Sacred Utterance Overdrive

Light some candles, switch off the lights and sit on the floor. Say 'I need this pedal, I need this pedal...'. Repeat. Forever.

Massive range of tones from this circuit. Light drive through to saturated crunch, all of which cleans up well with the guitar volume. Those BS170 MosFETs and J201 FETs really do a great job of producing amp-like break-up. Add the Baxandall tone circuit into the mix and you have a highly tweakable dirt box right here.

A multimeter is required to set the biasing, but you really ought to have one if you're dabbling with the dark arts of electronics.

The board will take through-hole or SMT versions of J201, so if you're confident with tiny fiddly components you can save a couple of £ with the SMT.

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 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 enclosures. Please choose appropriate knobs.

Inspired by: Mantra

Difficulty: Medium

PCB size: 50 x 50mm

Knobs required: 4

Enclosure: 1590B

Direct-Connect compatible (4-way)

Download the INSTRUCTION PDF