Thing-A-Ma-Bob (Atari/Nintendo/Gated Fuzz)
When I first got into pedal building this was one of the first builds I ever made. To be honest, it’s the perfect first build. It has a very low parts count, will fit in a tiny enclosure, and doesn’t require any “mojo” parts that will cost you an arm and a leg. Here’s the vero layout I used (Thanks to FUZZZZzzzz from DIYStompboxes/FSB.org for creating this circuit and sharing the layout)
Upon first building this pedal the first thing that I noticed is that it is LOUD. I added a volume control to somewhat “tame” this pedal. I did this by simply adding a 100KA pot to the end of the circuit. Lug 3 connects to OUT, lug 2 to output (on the footswitch) and lug 1 goes to ground.
You’ll have no trouble fitting this board into a 1590B enclosure. Once again I chose not to add a battery snap (no use for it anyways) and you can see how small the circuit actually is.
It sounds much like an old Nintendo system. It’s gated, dirty, and very “8-Bit”. The one knob acts as a gate. You can have the pedal set wide open and you’ll get oscillating noise but as you turn it up it’ll gate the sound, making it sound sputtery or like a fuzz face with a dying battery. For such a simple build it has some very unique sounds that you wouldn’t be able to get out of other fuzz pedals. It’s not polite sounding, but be warned if you use it at a gig people will ask you “what pedal is that??!?”
Woody Laboratories 
Thank you for posting , . . I am going to work on this now .
also its verified ! ^ ^
sweeet! thats my design! glad you like it! cheers..
Nice! Do you have any mods you’d like to add?
You could try and experiment with the 10uf cap. If you increase it it’ll add more bass to the sound. I’ve made a few with a switch between 10uf and 22uf / 47uf. And maybe add a sag potmeter to control the amount of volts to the chip.. i think it works on a minimum of 4.5 v or something..
Works Great!!!! I LOVE IT!!! 8 Bit fuzz check, Looper with drum track check. ONE MAN VIDEO GAME COVER BAND HERE I COME!
Decent! It’s one of my favourite pedals for guitar and drum machines 🙂
Have a board all populated, and I think I could use the volume control.. I was wondering if you could tell me if I drew this(crudely made) addition to your layout correctly.. I used an offboard wiring diagram(again, crudely).. Just wondering if this will work..
Thanks so much for putting this out there.. I can’t wait to get it going.. My third pedal build!
Looks good to me! Everything should work for you there. Enjoy the pedal!
Dude I’ve tried to build this like 4 times. what am i doing wrong?
i always either get no sound or really really low volume and only when i crank the 10K pot.
First time it worked for a bit when i had it in a certain position. i put it down to my bad wiring for a first attempt but the subsequent builds have just gone south. 😦
im extremely green at building pedals. ive managed the Bazz Fuss the LPB-1 clone and the Lovepedal woodrow but this one has given me the poops. was very apprehensive (determined to do it with no help lol) about posting for help to avoiding asking dumb questions but here i am 🙂
any info or help would be hugely appreciated.
Cheers guys.
just threw this on the breadboard minus the volume control, simple and works like a charm!! Pretty awesome sound too!