wmayfield
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1: Distortion Guitar Pedal
I wanted to have a guitar pedal with distortion effects so I made one based off of a version of the Big Muff Pi pedal shown below. Some components are different due to supply, personal choice, and cost.
LTspice Simulations:
Layout:
Final Product:
No pedal, amp on overdrive:
Pedal used, amp on overdrive:
Reflection: This project was really good for me to do, as it blended my interests of music and electronics. I learnt more about the standard input and output ideas of guitar pedals, as well as how to create different stages for future guitar pedals I may want to make. This project was also very fulfilling in the sense that I purchased and created it on my own based on what I wanted the pedal to sound like, and then soldered it and it worked first try. This project built up my confidence to further projects like these, specifically with a reprogrammable FPGA pedal which is my new main personal project. It also gave me future ideas of building an elaborate synthesizer, although that would be more expensive and I think I need to wait to make that until I have a full time job to fund this.
– Less related to engineering and more related to music but I wanted to give myself a noisy pedal because I really enjoy noise rock. The Velvet Underground is my favorite band and White Light/ White Heat is my favorite album of all time, and it is particularly noisy. They used Vox distortion boosters, but I found the big muff to be more interesting as its somewhat modular, just variations on Class A amplifier.
Updated 2/21/2026
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