Welcome to the Revolution

Hi there, welcome to my blog - La Revolution Deux. It's an odd name - but I like it! Here you will find all the info on my various DIY Guitar effects builds, amplifiers and guitars. Everything from a humble Ibanez tubescreamer to the holiest KLON Overdrive.

You may also find a few effects builds that I am looking to move on - usually in exchange for other effects/gear/cash. You can always check my ebay account to see what I've got up for grabs.

Have fun, enjoy the blog - Fred Briggs :-)

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Feel free to get in contact with me about anything you see on this blog or with any general questions about guitars, amplifiers and effects, I'll be happy to answer! Just click the button above to email me directly or alternately my email address is fredbriggs2007 [at] googlemail [dot] com

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Wednesday 13 May 2009

Catalinbread - Dirty Little Secret


This is a fairly new offering from Nic at Catalinbread effects. Check out the page here: http://www.catalinbread.com/DLS.html

There are plenty of demo videos on the Catalinbread website but here is an extra one;


The Dirty Little Secret has been getting rave reviews for a while now and that was enough to spark peoples curiosity as to what was going on inside. The guys over at freestompboxes.org opened one up and this is a schematic drawn up by WhiteKeyHole;

Here is the part list;

Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret - Part List

Part Value

C1 0.05uF
C2 100pF
C3 0.22uF
C4 4.7uF
C5 0.05uF
C6 0.022uF
C7 470pF
C8 200pF
C9 0.05uF
C10 47pF
C11 2.2uF
C12 0.033uF
C13 10uF
C14 100uF
C15 0.003uF
C16 147pF
POT1 100KB
POT2 100KB
POT3 1MA
Q1 2N5457
Q2 2N5457
Q3 2N5457
Q4 2N5457
Q5 2N5457
Q6 2N5457
R1 1M
R2 47K
R3 10K
R4 1M
R5 1M
R6 4.7K
R7 470K
R8 22K
R9 200K
R10 4.7K
R11 22K
R12 200K
R13 1M
R14 470K
R15 12K
R16 1M
R17 1M
R18 47R
SW1A DPDT
SW1B

A great vero layout from Harald Sabro (check out his site here for more great vero layouts; www.sabrotone.com);


As you can see - stacked mu-amp stages, a great way to get some serious marshall rock tones. I've not built one up yet but when I do I'm going to give mine an adjustable voltage supply ranging from 18V - 4.5V, these stacked mu-amp stages react very differently to altered supply voltages, articluate and dynamic at 18V and a softer, more compressed feel as you lower it down.

All in all the Dirty Little Secret looks like a great little pedal, much fun to play with :-)

Sunday 10 May 2009

BJF - Dyna Red Distortion :-)


[Note] This post also contains the Bearfoot FX Dyna Red Distortion [Note]

Everyone loves the Dyna Red - A great sounding overdrive/distortion circuit from Born of BJFe. A great, dynamic response with a smooth top end ar features of this great unit. Here's a demo video;



Check out the schematic here;


This schematic was reversed from a dyna red which had been modified by Bjorn himself to produce more character in the lower mids, Soulsonic found that by replacing the 0.47uF cap on the feedback loop with a 0.1uF cap that the original sound was restored.

Integrating the bass control of Paul C's Timmy circuit could work wonders, go on, give it a try!

Here's a perf/pcb layout for you;


Many thanks to all involved over at freestompboxes.org :-)

And now the Bearfoot Dyna Red Distortion, here's the scheme;



For more great info on Bjorn's stuff get over to the BJFe forum (http://www.bjfe.org) and ask some questions, Bjorn always puts an interesting answer down for you :) Get involved with the HoneyBee Project too!