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Tracing Journal: Amptweaker Tight Fuzz

The Amptweaker Tight Fuzz was first released in 2012, a year after the Tight Metal and two years after the Tight Drive. It was James Brown’s take on a classic transistor fuzz, but incorporating his characteristic design style …

Tracing Journal: Amptweaker Tight Drive

Next up we have the Amptweaker Tight Drive. This is the very first pedal from Amptweaker, the pedal company founded by amp guru James Brown, designer of the legendary Peavey 5150 amplifier among many others. Released in 2010, …

Tracing Journal: Catalinbread Silver Kiss Mk. 2

The Catalinbread Silver Kiss was first released in 2007. It’s a more traditional overdrive than their other offerings, but with the addition of an active 3-band EQ. Here’s a demo from Gearmanndude: The discussion at Freestompboxes first began …

Tracing Journal: Stamps Drive-O-Matic

Next on the bench is the Stamps Drive-O-Matic. Built by Robert Stamps of The Amp Shop in LA in the mid-1990s, it was a very early example of a boutique pedal, all hand-built in small quantities. Despite this, …

Tracing Journal: Revisiting the Original Honey Bee FSB Trace

While reviewing the Honey Bee Overdrive circuit for the updated Procyon V2, we spent some time digging to see if we could determine why there are so many different versions of the circuit—not just component variants, but actual …

Tracing Journal: Cornish GC-1

This is the third of three new Cornish traces we’re posting today alongside the NG-3 and P-2. The GC-1 was released in 2021 to celebrate Pete Cornish’s 45 years in the music gear industry. Here’s a demo of …

Tracing Journal: Cornish P-2

The second of three Cornish traces releasing today is the P-2. Here’s a demo of it in action: The P-2 was one of Pete Cornish’s earliest designs, dating back to 1981 when it was created as an updated …

Tracing Journal: Cornish NG-3

Today we’re releasing new traces of three Cornish pedals. First up is the NG-3, a variable-bias silicon fuzz that can go from class A (typical smooth fuzz tone) through class B (gated fuzz) to class C (“velcro” sound …

Six new projects: Mu-tron III, Nobels ODR-S, Slow Gear and more

We’ve got six brand-new projects releasing today! Lumitron – Mu-tron® III The very first commercial envelope filter effect, first released in 1972. View Project → Arcturus – Nobels ODR-S A variation of the more famous ODR-1 with a …

Two new kits available now: King of Tone and Prince of Tone

Today we’re excited to release the first new kits of 2023! Theseus Dual Overdrive The first is by far our most-requested kit since the PCB was released last year: the King of Tone (Theseus). Our version is true …

2022 Retrospective

It’s been a whirlwind of a year, but here at the end of it, we’re giving a window into what we’ve been up to and where things are headed. There’s a lot to talk about, so we’ll jump …

Four new projects releasing today

As part of our Black Friday sale, we’ve got four new 1590BBS-sized projects launching today. Two of them are adaptations of the Lab Series® L5 preamp, isolating each channel as a standalone circuit. Then we’ve got two metal …

New Cerulean V2 PCB & kit available now

Along with four brand-new projects, today we’re also releasing an updated PCB and kit of our Cerulean, based on the Marshall Bluesbreaker. The Cerulean has always been one of our most popular projects since it was first released …