Ibanez Auto Filter Pedal *Circuit-Bent*

Woop-Bzzz-Woop-Itty-Bzzz....

Some people think this thing looks cool... personally I've gone off using RCA patch-bays. Too messy, and hard to pull out. However it's a cheap and quick option.

But aside from how it looks, it sounds fantastic! No longer real good for guitar, but on something dynamic and repetitive like a drum machine, it kicks butt!

The 3 pots on the right attach to the internal trim-pots for Envelope Attack, Envelope Release, and Filter Cutoff (or Envelope Depth. Whatever way you want to look at it.)

And the Patch-bay creates all sorts of self-oscillating crazy-good wrongness!

Bendy-bendy Sine and Ring-Mod tones, plus dynamically controlled distortions hisses and glitches.

I'll have to post some audio so you know what I mean.

Me thinks a circuit bent 'Bass Balls' pedal could be next! Nice and formanty!

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Shin-Ei Fuzz with Germanium Transistors

Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Woman...

This is an old 60's Shin-Ei Fuzz pedal. I liked the idea of it, but in reality it's a really nasty sounding pedal. The sort of fuzz that clips so hard it's not even a guitar anymore. Chords? Forget it! Any more than one note at a time and things go weird.

However on dismantling an old HiFi amp i found on the street, i found a treasure trove of little chocolate drop Transistors. I'm guessing they're Germanium, cos it transformed this thing into a Creamy Vintage Blues machine from hell!

I experimented with them a bit, and found that a combination of the original Silicon Transistor with the Germanium Transistor in parallel actually gives the best of both worlds.

Germanium for Big Bottom, Creamy Top, and the ability to play chords, and Silicon for that extra bite in the middle.

So in went some switches for:

 1x Silicon vs 1x Germanium. 

 Silicon+Germanium vs Germanium+Germanium

For anyone interested in making guitar pedals from scratch, the Shin-Ei Fuzz circuit has VERY FEW components (perhaps 10?) , and I certainly found experimenting with salvaged transistors can give a big variety of tones on the cheap.

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