best I can do dude!

Just one layout for now, I’ll try to update (and finally finish it up ASAP)

J Mascis Red&Black – yeah I know, it’s not Triangle, but many will like it 🙂

And now, different flavor of the same good old crap

BMP with AMZ presence control. The base is the same overall layout as in J Mascis Red&Black, but only with component names (place your own favorite flavor) for everything other than tonestack.

For tonestack my choose was standard AMZ 1th version values. It’s open ended project, do your own Big Muff mix.

For more information about AMZ tonestack fallow this link

BMP & AMZ project file

…more coming soon

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And now something I don’t do really. I’m more into vero and turretboard stuff. But I do PCB’s occasionally. My PCB pattern is designed for look and mojo, not the size. No matter what chicks says, size matters, bigger is better, at least for me (pedal-wise). Real man should have huge piece of equipment, that’s why we like big cars, half pounder Big Mac, and boooooooobs. For fuck sake, wipe your nose and be a man!!! Plus, this is BIG Muff, right? In short, it won’t fit in your B-sized enclosure (EDIT: well, now it will after endless revisions). DEM size E is what it needs really, as used by D*A*M or Cornish. After all I’ve made it for my own use… So, if you like to have nice discharge when changing battery, this may be for you.

Actually – this project was born months ago, and came through several changes and revisions. I wanted to make it perfect. It’s way smaller than first attempt, but still ballsy. Now you can put it also into Hammond 1590 J, or even better – into one of these cute pedalenclosures.com YY boxes, or common – boring as fuck Hammond “BB”.

Extra pads near capacitors are for larger components like axial BC electronic 1uF’s (I think 40v-63v I have, those lay down nicely), and the rest of the components I had in mind was bigass ceramics, tropical fish caps (or similar raster), and half watter resistors.

PAGE REVISION – All projects removed! Instead now you can download just one zipped file with universal project. Blank schematic with component numbers/names, matched component layout and PCB transfer files are there. Also DIYLC v3 project files are included, so all you have to do is open them up, place your own component values from schematic you have/like, print it up after you done and you’re ready to go.

Current PCB pattern is little different than previous version, I’ve changed C7 and R4 locations, so old file, and current project are NOT interchangeable

Great schematic source is Kit Rae Big Muff Page and to be honest the basic schemo I provide match component names of Kit’s schematics. If you will have any problems, concerns, questions – I’m always happy to assist, just trow me an email [go to Info & Contact page]

what else… ah, yeah!

Schematic and component layout shows electrolytic caps in most of the places, BMP schemos are different, sometimes there is no e-caps at all, so just use what the schematic is asking for.

Also different schematic asks for different electrolytic cap orientation. There is not much difference what orientation you’ll use. Electrolytic caps block only DC current, and your signal is AC. Since in BMP 1uF polarized capacitors are in signal patch you should have no problems either way, but it’s recommended to use orientation as per my schematic. Here’s the quote by Deltafred from FreeStompboxes explaining possible issues:

Polarised electrolytic capacitors work best if the the +ve side has a higher voltage on it than the -ve side.

They will tolerate a small reverse polarity (about 10% rated value IIRC – could be wrong). If you reverse bias them too much they start to act as resistors and conduct, very noisy resistors I seem to remember.

The trick is to asses (or measure) which side has the highest voltage on it and make that the +ve side. If one side goes to ground via a resistor or pot then that will (usually) be at 0v as far as DC is concerned so that side would be -ve.

For more info fallow this link

Here’s ZIPPED file I was referring toBMP PCB Files [854 KB]