Building a quick Brian-May-style treble booster on Veroboard

It was a friend's 44th birthday a while back, so I decided to make a quick pedal for him.

I'd been wanting to try out a Brian May treble booster based pedal for a while, and I found this one at http://147pedals.blogspot.com/2010/11/simple-tone-control-brian-may-treble.html.

Veroboard is also known as stripboard or perf board, and looks something like this:

Whichever terminology you use, make sure you get a board with lines/strips of copper and NOT one that has each hole insulated from the next like this:

I like building circuits on Veroboard, since it’s simply a case of following the picture. You don’t even need to understand how circuits work (although it would obviously be helpful for trouble shooting).

Anyway, here are the simple steps to making a Veroboard pedal.

1. Cut your Veroboard to size (in my case 12x5, erm, holes).
EDIT: In hindsight it would have been better to make this 14x5 which would allow an extra hole either side of C1 to attach the wires to the tone switch. So learn from my mistake and make yours 14x5.

2. Now "cut" the tracks wherever you are instructed to do so (you are just cutting through the copper, not the whole board). In the case of this particular circuit, between the pins under R1, C1, R4, and R6. The result after cutting would look something like this:

3. Solder the components on. Note that the copper strips are on the underside of the board, and the soldering is just like when you get a pre-made circuit board. Here's what mine looks like after soldering. Please ignore the fact that I'd also added some cables before taking this photo.

4. Finally, you need to wire up the enclosure. This circuit was so simple that wiring up the enclosure was the hard bit. If you are unsure how to wire up a stomp box enclosure, then have a look at my blog post over here: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2009/06/buhow-to-wire-up-stomp-box-effects.html

5. Here’s the finished result. I didn’t have any time to make the enclosure itself look good this time around. My apologies in advance for the silly name.

Veroboard is very cheap and there are a LOAD of good circuits out there that use it. Here's just one example of a site that has a few:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/richardo/perfboard/index.html
As you can see, the Veroboard layout is much easier to follow than trying to read a circuit diagram, kinda like reading guitar tabs when you can't read music.

Some of the projects don't even need you to cut any of the tracks.

This Brian-May-style treble booster was a very simple circuit to build and works extremely well. In fact I think I may build one for myself too.

How to set up an electric guitar

Setting up an electric guitar is not rocket science, but it is something that a lot of guitarists shy away from. True, if you do this wrong, you can make your guitar play badly, but if you learn to do it right, you could save yourself a lot of cash.

I should probably preface this by saying that today we are only going to do a basic setup. This is enough most of the time, but occasionally more is required, such as filing the nut, or doing some fretwork. If you want to set up a tremolo too, go to this post first: Setting Up or Adjusting a Stratocaster Tremolo

Also, if you're setting up a Les-Paul-style guitar, you might prefer to have a look at this blog post: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-to-set-up-gibson-les-paul-style.html

So what does a basic setup involve? Let me break it down for you, as follows:
1. Checking and adjusting neck bow (how straight the neck is)
2. Checking and adjusting saddle height
3. Checking and adjusting the intonation (how far back or forward the saddles need to sit at the bridge to keep your guitar as in tune as possible no matter what fret you’re playing)

Those three steps will have a dramatic effect on your guitar and none of them are very difficult, or require particularly specialized or expensive tools. In this article, we will do this on a Fender Stratocaster, but the same rules apply for just about every electric guitar. In fact, most other guitars are even easier to set up. Here's today's patient:

1. Check and adjust neck bow (how straight the neck is)

Since we only want to check how straight the neck is, we need to isolate this aspect of the guitar. In other words we don’t want the height of the nut or the placement of the saddles to confuse us, so we take them out of the equation. Don’t worry; we’re not going to remove any of these components, just circumvent them.

I use a ruler to do this, but you can do it using only strings. I’ll describe both methods below.

