Author Archives: ballseffects

Pass the dutchie.

Posted on by

This pedal is for the incomparably cool Mark Twistworthy.  Mark runs one of my favorite blogs called Texas Punk Treasure Chest (although he’s slacking on the El Flaco posts) and is also in a few extremely kickass bands like The No No No Hopes and Come and Take It.  Mark also was a clerk at my local record store when I was a teenager and has a great mix-up story about selling a kid a copy of Youth of Today’s “Break Down the Walls”, when the kid was actually looking for Musical Youth’s album “Youth of Today”. Pass the dutchie, Cappo.

Ahhhh anyway…so Mark was looking for something to dirty up his bass sound.  After some discussion we determined he was after a fuzz box, and I knew it just had to be the basic fuzz.  The origins of that circuit are the great Bazz Fuss which was supposed to a fuzz FOR bass, although it kills with guitar as well.  So there you go….simple….easy….fuzzzz.

Mayor McSpaceFuzz.

Posted on by

I told you more delays were coming!  This one is for the esteemed Mayor of Greenpoint Brooklyn, Mr. Rich Hall.  Rich asked me for a one-box space machine that would satisfy his fuzz and delay needs, and the one restriction was that it needed to be sparkly orange.  I like those kind of orders!

The front end of this guy is the basic fuzz.  Its just such a perfect fuzz-tone and its small, one-knob, and hassle-free.  Perfect for a combo pedal like this.  The left switch and left-most knob control the fuzz.  That feeds a standard analog delay circuit which is controlled by the right switch and the right-most three knobs (delay, blend and feedback).  You can use the effects independently and they’re great as-is or use em together to blast off to planet facemelter!

Season in the abyss.

Posted on by

I have no idea what’s going on right now but people want delays!  Maybe its the cold weather?  All I know is that i’ve got requests for 4 delays right now, and another one in limbo that I havent committed to yet. DELAY SEASON. 

This particular analog delay is an old build from when I was testing prototype boards for a fellow builder before they went into production.  Its based off of the old Way Huge Aqua Puss. Its a great sounding delay but they also get a lot more stupid with addition of some mods, and man do I like stupid.

The unit in question here is a pretty standard analog delay topography with control for delay length, blend between wet and dry signals, and feedback (how much the delayed signal feeds back into the circuit for repeating, decaying, delays).  When the feedback is turned down you get just one delay, but as you turn it up you get multiples like you’re yelling “echo” into the grand canyon.  Turn it up even more and the circuit starts to freak out because its becoming a closed loop that just wants to repeat upon itself infinitely….and thats where it gets FUN.  But its also totally not fun needing to kneel down while you’re rocking out to turn the feedback knob.  Solution?  A footswitch.  One switch is the standard on-off switch and the other is a momentary switch which dimes the feedback when youre pressing it down, and sends the thing into oscillation heaven.  KICK.  ASS. 

More mods to come on future builds….

Respect the muff.

Posted on by

I realized that some previous posts might have come off like I was talking shit on the venerable old Big Muff, and thats just not true at all.  Its such a widely used fuzz that sometimes people need alternatives, but its still one of my favorites and has been since I got my first one in 1997.

My first foray into the world of Big Muffs was the “russian green” muff produced by Sovtek, and it blew my mind.  Years later and i’ve played or cloned every variation of the Big Muff and the russian green is still my favorite.  This is a faithful reproduction of the russian green that was built for Evan Craig.

As soon as I was done building this one I was so stoked on how awesome it sounded that I immediately build another one on the premise that sooner or later someone would need one.  A few weeks later my buddy Bryce (Colonel Records) picked it up as a Christmas gift for his brother, Aidan.  Here it is, in slightly smaller packaging:

Championship grinder.

Posted on by

This was a fun little project.  I learned that Hammond makes these enclosures with an optional CAGE TOP!!!  How cool is that?  Its like they’re practically begging you to build a Vox Night Train or an Orange Tiny Terror or the equivalent.  Well I decided to take that down a notch and try an ultra simple tone machine:  the Fender 5C1 Champ.

