BROWN SOUND

The BSIAB2 circuit (Brown Sound in a Box 2) was my favourite distortion during school. The cool thing was; if you wanted one, you just had to build one. Or know somebody who would. The circuit was designed by Ed Guidry, similar to works by Jack Oran and Aron Nelson.

Back in the day, it was one of the highest-recommended builds on the forums. Forums were a thing. Many would suggest that this design was the original precursor to many of the "high gain amp" pedals that came out in the 2000s.

It has a tonne of gain, and can dial in a fat bottom end to fake a big amp sound. Some pedals claim to "stack well" together, but the Brown Sound can also be a "stack" all by itself. This circuit also responds excellently to rolling back the instrument volume knob. It stacks best with other drive pedals running into the input.

Distortion is achieved by overdriving NOS Fairchild 5457 field effect transistors (FETs), being the closest solid-state relative to vacuum tubes. There are three stacked gain stages. No diodes are involved for distortion

This build uses a hybrid mix of both surface mount and through-hole assembled components (SMD).