AMZ TWEED STACK PC BOARD

BASIC PC BOARD

This is the AMZ Tweed Stack PC Board. It is a revised and improved version of the Dual Mini-Booster and Booster 2.5 designs from the late 1990s. None of the example circuits will utilize every part that has been positioned on the board. Extra parts have been included to add flexibility and options to the boards. If a part is not shown on the schematic or in the parts list for one of the circuits, then it is not required for that project and can be left empty on the pcb.

The dual mini-booster overdrive was further advanced in January 2000 to produce the Mini-Tubes pedal, which was a tube sounding amp-like circuit that can be seen on the AMZ CD.

Several current boutique pedalmakers are selling pedals which are revised or expanded versions of the Booster 2.5, and they have been well received by players everywhere.

The schematic above includes all of the parts on the pcb, but not all are used in each project, as was mentioned in the earlier paragraph. The basic design uses two mini-booster circuits in series with a tone control at the end, but unlike the Booster 2.5, the Tweed Stack has a buffer at the end that isolates the volume control and provides a good low impedance line drive for the output.

If R13 is omitted, the circuit is similar to the two stage Mini-Tubes preamp and that design was used for the 4-knob prototype pedal. The J201 jfet is recommended for Q1 through Q4 in order to get high gain distortion sounds like a raging stack.

When R13 is used and some other parts of the tone control network changed around, a single knob tone control similar to that used on the Booster 2.5 is produced. This version was the basic design of the purple box 3-knob Tweed Stack.

The middle pedal in the Cheesetone box in the picture to the left is actually a version of the AMZ Multi-Fuzz, and has a much different sound from the Tweeds.