What do you do when you're bored?

[Heath]

I just built an Earthquaker Devices Ghost Echo clone and it's absolutely brilliant.  I've got an amp with reverb but no tremolo, so this lets me play with that "tremolo after reverb" business that gets that splashy effect.  I love it.  

The I built another fuzz...

...and now I'm kind of bored.

I built the Pink Purple Fuzz, fired it up, and it sounds... well, it sounds like a good fuzz pedal... except I'm kind of sick of fuzz pedals now.  Either I'm getting old, going deaf, or just getting desensitized to fuzz, but they're all starting to sound kind of the same.  

To the best of my memory, Fuzzes I've built:

- Fuzzface (guitarpcb's "pumped up" version), which I like
- Black Arts Pharoah, which I love
- Mastrotron for a bit more extreme range
- Pink Purple Fuzz which I like well enough, but meh.
- Way Huge Piercing Moose... I definitely dig this for my octave fuzz
- Big Muff Pi triangle 6x, which I hated (I know, blasphemy)
- MUFF'N (guitarpcb freebie) which I think I recall I built similar to the Russian Green and added a toggled Tonebender mod.  It's decent enough, especially with the Tonebender mod.  Not blown away, though.
- Bazz Fuss, kind of neat synthy fuzz, *shrug*
=- 1 Knob Fuzz (Bonanza!) which I built very close to the BAT Ritual Fuzz layout.  Oddly enough, this little dude, which I managed to fit in a 1590A enclosure, without dividing myself by zero, is one of my very favorite fuzzes to use.
- Devi Ever Legends of Fuzz - Never could tone the sputtering down enough to make it useful.  PGS demo sounds great though.
- Devi Ever Hyperion II, with the oscillation turned all the way down, it's usable, but nothing amazing, to me.  The oscillation is just plain uncontrollable noise from my experience.
- Dearmond Square Wave Generator, maybe more of a distortion effect, at any rate it's an effect that I didn't expect much from but which has become one of m y very favorites.

It's hard to think that there's an amazing fuzz out there that I haven't already covered, or that would make me stop and say "Whoa!"  I'm considering maybe, possibly, eventually building a Mojo Hand Iron Bell, Spaceman WOW Signal fuzz, and an Uglyface, but as I said I'm feeling kind of Meh about building more fuzzes.

[tjdracz]

Well, you kinda answered your own question. Take a break from fuzz building maybe. It's quite cool to move to other, more complicated effects.
Also, how much do you actually play guitar? I got into this trap where I was obsessed with building pedals but I hardly ever properly played guitar. Try to play around with everything you build, experiment and see what sounds you can get.
But if you're on a quest to find THE fuzz...Superfuzz maybe?

[Freppo]

Thats excatly what i've been talking about in this thread.

But I got tired of mostly building od/distortions.

So, recently I've built fuzzes insted, but i'm having trouble finding good ones that are worth boxing. I'm kinda picky..

Now these are the ones I built recently but not been boxed.
Devi Ever Hyperion I - sounds very cool, but too noisy.
The Toecutter - sound great, but again, very very noisy. (Maybe it will get boxed anyway)
Tycobrahe Octavica - doesn't sound bad, but kinda meh.. weak octave effect.
Burns Buzzaround - Sounds good, but not great.
Buzzaround like - better! But gets choked with the gain over halfway when using humbuckers.
Vox Tonemender (both germ and sili versions) - sounds good, but too thin. Need to mod these..
Shin-ei companison fuzz - sounds cool, but very thin and weak. Better with the tonestack-bypass mod.
Espirit de fuzz v3 - sounds good, but too gated/splatty.
Maestro MFZ fuzz - sounds ok, nothing special. Alittle boring somehow.

Sigh... I'll keep building until I find those worth boxing. But recently it's not been a good ratio for "gonna be boxed" vs "nah..." circuits for me. I enjoyed building effects like the Snow White Autowah, Magnus Modulus and All-Star reverb much more.

Anyway, these good fuzzes i've built and boxed so far.
Roger Mayer Spitfire/moongoose - great! Love it.
Russin Green Muff (1994 version) - also great!
Analongman Sunface (both sili and germ versions) - good sounding fuzzface type circuit, but alittle too bassy with humbuckers. Regret not modding it more to my liking before boxing it.
DAM Meathead with switchable caps - very good, but not great.
Black Arts Ritual fuzz - similar to the meathead, but less "meaty". Sold it.
Keely Fuzzhead - Great!

cheers / Fredrik

[Vince]

Maybe try some multi ones? two/three in one boxes etc. They can be quite interesting

[Beaker]

Multi's are fun - Here's one I have just done for my son. Shin-Ei Companion Fuzz and Superfuzz in one enclosure.

The Rip Snorta.

