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ATTACKLEVEL

Enclosure not stated · 2 knobs

Effects Layouts (blog)

Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk. II ProfessionalVerified

Based on the Sola Sound Tone Bender MKII· 22 other boards clone it

Category
Fuzz
Controls
Attack · Level
Layout
Verified · Effects Layouts (blog) marks it as built and working
Tags
Fuzz, Marshall, SolaSound/ColorSound

From the post

Here's another layout with onboard pots. The Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk. II is probably most famous for shaping some (but not all) of the guitar sound of legendary guitarist Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin I. Originally it was a positive ground effect, but I've laid it out to use NPN transistors. This way you can daisy chain it with normal negative ground effects, or avoid using a 9V battery or making a voltage inverter. I've added a polarity protection diode and a pulldown resistor at the input. I would also recommend as I did with the Fuzz Face, to swap the stock B1k pot controlling attack with either a C1k or B2k pot for better control.

The hfe of the transistors should be around 70 for Q1 and 2, and 100 for Q3 (according to Fuzz Central). I've personally had good luck with some Russian MP38a transistors. You can also build the Marshall Supa Fuzz with this layout by making the following substitutions:

• Increase both 4.7µ capacitors to 10µ

• Reduce the 100k resistor going from the base of Q1 to ground to 10k

• Reduce the 100k resistor going from 9v to the collector of Q2 to 47k

You can also use this layout to make the original positive ground effect using PNP transistor by just inverting any polarized components (basically just flip around the 3 electrolytic caps and diode).

Schematic

This is a board layout, a drawing of where each part goes, and the post may link the schematic it was drawn from. Open the layout at Effects Layouts (blog). No KiCad fragment has been drawn for this circuit yet.

Parts list 15 rows

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RefValueNormalizedTypeNotes
Resistors 5
×110K10kread from the layout by eye
×1470Ω470read from the layout by eye
×3100K100kread from the layout by eye
×18.2K8.2kread from the layout by eye
×12.2M2.2Mread from the layout by eye
Capacitors 4
×24.7uF4.7uelectrolytic; read from the layout by eye
×147uF47uelectrolytic; read from the layout by eye
×210nF10nread from the layout by eye
×1100nF100nread from the layout by eye
Diodes 1
×11N40011N4001read from the layout by eye
Transistors 3
Q1NPN GermaniumNPN GERMANIUMread from the layout by eye
Q2NPN GermaniumNPN GERMANIUMread from the layout by eye
Q3NPN GermaniumNPN GERMANIUMread from the layout by eye
Potentiometers 2
AttackB1KB1kPotentiometerprinted 1K Lin; read from the layout by eye
LevelA100KA100kPotentiometerprinted 100K Log; read from the layout by eye

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