Guitar Effect Circuit

Description

This is a circuit I have designed for guitar effect builders, I was very unsatisfied with the way everyone was using just a plain old double pole double throw click switch for the bypassing. Most of the time it was very scratchy sounding using that method and I experienced loud pops in my amplifier when switching from straight through to effect. Observing my "Boss" pedals and how they were switched on and off I figured there must be more to it. It took me only about 4 hours to design and test this circuit, It works very well and I'm really satisfied with it so I'll be using it in all the effect pedals I build. It's a very clean bypass both electronically and mechanically.

How it works: the first stage in the schematic is a 4011 nand gate chip set up as a debounced switch to give the logic pulses from the switch to the flip flop. The second stage is the flip flop, this is a 4027 JK flip flop set up in toggle mode, this controls the switching of the 4016 which is an analog switch, this part controls the bypass. That's about all there is to it. The effect which I have used this in so far is a home built "MXR hot tubes distortion" effect. Feel free to put this up on your site and mail it around to friends. The only credit I ask of this is that my name remains on the schematic. Original artile sourse ee.washington.edu