 

[Heath]

I guess like any hobby, when presented with a motherload of project fodder, it's easy to overindulge and burn out a bit :)

I've learned a lot about over-hyped pedals from doing this.  One of the things that bummed me out was that, as many fuzz pedals as I'd built, I still expected the PPFuzz from BJFE/Bearfoot to be something special.  Had I purchased this pedal I'd have been sorely disappointed... not because it's a bad pedal, but because it offers nothing I haven't heard in other pedals, many of which are much more cheaply priced.

This is not to knock BJFE/Bearfoot.  I like some of their pedals, but I don't feel that this is an innovative pedal, along with the three or four other fuzz pedals they put out.  They all sound good, just like a hundred other fuzz pedals.

(Pedal Pimping Alert!)

I built the BAT Pharaoh and immediately loved it.  There's not one single thing it does that another pedal can't do, but the way it's put together and how the features interact is just fantastic.  It is, in my opinion, one of the best fuzzes on this site.

(Pictured, my clone, the Khufu Fuzz)


As far as Overdrive pedals go, I kind of lucked out on some builds earlier on.  I built a Klon Centaur and thought it was pretty nice.  

(Pictured, my clone. I usually don't mimic the exact look of a pedal, but for a "legendary" pedal, I couldn't resist something of an homage...)



I built a Honey Bee and felt it was a really good low gain overdrive.  Then I built a Love pedal Kalamazoo and fell in love.  At that point I didn't feel the need to build any more.  I did end up building a few others that could be considered overdrive pedals, but those were mostly built from freebie pcbs.  I can't resist building a freebie pcb.

Lately I've been feeling almost the same about Distortion pedals as I feel about fuzz pedals.  I built the EQD Crimson Drive, fired it up, and had an "Oh shit!" moment.  I don't know of another pedal that does what this one does, though that's just my opinion.

(Pictured, my clone, the Red Angel Drive)



I  built the afore mentioned DeArmond Square Wave Generator and love it.  It's kind of fuzzy, kind of distorty, and a little bit punk:

(Pictured, my clone, the Da Da Distortion, featuring the amazing Justine Frischmann)



Then I built a Cornish G-2 clone, because it is supposed to be the greatest thing ever and, while it's good, it didn't really blow me away or anything.  I was kind of disappointed that it wasn't more amazing.

(Pictured, my clone, the Houston H-2)



I built a Stone Grey Distortion because I wanted a high gain distortion pedal in my collection for those times I feel like whipping out my Ibanez and pretending I can shred.  This was not it.  As a matter of fact it was SO not it that I just ended up snipping the valuable components of off it and tossing the board.  It wasn't awful, it was just blah.  I built a Wampler Triple Wreck and that nailed it nicely.

The Dyna Red Distortion is pretty decent.  I like it enough to keep it around.

(Pictured, my clone, the uh.. Dyna Red Distortion... Hmm.)



Anyway, that's just a few builds and a few opinions.  I think I've reached a point where it will be a while before I build anymore Fuzz/OD/Distortion pedals.  When I first started this topic, it was late, I was bored, and I'd just finished the PPFuzz and was feeling like my second favorite hobby had lost it's appeal.  The light of day brought some perspective and I was back to it that evening, having fun again :)  

On a personal note: Mark, Miro, and the rest of you, it's been one of the more enjoyable things I've ever gotten into.  It might seem a little pathetic, but when I'm building a pedal, I'm happy :)  I've got a wicked case of ADD, and add to that just a little while back I went through a nasty divorce and a move to a new city away from any friends or family, I often felt like a caged rat.  This is an amazing outlet for that.  It's creative, constructive, positive, not terribly expensive (seriously, I build guitars too, and this is damn cheap by comparison), and goes right along with the rest of my creative outlets.  It's a silly little hobby, true, but your hard work has actually made at least one person's life a little less shitty :)  Thank you for that.  You guys rock.

[Heath]

AH, and I built the MXR Distortion+ with all the Wampler Mods.  One HELL of a pedal!  I keep it on my desk as my general Distortion tester pedal when I build guitars.  I love this pedal.

[Heath]

Vince, Beaker,

Thanks for the suggestions.  I've got some ideas for a few multi pedals now.  

I have a rather large enclosure, can't remember the designation, but I had nothing to really use it for and then I built a Briggs' E11even, 'Face, and 64 Vintage and plan on putting them in an Enclosure together so I can have one pedal with three different Amp-style boosts available.  I'm still trying to decide on whether I want to use 3 stomps, so that I can engage more than 1 at a time, or if I want to maybe use a toggle to select the active circuit and then just an on/off stomp.  

Here's the graphic so far (the pink things are potential knob/led/switch placements):




I also have an idea to box by Boss CE-2 clone together with my Zombie Chorus.  I plan to add a toggle to switch the order of the effects, and then have them cascade over each other.  I want Choragedden.  I still have to do some testing and make sure it's not going to sound like shit, though.