Mad Professor - Sweet Honey Overdrive

So, the latest overdrive offering from the guys at Mad Professor (Designed by Bjorn of BJFe electronics, no less!) has been generating buzz around it for a long time now. Pitched as a super dynamic light overdrive pedal it's been creating some great tones with a large variety of gear.

The tech-no-files over at Freeztompboxes.org got interested in what was under the bonnet and managed to get hold of one for a look. Again (Seem to be saying this a lot these days) great work and thanks go to ibodog and Kuu_uni for their work in this.

There is some interestingtext over at the Mad Professor Website regarding the Sweet Honey Overdrive;

"Mad Professor Sweet Honey Overdrive (SHOD) is a super touch sensitive medium gain overdrive pedal. Distortion level can be controlled by pick attack and pickup strenght. Harder picking for overdrive and softer for cleaner tone. With the unique Focus control you can adjust the feel and dynamics of the pedal as well as overal EQ. Turning Focus CCW you need to play harder to get distortion and the tone is softer, great for jazz and blue. Focus turned CW gives a slight treble boost and earlier distortion.

This type of overdrive has previously only been found in the BJF Honey Bee but is now presented in Mad Professor version. The Mad Professor SHOD has a tighter sound and is more versatile as it was designed to work with all kinds of guitars and amplifiers."

Here's a gut shot of an original;

Here is the schematic;

And a vero layout (Although I doubt the authenticity of the creator's name!);

Here is a decent demo video of the pedal in action - 

And finally here is the freestompboxes thread regarding the tracing of the unit; http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9583&start=0

Pete Cornish - G2 Distortion

Well, I think we all knew it but there is confirmation - Pete Cornish likes Big Muffs and his G2 unit (Which he charges £444 for!) is a nice take on the classic circuit... But £444? Hmmmm. You decide:

Anyway, the tinkers over at freestompboxes.org in the Tracers Fund gutted this one and put together a great project, so you can make your own G2 for £44 (less if you're careful!), 10% of the cost of the original ;-) And, you won't have to wait 3 years to get it... Bonus!

The most interesting feature of this pedal is the input/bypass routing. Taken from the Cornish website:

"The input to this unique device is our universally acclaimed High Impedance, Unity Gain, Class A, Buffer Preamp with it's superior RFI rejecting capability (to eliminate Radio Station interference) and Low Impedance output, allowing the use of extended cable runs from the G-2™ in bypass mode. The fixed High Impedance load presented to the Guitar allows the pickups to operate at their optimum, even when several effects units are connected after the G-2™. The Unity Gain Buffer also prevents "Ghost Distortion" being audible in Bypass Mode. This effect unit gets the most benefit from being fed into a clean, full frequency response amplifier and I recommend that when you receive your pedal you connect it up without anything else in line, just Guitar/Pedal/Amp, and discover the way the controls interact, both with themselves and the guitar/amp controls. Then adding the rest of your effects, you may find that you need to make slight adjustments to these as they are now being fed with a constant signal when the G-2™ is in Bypass Mode."


Here's the "Darkside" project: http://www.mediafire.com/?a8ii16j0i2wsdrs

Check out the project, pictures and fallout here: http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9255

A special thanks goes to Dirk Hendrik and MadBean!

BJF - Honeybee Overdrive

[Note] - this post also includes information on the Bearfoot Honeybee and a Hot Rodded Honeybee a'la the Honeybee De'luxe [Note]

Here it is, the one we've been waiting for - It's the BJF Honeybee Overdrive, widely recognized as one of the best sounding "low-gainers" around. I built one up and found it great as a "slightly-dirtier-than-a-dirty-booster" booster into a tube amp on the verge of breakup. It gives a great dynamic response to your playing, I stuck a compressor in front of it and still enjoyed the feel. All together a top, top pedal, a recommended buy or build!

Here is BJF's own description:

"This very mild overdrive was inspired by an old Supro amp, there is special kind of warm mild overdrive that you can't find from any other amp (or pedal what so ever). Works very well with other pedals or distorting amp giving this fat and warm overdrive character. The pedal is also super dynamic, from clean to overdrive just by using different touch of your hand."

For those who are unfamiliar with the Honeybee and how it sounds here is a demo video for you;

Sounds nice doesn't it :-)

Well the boys over at freestompboxes reversed it and came up with a schematic and PCB layout. Check out Madbean's brilliant file here; http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/YellowShark/docs/YellowShark.pdf for the schematic and PCB as well as a few notes.

An interesting design, the way it controls the high end content of the signal with those feedback loops along with the filter at the end of the circuit and the Jfet, I like it.

Here is a vero layout by IvIark on the freestomp forums - 

Now, onto the Bearfoot Honeybee, there is a slight variation in the circuit, this being C5 (on the madbean scheme) is 220n and is in series with a 4k7 resistor.

Now, finally the Hot Rodded Honeybee (a'la the Honeybee De'luxe) that was cobbled together from the Model-H, the Blueberry and Honeybee schematics. Here is the scheme;

And here is a vero layout for it;

Zvex - Fuzz Factory

[Lots of pretty custom shop Fuzz Factories]

For mere completeness - and to stop me getting so many emails ;-) Here is the schematic a vero board layout for the ever famous Zvex Fuzz Factory, crazy fuzz sounds galore. And, a few actually useful ones too (If you tweak for long enough - don't forget to write them down!)! Check out the demos on the zvex website: http://zvex.com/fuzz.html

Here's a demo video of the Fuzz Factory in action:

For the schematic (Very easy to read and generate your own layout for) see here: http://solgrind.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/zvex-fuzz-factory/

I know he's denied permission to repost but the link isn't always active - here it is to make sure it doesn't disappear (Sorry Martin, I'll get round to redrawing it myself soon!); 

Vero Layout -

PCB Layout (I have no idea whose this is? But it's all good.) -

For an alternate PCB layout/schematic/entire project! Check out Madbean's brilliant work here: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/Zombii/docs/Zombii_ver.5.pdf

Bevis Audio Research - FuzzLab Jr

Wow. Just wow. Build one of these: http://www.beavisaudio.com/projects/FuzzLabJr/ (It's a baby one of these: http://www.beavisaudio.com/projects/FuzzLab/ )and you'll not leave your practice room for at least a month while you play with all those settings.

Beavis has some of the best projects there are around, get on it and build some of them. I'll post another one in a while for anyone that is interested...

Mad Professor - Fire Red Fuzz

Here is another Mad Professor pedal - it's a derivative of a Big Muff classic circuit. Check out those fet clippers in there. This thing can scream! Here is a you tube demo of the thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaUfuqw_8rA

Here is the schematic which was, once again (and as always), produced by the freestompboxes forum. Special thanks to ibodog2!

Here's a link to the Mad Professor Website. Here is a youtube video of the fuzz in action;