Best circuits to breadboard?

[nobodysweasel]

Hi everyone.  I'm pretty new to the pedal building thing (and electronics in general).  I've made a few pedals, and so far I'm really enjoying it.  The only problem is I'm not exactly sure what's going on in these circuits.  So I've been doing a lot of reading online, and I got a few books about electronics in general.  The next step (I think) is to find some of the more useful circuits to put on a breadboard, and then experiment on them.  I'm hoping some of you out there have been in my shoes before and will have a few suggestions for the best circuits to put on my breadboard for learning purposes.  So far, I'm thinking the fuzz face is a good idea (because there's loads of info on that circuit on the internet).  I'm also thinking maybe the big muff (just because there are so many versions of that circuit to mess around with).  Any other ideas?  It would be especially nice to find a few good circuits to learn on that aren't  distortions.  I mean, everybody loves distortion, but I'd love to explore tremolos/phasers/compressors/whatever else is out there.

Thanks in advance for any ideas, and thanks for everything I've learned from you guys so far.

[Pablo1234]

I would start with a power supply using regulators. then try some low pass, high pass and band pass stuff. Anything from Craig Andertons Electronic workbench. splitters buffers phase shifters comps distortions. The problem with bread boarding things is the added RC and noise from them. The only circuits I keep on my boards are mixers and splitters and power supplies honestly because almost all effects use them. Another really useful thing to breadboard are LFO's with an amp to change depth and bias. but even they can be boarded and still used with the breadboards.  When you make a general circuit that works make a layout that makes it handy to plug into the breadboard.
This way instead of having to build the simple building blocks their already made.

[PRR]

> I'm thinking the fuzz face is a good idea

No. FuzzFace has fairly-few parts but is a VERY complicated effect.

Build a simple buffer. Gus posts plans, also at AMZ. Change the bias resistors. Note how the voltages change. Note that when they change too far, the buffer distorts.

[JustinFun]

My first breadboard build was a tubescreamer. It really helped me understand the different building blocks of the circuit, and I ended up doing a boxed up perf build of the result of my messing around (new tone stack, fet clippers, some minor cap changes) that I still use.

[petemoore]

  LPB on perfboard is similar enough to Big Muff stage 1, perhaps BMP stage 1 on perfboard as a 'booster' [a gain stage or buffer is a good 'introduction' circuit to a weak guitar signal output.
  In this way, for solid builds of what you know you'll need/want to have for 'adding in' to the circuit chain, the breadboard can be left open, and the 'extra' circuit will tend to be a reliable counterpart to the overall project. Breadboards are notoriously a bit noisy' and may begin to exhibit connections problems.
  Anyway, getting an LPB working and then measuring the transistor pin voltages and altering values here and there gives an idea how bias moves..note which way the voltage measurements 'move' when a resistor value is altered..it's pretty easy to tell which way..but by how much...it's worth messing about with a circuit bias to see what moves where when 'this' R value is altered. "Which way'' the voltage moves is pretty easy to calculate because lowering resistance makes the resistor a bit more like a wire with no resistance...so...if the resistor is connected to say 9v on one end, and you made it a wire...it'd be 9v at both ends of the wire...unless something with enough load 'pulls' the 9v down...in any case connecting a wire to a reference voltage...connects it to that voltage. If a huge resistor is put there of course the current is reduced by a lot and the voltage across the resistor can be big.
  Another super simple circuit that can be viewed doing things online is just a couple = value resistors in series across a DC battery...this is a voltage divider, the two resistors [of equal value which doesn't matter as long as they're = value] divide the powr supply in half, so if 9v appears across the resistor string [lets make them 10k / 10k or 150k/150k as long as both are equal value], 4.5vdc will appear at the divider junction...make say the 10k that connects to the 'top rail' [9v rail] a smaller value and the 4.5vdc will move toward the top rail. Connect the 10k to the top rail and expect to see the 9vdc connection measure 9vdc...fiddle with the top and bottom divider resistor values and measure the voltage at the divider, notice how the 'top' and 'bottom' voltage always add to the power supply voltage, but divide equally or unequally depending on the two divider resistor values.

[davent]

Beavis Audio has a bunch of breadboard projects to help get you started.

http://beavisaudio.com/bboard/projects/

And loads of info on working with a breadboard.

http://beavisaudio.com/bboard/docs/HackersGuideToTheBeavisBoard.pdf


edit:spelling

[Tony Forestiere]

Some of the classics: http://www.jiggawoo.eclipse.co.uk/guitarhq/Circuitsnippets/snippets.html

edit: forgot these gems: http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/richardo/distortion/index.html

+10 for davent's suggestions

[Earthscum]

I've gotta give Steve props here for beginner projects. If you build a couple things and feel ready to tackle a Fuzz Face, give Smallbear Elec's FurFace a try. There's enough info (and links to more info) in there to get you started, or scare you off for a couple more projects.

I gotta say, grab a couple 2n2222's and try out the Bazz Fuss. You get to make a fantastic little distortion, and ya get to make your own darlington! That was kind of a neat thing, for me anyways. I use MPSA13's now, but still... I guess that is just one of my "nostalgic" moments   

[WGTP]

http://diystompboxes.com/analogalchemy/

The Vulcans and Obsidian are easy to do on a breadboard with no crossing wires/parts.  Athough they have a lot of parts, it's basically the same 3 stages.  Great overdrive/distortions.   

[nobodysweasel]

Wow, those are some fantastic responses.  Looks like I'll be bookmarking this thread, as well as pretty much every link you guys posted.  This should keep me busy for a while   

[Seven64]

This was my first project on the breadboard.  i still havent moved past it tho....

http://www.seymourduncan.com/tonefiend/wp-content/uploads/4-v02.pdf

http://www.seymourduncan.com/tonefiend/wp-content/uploads/DIY-Club-Project-1-Part-2-of-4-v03.pdf

[Earthscum]

http://www.seymourduncan.com/tonefiend/wp-content/uploads/4-v02.pdf

http://www.seymourduncan.com/tonefiend/wp-content/uploads/DIY-Club-Project-1-Part-2-of-4-v03.pdf

Those are great! I've been doing this for a couple years now, but I definitely enjoyed reading through those! A+!

[LucifersTrip]

since this is a 1st breadboard experience, I'd probably save anything with ICs for later, since they can get way messier on the board. The OP wanted to experiment, so my suggestion would be a simple 2 stage distortion/fuzz with diode clipping.  

It will be easy to swap out each transistor, resistor, cap & diode to hear what change each one makes. A simple one would be this:


good luck