Categories
DIY Effects

The Uglyface: World’s Nastiest Stompbox?

Makes you sound pretty as a picture!

When it comes to seriously messed-up guitar effects, few can rival the Uglyface. And, as they say on infomercials, “It’s not available in any stores!” In fact, as of this writing, the only way to unleash this particular brand of brutality is to build the box for yourself.

It’s based on one of dozens of great circuits created by Tim Escobedo, a stompbox genius who has shared his innovations with the world for free. His library of schematics has been dormant for years, but it’s archived here. Almost all these great-sounding designs display true originality, a rare commodity in pedaldom.

Categories
Amps Effects

Black and Brown and Trem All Over

Magical modulation: The brownface Tremolux

You see a lot of chatter online about the differences between the tremolo circuit Fender used in its early-’60s “brownface” amps and the trem circuit that replaced it in the mid-decade “blackface” models. (Just Google “brownface blackface tremolo” to see what I mean.) The prevailing sentiment seems to be that the brownface version is the ultimate Fender trem—or so you’d conclude, judging by all the boutique amps and pedals offering the brownface version of the effect.