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Let's talk about my journey into the guitar pedal biz. It all started with a fascination for those little boxes that do wonders to guitar sounds. You know what I'm talking about, right? Those pedals that can take a simple guitar note and turn it into something entirely different. I was so into this that I started playing around with the insides of these pedals, trying to get them to produce the exact sounds I had in my head. Now, the real game-changer for me was when I started making my own pedals. I've always been a fan of gain-based...

One of my favorite sites to send folks to who had questions about how pedals circuits work is a site called electrosmash. Unfortunately, their website has been gone for a bit and is always half working or has one reason or another that browser security will not allow folks to access it. Fortunately, they do have a policy that allows those with blogs to repost their content  and add to it if desired, so this is a good place to do just that. With this in mind, let's discuss the MXR Distortion + (or Distortion plus) circuitry.   The M-104...

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The Boss SD-1 is a very good sounding overdrive, economically priced and is one of the most famous tubescreamer type circuits available. Many boutique pedal builders have used this type of circuitry to 'design' their own pedals complete with new fancy paint job and the assumption that their version is better. While it does perform exceptionally well on it's own, we can do different changes to make it better, even making it into something that would rival some of the best boutique overdrive pedals available. First, let's talk about what makes the circuit 'tick', and what the signal is doing...