Guitar effects circuits and DIY pedal projects by your old pal culturejam. These were developed over the course of several years, and most have a lot of input from fellow guitar pedal builders on various forums, included BYOC, Madbean Pedals, DIY Stompboxes, and FreeStompBoxes. Anything posted here is fair game for fun or profit.
If you want to see some of the commercial pedals I have been a part of designing, please check out my company Function f(x).
If you’ve searched ebay for EL84 / 6BQ5 vacuum tubes, you’re probably also seen listings for mysterious Russian-made tubes with the part number 6P14P (or the Cyrillic alphabet equivalent 6П14П) and wondered what the heck was going on with those. What is the difference, really, … Continue reading6P14P versus EL84 Vacuum Tubes: What’s the Difference?
Got these minty RCA 6K6GT vacuum tubes in new old-stock (NOS) condition for about $10 each. Check current prices on ebay. So what good are these tubes in the current age of digital everything? Well, they are output tubes (valves) for a variety of old … Continue readingRCA 6K6GT Vacuum Tubes NOS – Sony A7III / Viltrox 85mm
I can promise that you haven’t seen this exact circuit configuration in some over-priced boutique pedal. What we have here is my wacko take on the classic Bazz Fuss, a mainstay DIY favorite owing to its low parts count and surprisingly amazing fuzz tone. The … Continue readingSmallBazz – Germanium Bazz Fuss
I shot this with a Sony A7III and Viltrox 85mm f/1.8. I used a decorate strand of tiny LED lights to create the “bokeh balls” in the background. To minimize shadows cast by the knobs, I used a small diffused LED light. As for the … Continue readingThe Cannon Dual Fuzz – Sony A7III / Viltrox 85mm
I came up with the Box of Hall reverb circuit way back in 2012. The Belton BTDR-2 bricks had just come out, and I wanted to have the first working circuit out on the DIY scene. A whole LOT of people copied this design and … Continue readingBox of Hall Reverb Circuit
Several people have asked me to repost my older layouts for the often copied (and frequently sold for big bucks) Electra Distortion circuit. This is a surprisingly good-sounding circuit for so few components. No fancy parts needed; just a fun little circuit that swings way … Continue readingElectra Distortion DIY Layouts
I have spent countless hours pouring over the circuits and notes that used to be hosted on a strange little website called Folk Urban (used to folkurban.com but it’s gone now). These so-called “circuit snippets” from a guy name Tim Escobedo (RIP) inspired so many … Continue readingTim Escobedo’s “Folk Urban” DIY Circuits
The Inline 8 is, in a nutshell, a stripped-down DIY Marshall Guv’nor * distortion pedal that was a hot item in the 1980s. The main difference is that instead of the three-band tonestack in the Guv’nor*, the Inline 8 has been reduced to a very … Continue readingInline 8 – Modified DIY Marshall Guv’nor
The Neptune Delay is a PT2399-based digital delay with footswitch-controlled modulation. The base/core circuit was derived from the Sea Urchin circuit drawn up by madbeanpedals.com (no longer in production). The Neptune differs from its predecessor in a few key ways, however: the delay line filtering … Continue readingNeptune Delay – DIY PT2399 Echo with Modulation
The Onesie project is my contribution (one of them, anyway) to the long and glorious history of a fantastic DIY fuzz circuit known as the Bazz Fuss. It’s super simple and sounds fantastic. This iteration of the Bazz Fuss stays true to the original, but … Continue readingOnesie — Bazz Fuss Project