D*A*M Forum

Time to change your diapers gentlemen, it's cool new project number 14. This is thee Tone Bender everyone has been asking for, so many emails, so many demands! When, Dave, when!!! Please for the love of God and all things pure, when are you guys going to make the legendary op-amp Tone Bender again?!!?
Non of this is true. But hey, we made it anyways. The Colorsound Tone Bender Distortion. It's a Tone Bender, because we say so.

Interesting story. Ant arrives at D*A*M HQ one sunny day with a mighty stash of goodies he's found in Jakes basement, a big humongous bunch of stuff that belonged to Dick Denney from his time producing Colorsound products in the 1980s and 1990s. His address was actually still present on some on the shipping boxes. One of which such items was a crusty looking box that was absolutely crammed full of little PCBs for the op-amp Tone Bender.

Ant - Hey, look at all these! You know what we could make with these!?....key rings!!

Dave - ....or pedals?

Granted, key rings was stellar idea but pedals, always with the pedals. And on a little bonus note as if some higher force was at work I was in possession of a healthy stash of vintage 741 op-amps, from when I thought reproducing the ESR Graphic Fuzz was a good idea. Heh.

The op-amp Tone Bender had two quite different incarnations, originally in the late 1970s early 1980s as the Tone Bender Distortion, and again in the mid-1990s as the sticker front Jumbo Tone Bender, it was also used in that same reissue line-up in the Fuzz Wah. An OEM version was also produced along side the original Colorsound Tone Bender distortion, the Marque Super Distortion. Paging Mr. Dimarzio!
This project, as the aesthetics show, is based on the original usage of that circuit.

So what is it? Technically, a single non-inverting op-amp stage with symmetrical back-to-back diode clipping wired in the negative feedback path, so its kinda like Tube Screamer? Yup. The gain control is labelled 'Fuzz' the enclosure says 'Distortion' but it's actually an overdrive?! Well something like. The diodes produce soft clipping like an 808 circuit or say an SD-1 as opposed to hard clipping like a Rat or a DS-1, but unlike the afore mentioned the Tone Bender Distortion makes usage of some pretty gargantuan values for the coupling capacitors. This along with other circuit oddities do deliver a somewhat fuzzy tone at maximum gain settings.
The tone stack is lifted straight from the Jumbo and Supa Tone Bender topology, or I could just say, its Big Muff style tone control. Which again adds quite a unique flavour and quirk for a circuit type such as this. It's pretty much an unforgotten wonder of the 1970s/1980s* op-amp family tree.

* I write 1970s/1980s because I'm not entirely sure of when these things walked the earth. I've seen pot codes of 1977 on a Super Distortion, and the reference pedal (Thanks Zak!!) pots date to May 1979. But as we all know the pot code dates are at times an inaccurate way of dating the year of origin. Triangle Big Muff anyone? The op-amp in the reference pedal dates to August 1975 so that's an indicator of that thought.

Tonally it fits in along side its op-amp brethren from that time period. With the tone control pushed open it's plenty bright with a somewhat sparkly shimmery clarity. Rolled over into the bass frequencies it produces more of that dirty overloaded amp kinda thing rather than the feel of a deep heavy fuzz tone. Set at medium to lower gain level settings it plays remarkably well with a heavily pushed valve amp and reacts superbly with the guitars controls, personally I'd say this is where this thing really shines. If you're a fan of using an 808 style overdrive or a Distortion + style dirt box as a gain boost to your already driven amp tone you'll likely really dig this thing. Running this straight into the front end of a crystal clear amplifier tone, maybe not so much. I should also mention it works most excellently for squeezing extra gain boost from your existing fuzz boxes.
As a rule of thumb. Crank it up - loud! Watch the ceiling crack, my mother had a heavy metal heart attack!!

Construction wise it's as the original. A goes to B, nuthin' fancy. It was a nice little poke of a sharp stick at the OCD wiring skills. The 741 IC's are all vintage types, the main bulk being from around the mid-1980's but the brands do vary from one to the other. They have all been individually auditioned and selected for low noise and optimum performance. Yes, I sat there for hours listening to the amounts of 'sshhhhhhhhh' and 'keeeeeeeeee' each one produced under certain conditions. And trust me, they do vary from one to another especially when used in a circuit such as this. Random fun fact - each one of these little op-amps contains approximately 20 transistors. The simple circuit you see visually is actually a bit more complex than one would assume. For further mind bending nerdy fun times read this most excellent article by Ken Shirriff:

http://www.righto.com/2015/10/inside-ub ... cuits.html

Cosmetically this is the first time we've used an off-the-self enclosure for a Colorsound product. The tooling does exist to replicate the enclosure but the finical investment for such a project was probably not a wise business move. The enclosure used is a Japanese made Takachi part, the same type as I've used on the MB-71, ZZ.1 & the ZZ.2. It is a superbly made enclosure and one of nicest small footprint designs out there. It works well with the design and gives the pedal a little bit of a modern twist.

Any huw, there you have it. The Tone Bender Distortion. It's been one of those projects that make themselves, and those are the most enjoyable for me. Cosmic alignment. The will to exist. The Fuzz Gods spoke, or the maybe it was the Overdrive Gods!?!? Don't go to work. Drink beer. Listen to Heavy Metal.

Currently the project consists of 25 pieces. All made by myself. If you dig you know who to call.

http://www.macaris.co.uk/

Additional eye candy.

Extra Bonus eye ball material.

Dig it! A little wee snippet from the Control Zone article from the 28th May 1988 copy of the Melody Maker. Tis a review of the Super Distortion by non other than the main man himself, Robert Hampson. In his own words 'My favourite'. Nuff said. Have at it.

very cool Dave

Thanks for the write up David. Pretty cool.

That sounds awesome, and a great write up as well. Amazing work. I'll have to grab one of these.. several things I really love.. TS808, SD-1, Distortion+ all kind of rolled into one? Fuck! lol. Sadly I've long sold most of my vintage pedals (miss that TS808), but I still have an original script Dist+. It'd be fun to compare & stack it with this.

Edit: and bought! Really curious to see what you’re going to do with those 3 enclosures!

Trying to buy one right now but the website keeps rejecting the delivery address.

Very cool project, looks superb- congratulations team D*A*M and team Sola

1bottlerocket wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2020 3:29 pm Trying to buy one right now but the website keeps rejecting the delivery address.

you might have to sign in, you may have made an account before and if you now try and buy as a guest it will kick you out

thats what happened the other day to me when I bought the MKII

Thanks will try again when I get home. On the train right now.

so hella cool!!!

This is rad. I loved Anthony’s pedal of the day on this as well.