The 5C1 Champ was an early-ish tweed Fender that made its debut in 1953.  These early models used an octal 6SJ7 grid-leak biased preamp tube (later replaced with a cathode biased 12AX7), and I had heard about the sweet sounding front end that these had and was ultimately curious about the inherent LaGrange-y-ness of the circuit (uh huh huh huh huh).  The results were as sweet as promised.  Its a different kind of breakup than other amps….a bit more smooth and compressed feeling.  Kind of blues-y, but it does rock really well also.  It sounds positively whipass plugged into my Sunn 4×15 (dont ask).

These photo are early ones from when I was testing the amp with a solid-state rectifier (the copper tube) which I have since replaced with a NOS RCA 5Y3.  The power tube in the center is a 6V6 and the 6SJ7 is on the right.  The 6SJ7 is a metal-envelope tube instead of glass.

These enclosures also come in a bunch of different sizes.  Im sure i’ll be building in one of these again…and it’ll be a more ambitious effort.

Bing Bong.

Posted on by

Klons!  For years these were THEE high demand overdrive pedal on the market, fetching hundreds of dollars to get on the year-plus waiting just to buy one, or going for even more on eBay.  Now that the manufacturer stopped making them (albeit temporarily) they can go for over a grand!  Holy crap.  People flip their shit for this pedal and rightfully so. Its a nicely built buffered overdrive, with a good tonestack in there, but where it differs from other pedals is its huge boost potential!  The thing has boost for days, which helps to drive your amp into its own distortion.  That coupled with the clipping-overdrive that the pedal produces and you get into some really sweet sound natural overdrive.

This is my take on the original unit.

The basic fuzz.

Posted on by

To quote Tommy Lee: “fffuuuucccck, bro”.  This pedal was built for the wonderful Matt Murillo (Jettycats, Junior Varsity, The Ka-Nives) when he asked me to make him “something”.  Usually whenever I get asked for just something kickass, or if i’m just putting together a pedal for a gift or something I build one of these.  The circuit is simple, the controls are simple, but the sound is KILLER.

The basic circuit here is the Bazz Fuss designed by Hemmo, but I make a few part subs to get it to my liking.  Its kind of Muff-y, but a bit more textured sounding.  A killer fuzz, and one that sounds great on bass, as well! 

Frontiers.

Posted on by

My buddy John Adams and I have this saying:  “Frontiers”.  It started a long time ago when John was kind of spaced out and said it to some automatic-opening doors at a Chevron station.  The point is that, then and now, it has been slang for “next-level shit”.  This is some next-level shit.

Enter the great Erick Coleman, who must be tired of just ordering single pedals from me because this time he ordered a whole rig of matching pedals.  These were based on an original couple of MKII Tonebenders that I had built, one of which Erick possesses.  Three new ones in matching style have been added to the original fuzz:  a boost, an overdrive, and a tremolo.  None of them have LEDs (by request), none have labels, and the whole rig will drive gearheads crazy trying to figure out what each box is.  Frontiers.

From left to right they are the boost (ZVEX super hard-on variant), the tremolo (modified Diaz Tremodillo), the overdrive (TS-808 tube screamer with bass-boost), the fuzz (stock MKII Tonebender).

Tres Hombres.

Posted on by

This here is a trio of distortion boxes.  The circuit was originally published in the *great* Ken Anderton book “Electronic Projects for Musicians”.  Later a version of it with a few minor tweaks was built by Way Huge Electronics (the original issue of them) and marketed under the model name of “Red Llama”.  Those now fetch somewhere around 1 zillion dollars on ebay (okay, a few hundred).  Anyway the circuit is a refreshing change of topology using a CMOS hex inverter for the gain stages, and sound-wise the results are pretty damn cool.  Its kind of a halfbreed….not wild enough enough to be a fuzz, not tame enough to be an overdrive.  Its a good overall distortion and sonic-thickener.  Its my own personal go-to whenever i just need a distortion pedal. 

These three were all built and sold some time ago.  Controls are volume and distortion/gain, just like any good pedal should be….