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Breadboarding Phaser

Breadboard a Simple Phaser

I like watching That Pedal Show on youtube from time to time. Their video What Guitar Pedals Should I get First? is suggesting that my first three pedals should be some sort of distortion, modulation and time based pedals. I should’ve said – spoiler alert … too late now. As suggestions go, they are matter […]

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DIY Pedal Basics

Reverse Polarity Protection

Here’s another post in the “basics” series. This one is about reverse polarity protection. Guitar pedals have a peculiarity: they are powered by a center negative supply . I only encountered this with guitar pedals, vast majority of other power adapters have center positive supply (it’s just how the cable is wired, I’m sure there […]

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Clíodhna My Designs Overdrive

Clíodhna – Building the Pedal

The circuit design is finalized, it’s time to build the pedal. If you want to see previous parts just follow these links. Here, I’ll be covering building the pedal. You can jump to schematic just below, or the board diagram. There’s also the final bill of material. There’s a bit on what I did for […]

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Clíodhna My Designs Overdrive

Clíodhna – Finalizing the Circuit Design

Let’s finish the circuit design today. The first and the second part went pretty well, I also covered tone control for the pedal. Let’s add couple more options and then finalize the design with actual switches I’ll be using. You can jump to schematic which is just below, or to the finalized circuit schematic. I […]

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DIY Pedal Basics

Wiring up Battery

This is a short post about how to wire up battery for a DIY pedal project (if you wish to do so). Here’s the wire-up diagram: Guitar cable is mono cable – there are only 2 wires. Tip is carrying the signal and sleeve is grounded. If we were not using battery – just omit […]

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Clíodhna My Designs Overdrive

Clíodhna – Tone Control

So far so good 😊. The first and the second part went pretty well. Let’s plough on. In this post I’ll cover tone control. The previous parts were dealing with clipping section – clipping and frequency response shaping. I conveniently omitted tone section. Now it’s time to add the tone stage. You can jump to […]

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Clíodhna My Designs Overdrive

Clíodhna – Super Screamer Pt2

I think that the first part went pretty well. Let’s continue designing our own DIY overdrive pedal. In this post I’ll cover various clipping options. The previous part was dealing with clipping section too, but it was covering frequency response shaping. This one will cover the actual clipping. You can jump to schematic, or breadboard […]

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Clíodhna My Designs Overdrive

Design Our Own Super Screamer Like Pedal

After covering a lot of ground around Tube Screamer like pedals, I think it’s right time to try our hand at doing some super mod heavy design of our own pedal. In several steps I’ll try to design some DIY overdrive pedal that will have all the character of a Tube Screamer but with much […]

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Mods Overdrive

Modding MXR Zakk Wylde Overdrive

Continuing coverage of Tube Screamer like pedals – I’ll cover a sort of a Boss Super Overdrive clone. I’ll be covering MXR’s Zakk Wylde overdrive (ZW44). This post continues building on previous posts: breadboarding the pedal, how it shapes the tone and I even did an alternative version. I have already covered SD-1 too. I’ll […]

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Breadboarding Overdrive

Tube Screamer Like Pedals

Now, let’s talk about Tube Screamer like pedals. Maybe not in the sound but more in the circuit topology. In this one I’ll be covering Boss Super Overdrive – SD-1. This post continues building on previous posts: breadboarding the pedal, how it shapes the tone and I even did an alternative version. To be honest, […]