The Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster is a booster guitar pedal that especially emphasizes the upper mid and treble frequencies (coloring the signal). It was designed in London (UK) by Dallas Musical Ltd in 1965.  At that time, the British tube amplifiers such as the Vox AC30 or Marshall JTM45, tended to produce a slightly dark, muddy tones when overdriven, this box fixed that issue. The effect became popular because of its sweet coloration, slightly bending the signal and giving a soft compression when maxed out.  

The grey metal box was designed to sit on top of the amp and not on the floor as most of the pedals do nowadays, it features a simple ON/OFF sliding switch and a potentiometer to adjust the volume. The apparent simplicity of the circuit and the limited supply of this discontinued effect make it a perfect target for builder and guitar pedal enthusiasts.

The Time Manipulator is a programmable Arduino based Delay/Echo/Reverb guitar pedal. It uses two PT2399 delay integrated circuits to archive up to 600ms delay. Also, with the help of 4 analog switches, the internal configuration of the pedal can change: placing the PT2399 delay chips in series or parallel and adding extra features:

The code for the Arduino chip is programmed in C and it is Open-Source, so users can re-program the functionality or add new effects and share them in the forum. There are 9 effects included by default in the pedal: short delay, delay, echo, reverb, tap echo, chorus, telegraph, accelerator, and psycho. The schematic and bill of materials are public, the circuit was designed using easy-to-find and through-hole components.

The Guv'nor was the first guitar pedal designed by Marshall, released in 1988 and in production during 4 years. This overdrive/distortion Made in England effect replicates the classic tube Marshall Amp sound into compact and solid state box featuring a sustainable gain with a touch of compression. There are later Guv'nor MK2 models in a different enclosure, but most people prefer the sound of the original discontinued model. 

In this article, we are going to study the original design and see what are the bits that make this effect so desired.

The 1966 Dallas Arbitrer Fuzz Face has become the holy grail of Fuzz tones. It enjoys the most enduring reputation probably due to Jimi Hendrix use and abuse of this pedal. But not all the Fuzz Faces sound the same, in the old days, players sorted through dozens of pedals at a time to find the best sounding fuzz of the store. Why is that? 

In this project, we are going to build the perfect Fuzz with all the knowledge and experience that we have nowadays while keeping the tweaks and old character that make this vintage pedal to sound warm, round, and harmonically pleasant.

The FF circuit is rather simple: 4 resistors, 3 caps, and 2 transistors. Seems like pretty simple stuff, and in principle it is, but there is plenty of black magic and mystery associated with a good sounding Fuzz circuit, and it takes a lot of effort to get the things sounding just right.

The gain (Hfe) and leakage current inconsistency of the germanium transistors (the sound signature of this pedal) and the lack of ability/will to use the right components could make a huge impact on the tonal heart. The circuit layout in a pedal with a huge gain like this is critical and the component selection will leave its footprint on the sound.