Pinkish Bender

If you have no love for a MkII Tone Bender, well... we can't help you. It's a stone-cold classic, but that germanium magic comes with baggage. They can sound awesome in one environment, woeful in another thanks to their sensitivity to heat fluctuations.

Enter the Pinkish Bender. A hot silicon take on recreating the wonderful in a stable form. And you know what? It just works.

A pair of low-gain silicon BJTs that care not a jot for the weather, fronted by a signal-loving FET first stage makes for gloriously fuzzy fun that you can rely on all year round.

The added external Bias control and more girth at the flick of a switch round off an altogether awesome package.

We're offering two different sets of Q2-Q3 transistors, as the original has been built with both. BC239 are all but gone from the earth now (and we're almost out), so they're at a premium. The more available BC183 will save you a few £ and to be honest they sound just the same. You also have the choice of through-hole or SMT FET - the latter requires ninja skills to solder but will save you a quid. Proceed with caution...

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

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: Solid Gold FX Rosie

Difficulty: Medium

PCB size: 50 x 34mm

Knobs required: 3

Enclosure: 1590B

Direct-Connect compatible (4-way)

Download the INSTRUCTION PDF