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 The Jan Ray overdrive is one of the many scandals that shook the boutique pedal community recently. Indeed, the Jan Ray has been proven to be a Paul C. Timmy slightly modified as we will see by studying the circuit. However, Vemuram pretended that it was an original design he made up listening to old Fender amps during 3 years... And sold the pedal at an indecent price for an analog pedal: 370 euros (400 dollars) ! This is a typical marketing strategy: "the price represents the quality", which is totally absurd for a basic electronic guitar pedal... He sold a lot of them whereas Paul C. produced the same pedal for 120 dollars. This a pedal that deserves to be cloned, and if you want to buy this sort of overdrive, go for the  Timmy ! Here is the schematic of the Jan Ray circuit as it is on the veroboard (a bit different from what you can find online, but functional !) Vemuram Jan Ray schematic (Made with Eagle) It is quite a classical layout, using the 2 OP-amps included in t...

 The Sunface is a Fuzzface slightly modified.  Fuzz face is really a simple circuit design, as you can already tell by the number of components of the circuit: 4 resistors, 3 capacitors and 2 transistors! And of course two controls: fuzz + volume! As simple as that! But when we look at the circuit: Fig.1  Fuzz face circuit, classic 60s original schematics (made with  Fritzing ) Not so easy to understand, isn't it? Let divide this schematic in 3 sections: Fig.2  Fuzz face circuit, classic 60s original schematics with different sections of the circuit (made with  Fritzing ) The first capacitor (C2, 2.2uF) filters the DC current at the entry of the circuit to avoid troubles with the next part of the circuit. This kind of capacitor (that you will find in a lot of circuits) is called  a coupling capacitor.  It also acts as a high pass filter, removing some bass frequencies. Enlarging its value will let more bass go through the circuit. The  gain a...

 The Ditto looper from TC Electronics is really a good looper... In theory! Simple to use, no quality loss due to the high sampling rate, true bypass... Everything to make it the best looper for guitarists! Bottom line is... It is really fragile!  Mine did not resist to 6 months of intensive use, and during a rehearsal it just stopped working. LED was still on, but I had to click at least 20 times on the switch before anything happens! It was impossible to record any loop... I guessed that the switch was broken, and I decided to fix it. Here is a step by step guide if you ever have this problem one day!  Disclaimer:  I will not be held responsible if you break your looper by trying to repair it. The Ditto is quite fragile: it is all SMD components, sensitive to heat and shocks. Take your time and be cautious. What do you need? You do not need a lot of things to repair the Ditto (a broken one of course): Your broken Ditto A soldering iron Solder Desoldering braid (or ...