Method A: Using a ruler

Get a ruler (or straightedge if you want to be all fancy) that is at least as long as the neck, but not so long that it reaches all the way from the nut to the saddles. If you can’t get one between these lengths, and are willing to sacrifice a ruler, get one that’s too long and cut it to length. Alternatively, you can just cut a little out of one edge so that you can still make full use of the other edge of the ruler.

Now lay the edge of the ruler along the frets (don’t rest it on top of the nut or the saddles).

Method B: Using the strings

First, put a capo on the first fret. This stops the nut from having any influence, say from being too high/low.

Next, hold down the low (thick) E string on the bridge side of the highest fret. This stops the saddles from having any influence.

No matter whether you used method A or B, you can now go about measuring the neck bow. This is done by measuring the string height (the gap between the ruler/string and the top of the fret) at about the 8th fret. There is a lot of debate over how straight a neck should be, and in fact it really is personal choice, but a height roughly the same as the thickness of a B string is a good starting point. Personally, I use a 0.012” feeler gauge to do this, but you could use a B string. Simply slide the feeler gauge/B string into the gap to see if it is too big/small.

If the gap is perfect, congratulations – you may now move on to step 2.

If the gap is too large, then you need to tighten the truss rod a little (similarly, if the gap is too small, you need to loosen the truss rod). Locate the adjustable end of the truss rod. On my guitar it is at the head of the guitar and uncovered.

On some Fender Strats, it is located at the other end of the neck. This is a pain, because every time you want to make an adjustment to the truss rod, you will need to loosen the strings, remove (or partially remove) the neck, adjust the truss rod, re-attach the neck and tighten up the strings again to check the neck bow.

Anyway, here’s how you adjust the truss rod. This must be done with the strings tuned to whatever pitch you usually use. If your neck is too bowed (the gap you just measured is too big), you tighten the truss rod by turning the Allen key (Allen wrench), screwdriver, or socket (the tool required depends on your guitar) clockwise. It is recommended that you only turn the tool a quarter turn (or even an eighth turn) at a time and then give the neck some time to settle. You will also need to make sure the strings are still properly tuned after each adjustment.

CAUTION: If you find that the truss rod is very difficult to turn, then stop now and take your guitar to the guitar shop. It may be that there is a problem with the neck or the truss rod and you may damage the guitar by forcing it. Believe me, you do not want to damage the truss rod.

If, instead of tightening the truss rod, you need to loosen it, do so by turning it anti-clockwise (counter-clockwise). Again, a quarter turn at a time. Once you have got the gap to 0.012” (or whatever gap you prefer), you will have finished this step. Feel free to remove the capo at this stage if it is attached.


2. Check and adjust the saddle height

Firstly check and, if necessary, adjust the low (thick) E string height. Do this by adjusting the height of the saddle on the bridge/tremolo. If you have a Stratocaster then this is done by screwing two little screws in or out. I recommend that you try to keep these two screws at the same height as each other, although some people would disagree with me.

The question here is how high to make the saddle. Well, this is personal choice. Find somewhere were the string doesn’t buzz on any fret from being too low, but low enough that you can play up and down the neck easily. There’s usually a sweet spot where you can just start to detect some buzzing and you can leave it just a tiny bit higher than that.

Now do the exact same procedure for the high (thin) E string.

There are two ways that you can go about adjusting the other strings.

Method one: Adjust each string the same way as you just adjusted the two E strings.

Method two: Use a radius gauge, as follows:

Lay a radius gauge across your strings, close to, but not touching, the saddles. Adjust the remaining strings only (A, D, G & B) until every string is just touching the radius gauge. Radius gauges can be bought from numerous sources, or you can make your own. Feel free to use Google at this point if you don’t know about radius gauges. Just make sure that you use a radius gauge that matches the neck of your guitar. Not all Strats have the same neck radius, so the best way is to rest a radius gauge on the neck of your guitar (with the strings removed if necessary) to find out which radius you should be using.

