First Build - Does this make sense?

[GibsonGM]

Let us know how it goes, man!  Always glad to help if I can, same as everyone else on here. We all got about $10,000 worth of free engineering lessons from the folks that went before us, so we have to pass it on, ha ha!

Best advice I can give is read, read read!  Start looking for the similarities between projects, and find out why they're designed that way.  Don't be afraid to make mistakes or ask those "dumb" questions we all have! 

[PRR]

> constantly re-drawing the circuit and making mistakes is probably not the best way to learn this

YES IT IS.

With much practice, you progress to doing some "re-drawing" in your head. Saves paper. But still re-re-re-re-drawing.

The guys who think their first drawing is their last drawing are disappointed.

But:

Do not re-invent wheels!! (You are not the first to want a unity-gain buffer.)

Plagiarize plagiarize plagiarize!!

Steal a plan. While stealing, ponder why they used those values. How do they relate to the other, and to the external things they face?

K.I.S.S. Your plan in Reply #10, you do not need that last transistor. The opamp is likely to be able to drive any guitar-cord load. With beef to spare: it can probably drive a low-impedance Volume pot which can drive medium-impedance loads (as you show in Reply #16). But do you even need a Volume pot? The "gain" stages are probably unity-gain. You usually don't want output smaller than input.

[Czyc]

> constantly re-drawing the circuit and making mistakes is probably not the best way to learn this

YES IT IS.

With much practice, you progress to doing some "re-drawing" in your head. Saves paper. But still re-re-re-re-drawing.

The guys who think their first drawing is their last drawing are disappointed.

But:

Do not re-invent wheels!! (You are not the first to want a unity-gain buffer.)

Plagiarize plagiarize plagiarize!!

Steal a plan. While stealing, ponder why they used those values. How do they relate to the other, and to the external things they face?

K.I.S.S. Your plan in Reply #10, you do not need that last transistor. The opamp is likely to be able to drive any guitar-cord load. With beef to spare: it can probably drive a low-impedance Volume pot which can drive medium-impedance loads (as you show in Reply #16). But do you even need a Volume pot? The "gain" stages are probably unity-gain. You usually don't want output smaller than input.

Haha yes this is what I've been doing, not super knowledgeable on component selection yet so just using other circuits as examples Still feel like this method (as well as the advice from you guys) has taught me a great deal.

So, I was wondering. In my most current circuit design I posted (with the obvious changes made that were pointed out) could I use a transistor in place of the Op-Amp? I have some op-amps coming in the mail, should be sometime next week, but I would like to try and build something this week. I have NPN transistors as well as some JFets, I'm not sure which ones but I can find out when I get home in about 6 hours.

[GibsonGM]

The short answer is YES, you can do that using NPN transistors.

Make the buffer with one, just as you laid out previously.

Then, add what is known as a "recovery stage" after your tone 'stuff', visible here:  http://www.bigmuffpage.com/Big_Muff_Pi_versions_schematics_part2.html

The transistor and biasing resistors from C3 thru the output are what you want - they are just a basic gain stage that can boost your now-lower signal and 'interface' with the amp or whatever follows your little circuit here.    C3 and C2 are open to being raised a bit in value - experiment!!  Make sure the collector is connected to "+" after its resistor (R6 and bias resistor R7).

This building block is all over the place, so be sure to draw it out and save it, and to learn why the resistor values are chosen to be the way they are!!  Esp. if you have sim software - this is one to mess around with!