Animatron

The mysterious and sought-after dirt box from the far east, famously used to good effect by Chris Wolstenholme. Now disected and demystified by Adam Crowell who kindly shared his findings.

Based around a Big Muff with a few tweaks and additions to work its magic. A pair of germanium cans up front give it a characteristic warm growl, setting it apart from most Muff-based offerings.

Bass is where it's at with this box. Of course you can use it with guitar but the low stuff is where this shines.

A note of caution - the Tone control on this works in reverse, so more a treble cut than a tone control. More caution - this is a NOISY circuit. Much noisier than a standard muff.

Not much more to be said really. You probably know what it is if you're reading this, and you probably want one.

Worth the hype? That's up to you...

The kit is supplied with vertical-mount pots which have round shafts, so you'll need set-screw fitting knobs.

Supplied with AC128/AC176 for the germanium pair, not NTE102/3.

If you want the PCB without parts there's a link for that at the bottom of the page.

Partial kit: PCB, all board-mounted components, pots.

Full kit: As above, plus footswitch and appropriate daughterboard/components for your selected bypass type (see Downloads section for details of those), jack sockets, DC socket, battery snap, hook-up wire, LED.

Enclosure (pre-drilled) is only available with full kits, and will not take a battery. Knobs are not included.

Inspired by: Animato

Difficulty: Medium

PCB size: 50 x 60mm

Knobs required: 3

Enclosure: 1590B

Direct Connect compatible (4-way)

Download the INSTRUCTION PDF