Figaro Drive - Brian May in-a-box

One of the most instantly recognisable guitar tones in history, and now you can take a step towards it with a little 60 x 110mm box.

Mr May famously uses cranked Vox AC30s with an always-on treble booster pushing them. This circuit combines an AC30 preamp section with a silicon RangeMaster in front.

Hugely responsive to dynamics, you can go from full, glorious crunch with your guitar volume right up, to classic Vox jangle with it wound back. Increadibly versatile and a must to cut through a band set-up.

Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightning.....

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

All credit to JuanSolo and Cleggy for tracing the circuit.

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 available as an option with full kits, and will not take a battery. Knobs are not included.

Builds are only available with full kits including enclosure and vertical-mount pots. Please choose appropriate knobs.

Inspired by: Galileo

Difficulty: Medium

PCB size: 42 x 50mm

Knobs required: 3

Enclosure: 1590B

Direct-Connect compatible (4-way)

Download the INSTRUCTION PDF

Product Code: Figa

Brand: Pedal Parts

Product Condition: New

Kit type* Ribbon connector?* Pre-built? (UK only.)*

£40.80 inc. tax

£34.00 ex. tax

? Tax based on United Kingdom.

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Customer Reviews

4 review(s) posted (write review)

A nice easy build
"I consider myself a bit of a Brian May tone affectionardo ! This pedal certainly gives you essence of his tone. If you organise yourself the build it s self is quite easy, and I know very little about electronics. The hardest bit is soldering the pins for the post as space is limited. I have run the pedal through my line 6 helix with no amp and just a speaker cab. I found it was necessary to apply a high cut at 7k to tame the harshness and also set the input impedance to 33k which helped with being able to use the guitar volume pot to clean it up. I have volume full, tone full and the gain 2/3s up. Oh, you will need a noise gate ! As always dogs customer service is A1." Matt - 26 April 2019

Great Drive Pedal
"Built this as a Christmas present and after testing don't want to give it away! all the controls have a huge usable range and it all sounds fantastic!" Benjamin Storm - 14 November 2017

fantastic pedal, great support
"the pedal sounds fantastic and fuzzdog's support is always faster than light! I've done many fuzzdog kits, all great kits. maybe the led-bezel could be better." giorgio - 22 October 2015

Wow! Figaro Sings!
"I've built and bought a lot of drives, but this one is staying on my board. Lot's of awesome tones out of this guy. Easy build. Fits nicely in a 1590B. I'm sure i'll be building more of these when my friends hear it. Absolutely love it. Much different than my other drives." Chuck Brand - 18 July 2015