What's your favorite building blocks?

[Bill Mountain]

I spend so much time trying to reinvent the wheel only to once again realize that the same building blocks that have been used since the dawn of stomp boxes are still not only useful but sound better than anything else I have come up with.  It is continuously at this point that I realize, "I am not a designer.  I am a tweaker."  But you know what?  I'm ok with that.

My absolute favorite things to tweak are dod/mxr/ross distortions and big muff style gain stages (for clean boosts or dirt).  You can create some magical things with just these two bits of circuitry.

Bonus:  Fender Tweed Preamp.  Love it!

What's your favorite building blocks?

[DavenPaget]

I've been converted into a CMOS guy , and i have lots of TL07X opamps and JRC386 , so yeah .
I do JRC386 + CMOS ( as in the case of PWM ) , Uglyface , Tufnel , CMOS Drive ( tim escobedo's ) , and some buffers .
OH and i've been finding a use for the massive amounts of MC4558 ( 1 original JRC4558D ) ( A LM4558 ) , NE5532N and the sort ,

[deadastronaut]

+1 on being a tinkerer...

my tinkering blocks are/were...
was, 386..they're a good easy place to start for distortions...imo.
presently, mu-amp with j201's...
also lfo's and led/ldr's....always fun..

not so much reinventing the wheel, just putting a bit more air in the tyres...

[DavenPaget]

@mr.coffin-naut' 
J201's really make me wonder ... 
I always use J201 purely for buffers / preamps 

[Quackzed]

i like the mini-booster or srpp as a building block stage... you can dial in some compression or keep it pretty clean, sounds as good as anything i've tried and has plenty of gain available... 

[jafo]

SRPP has grown on me. I don't like the relative lack of second harmonic, but that's easily fixed by a common-source JFET stage or two before -- oh, hello, Thor. Anyway, it's not a big deal, and the sheer ease of use (I use the final circuit in RG's "Mod your Mu-amp/Minibooster" article), responsiveness, and tone with a loud pup speak for themselves. Well, sing and bark for themselves.

Common-source JFET or MOSFET stages in general please me, especially for cleans, but I'd probably go full Fetzer Valve for small or larger amounts of distortion.

Common-emitter BJTs are beautiful; they can be very warm and nice indeed. I think the tone is closer to a preamp tube than a FET is (and certainly the harmonics are) when cranked a bit, but wow, they distort in a nasty manner -- which can also be a beautiful thing. Probably best to run them a bit hot and use diode feedback.

I'm still tweaking my first 4049 build, but I think it'll be my favoritest block of all once I get the hang of it.

[jafo]

J201's really make me wonder ... 

Hey, that's (almost) my tagline!

[DavenPaget]

Hey, that's (almost) my tagline!

Mind you , for me it's only J201    Don't like 2N5461 , don't like MPF102 

[stringsthings]

BJT Common Emitter Amplifiers still amaze me with the amount of distortion they can produce ... and i still like working with Inverting and Non-Inverting IC amplifiers ....

[azrael]

lately Gus' work with bootstrapped stages has got me tinkering...

[Keppy]

Seems like everything I design uses OTA's. If it begins "voltage-controlled..." then I'm in.   

[petemoore]

  I like a nicely biased Jfet, it gets 1rst position 'honors' on my PB for some time now. I tried replacing it with...everything...including tube. Something about the Jfet stage seeing the PU just works really nicely, the amp likes it, the D+..
   D+ is just a term for D+ like circuits. IMcase agreed...a great Distortion Engine to work on/work with, with preboost and post filter [simple treble control] the tweeked D+ is what it is...generic, thick..etc, and as such got and gets a lot of work.
  CMOS is voted most likely candidate for when I get the intractible build-bug again.

[alparent]

My favorite building blocks are LEGO's (my son's favorite. also)

I was into those wooden block with letters on them.....but they don't hold together like LEGO's do.

As for tinkering and letting your imagination run wild............can't beat LEGO's!

[Ben N]

Alain!  Where the heck is the like button, anyway?

[alparent]

Don't need a like button......a smilly face is good enought for me!

[DavenPaget]

 

[WGTP]

I can't figure out legos.  I have 3 small bread boards for distortions.  One for Mosfet/Jfet stages including Mu, one for Op Amps and one for CMOS. 

[alparent]

I can't figure out legos. 

No kids in your life!? They can help you out.