Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hi
I was wondering if the 2 knob bender could be changed to act like the Coloursound Steve Hackett ed Tone bender i,e, smooth distortion, extended sustain.

Despite the name, the Supa Tonebender is not related to the Sola Sound MKII at all. It is in fact a straight Big Muff clone.

And "Smooth distortion, extended sustain" is the trademark of the Big Muff.

K

Don't forget the BMP has an LPB stuck on the end too. That is...The BMP is a clone of the supa tonebender with an LPB on the end. This doesn't change the sound a whole lot, but the supa tonebender had extremely low output....barely even unity gain. Slapping an LPB on the end definitely took care of this problem and because the original signal was not very hot, there is really no additional clipping from the LPB.

From the Big Muff Pi tweaks & mods website:

Excerts from the Diode Mods:

"By removing only the first two diodes (of the first stage) the bass response of the unit will become much greater when Sustain increases (great for bass players!). This trick is also done to the Colorsound Supa Tonebender, which is basically a Muff with the first diodes removed."

http://www.student.ru.nl/r.kerkhof/Taas ... 20Muff.htm

Hope that helps.

David

I build a Supa Tonebender according to this schematic: http://eu11.stripper.jp/pulcino/blog/archives/000024.html. very similar circuit to the Big Muff, and you can probably use a Muff/Beaver PCB to build it (or make your own like I did). As with a Muff: long sustain, lots of gain. But still, with some careful tweaking you can get nice gritty lower gain distortion sounds with some actual dynamics in there. The Steve Hackett signature Tonebender (see http://filters.muziq.be/model/colorsound/supatonebender) is probably very similar, although I have not seen the insides of that box.

However ... Hackett used more fuzz boxes than this one, and if you want to approximate the early Hackett sound (as in the first albums of Genesis), you may be better of with a Germanium fuzz like the Tonebender MKII ...

Quick edit: my Supa Tonebender has plenty output for me (considerably more than unity gain).

Yes you can! You can build a Colorsound Supa Tonebender or a Guild Three-Knob Foxey Lady Fuzz using the BYOC Large Beaver PCB (not sure about Version 2 with the EQ Voicing Switch) and the General Guitar Gadgets BMP PCB.

David