The Animal Farm “Lord of the Flies” (Boost/Fuzz) #005 - Mullard GET872B Royal Blue

This pedal LOVES dirty amps.

#005: Mullard/GEC Royal Blue GET872B. Lower gain than the Mullard GET113s, but still plenty of grit and complex harmonic gooeyness.

Inspired by my rescue steer, Harold, handmade in Flemington, NJ. I have about 25 decent GET113 with higher hFe, and 25 decent GET872B (in a royal blue plastic sleeve) that are slightly less gain, a bit more mid-forward.

NOS Sprague tantalum, ROE, polystyrene/film and foil capacitors. NOS 1/4 and 1/2W Carbon Comp resistors (Allen Bradley and such). (1) Mullard/GEC GET872B PNP transistor. Two symmetrical clipping circuits with a center "off" position, letting the transistor breathe.

#005 has two clipping options wired point-to-point: (1) NOS Telefunken/Vishay BYV26B; and (2) red LEDs (this option has more volume, less compression/clipping). Switchcraft open jacks. 3PDT footswitch. White LED. Cream Davies' style knobs.
These are not wired with a stereo jack for a battery off functionality. Make sure to unplug if you don't want to drain your battery.

1590BB acid-etched enclosure with our rescue steer, Harold's, lovely mugshot. Wired to 6-terminal tagstrip. 9V power only.

These pedals are hand etched, drilled, stuffed, and tuned/biased by ear. It has considerably more gain on tap than your average Rangemaster/treble/full boost. The pedal is biased below the nominal -4.5V operating point that more often boosts are tuned to.
On request, I can sub out an internal trimpot to set the collector voltage instead of a fixed resistor. No cost. It will be affixed to the inside of the enclosure with strong adhesive.

Think of this as more of a one-transistor distortion/borderline fuzz pedal than your normal boost. It has multiple sweet spots, can do several different things, and the hi-pass knob is quite interactive. Check out the video below; you can see how the hi pass filter has a huge effect on the articulation and overall gain structure of the pedal, taking it from a fairly clean, harmonically rich boost with clipping, all the way to an over the top fuzz apocalypse.

Since these are handmade one-at-a-time, and take multiple hours to etch, build, source parts, tune (finding good enough transistors, breadboarding, choosing cap and resistor values, etc.), they are sold as-is. There are aesthetic imperfections in each one, but these are purely visual. I prefer them to be a bit rough around the edges. That’s the farm life, after all. The enclosures aren’t sanded whatsoever prior to the toner transfer and etchant process; this means that the tiny imperfections in the surface takes on the etchant slightly different each time, yielding all kinds of fun surface artifacts that make each one unique.

Happy to answer any questions, and I stand behind my work. But, if you ever run into an issue with the pedal, send it back, and I'll fix it free of charge!

Welcome to come test it out on our farm/studio in central NJ, and meet Harold himself!