Tim Escobedo's Simple Square Wave Shaper

[jmusser]

I built it last night before bed, and got it fired up a little while ago. I like it a lot. It's all fuzz, all the time! It has great sustain, and massive output, especially with the effect adjusted for full squarewave. Adjusting the two 500K pots to max does this. Backing both pots all the way off gives a fair representation of a fuzz face type sound. Between the two pot adjustments, there are different dacay times, a brassy character on the bass strings. On most settings you get what I call "pick cluck" with each pick attack, like is present with the Octave Up Sick Box. It's especially evident in full square wave, so you'll want to pick lightly if you don't care for that, to minimize it. Be sure your output pot is down before you adjust from the more filtered (fuzz face type) tone to the square wave, because there is a huge volume difference. (you'll find your ear drums on your shoulder some place!) This effect has a lot of harmonic content and likes chords. Overall, it's a very nice sounding effect that I believe you would play a lot, and not just keep on the pedal board for special occasions. It has a more defined square wave sound than say, the Univox Square Wave Fuzz, but I like them both. That fact I think makes the Univox more "warm" sounding. You'll never get the nastiness out of the Univox that you will this one. A last note here. I adjusted the 25K bias trimmer like so: There is a spot, where you go from pretty fair sustain and bias "fart out" to pretty much dead. When you just get past that into the next part of the pot where the sustain starts again, stop there. Anymore will drop the sustain and loose sensitivity.