COLORSOUND™ TONEBENDER™, 3 KNOB REPLICA COMPLETE KIT

A complete kit for a ColorSound™ ToneBender™ 3-knob replica, built as a great-sounding NPN silicon fuzz, with transistor sockets so you can drop in your own germanium transistors.

About the effect

The 3-knob ToneBender™ is a classic British fuzz, and the same circuit was also sold as the SolaSound ToneBender™ and Vox™ ToneBender™. The project page recommends the NPN silicon version for a simple, good-sounding build. Negative ground versions can share a power supply with your other negative ground pedals; the PNP germanium version needs positive ground power unless you add the charge pump circuit described on the project page.

What you get

The kit contains the PCB, transistor sockets and all the parts to make an NPN silicon transistor version. If you want a germanium version, get your own germanium transistor set (Small Bear carries them) and use it with this kit; the sockets make it easy to swap them in. The kit includes all the parts for these versions on the project page, except the germanium transistors:

• ColorSound™ 3-Knob ToneBender™ with PNP germanium transistors (positive ground)
• ColorSound™-like 3-Knob ToneBender™ with NPN germanium transistors (negative ground)
• ColorSound™-like 3-Knob ToneBender™ with NPN silicon transistors (negative ground)

Enclosure options:

• 125B: a standard-size pedal enclosure.
• 1590B: the smaller enclosure option.
• 1590BB: the larger enclosure option.
• No Enclosure: all the kit parts without the box, for builders who want to use their own enclosure.

Also builds

The project page also documents Tone Burner, Boutique and 4-knob Yard Box versions (PNP germanium) on the same board.

Build resources

• Complete instructions for this kit
• 3-Knob ToneBender™ instructions (PDF)
• Charge pump version instructions (PDF)
• 125B enclosure specification sheet
• 1590B enclosure specification sheet (smaller)
• 1590BB enclosure specification sheet (larger)
• General information about GGG kits
• YouTube video demo of the Boutique version

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