Incidentally, I use these snazzy radius gauges that can go either above or below the strings (below gives a slightly more accurate result, although the difference is arguable).

I got them from http://www.stewmac.com.

Please don’t take these measurements as the absolute final string height, but more as a good estimate. You can adjust them a little to your own personal tastes after this.

OK, that’s step 2 finished. Your guitar should be nice and playable now. However, it may not seem to stay in tune very well. That’s because the intonation might be off.


3. Check and adjust the intonation

The intonation here refers to the forward/backward position of the individual string saddles. By moving the saddles forwards or backwards, we are actually adjusting the length of the strings. Without going into too much detail, if the string is the wrong length, the positions of the frets will not be correct and the guitar will be out of tune on some of them. Adjusting the intonation is not difficult. All you need is a guitar tuner and a tool to move the saddles forwards or backwards.

Play an open low E string and make sure it is in tune (using the guitar tuner).

Now play the 12th fret of the low E string.

It should also be in tune. If it is too high, then you need to move the saddle back. This increases the length of the string. If the note is too low, then you need to move the saddle forwards. This decreases the length of the string.

Now check both the open and the 12th fret notes again. You’ll have to tune the open string again because by moving the saddle, the tension of the string will have changed and so will need to be retuned.

Once you have correctly moved the saddle so that both the open string and the 12th fret are in tune, you can move on to the A string. Repeat until all of the strings have been done.

That’s a basic setup done. Hopefully your guitar will now be easy to play and appear to be in tune no matter where you play the note. As I mentioned before, sometimes other work needs to be carried out on your guitar to make it play right, such as work on the nut, or a problem with one or more of the machine heads/tuners, but that’s for another day.

Also, if you want to set up the pickup height on your Strat, check out this post: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2014/03/fender-stratocaster-pickup-height.html.

Troubleshooting guitar tuning problems

There are several reasons why a guitar may appear to have tuning problems. Most people are quick to assume that the machine heads (tuners) are the reason for a frequently out-of-tune guitar, but in fact they are rarely the cause.

Here are a few causes, how to spot them and very briefly what to do about them. I’ve listed these more or less in order of cheapest/easiest to most expensive/difficult to repair. Some of these have been covered in more detail in previous posts, and others will be covered in future posts. I’ve left out tremolo problems because I’d like to do a separate article about those.

Strings are still "settling in"

When you first put new strings on a guitar, they are very springy and take a while to settle in, Settling in really means stretching. You can speed up this process by manually stretching the strings after you put them on your guitar. Simply put your finger under each string (about halfway up the neck is fine) and pull the string away from the guitar by a few inches. Don't pull so hard that you're in danger of snapping the string, though. You'll probably have to re-tune the string after doing this, but this only shows that you have most likely successfully stretched it.

Guitar intonation is wrong

Guitar intonation refers to how well the neck length and the fret spacing match up. That might sound very technical, but the only thing a normal user probably needs to worry about is the forward/backward position of the saddles. If you suspect your tuning problems are caused by an intonation issue, try the following. Tune the open strings properly and then check the same strings at the 12th position. If they are in tune (exactly one octave higher), then the intonation is probably OK. If not, then this can be fixed by adjusting each saddle until open and 12th positions of each string match up (exactly one octave apart). Note: If the 12th fret note is too high, move the saddle back. If it’s too low, then move the saddle forward.

Guitar action is too high

If the strings are too high off the fretboard, either because of a bowed neck or saddles that are set too high, then in certain positions, especially higher up the fretboard, the strings have to be pushed down so far to meet the frets, that you end up stretching them. This will, unsurprisingly, knock them out of tune. In some ways, the tuning problems are the same as when the intonation is wrong, in that the higher up the fretboard you go, the more the strings will be out of tune. The difference here is that you will know the strings are too high because you have to exert so much effort pushing them down to the frets.

Guitar action is too low

If the strings are too low, you’ll know pretty quickly, as the strings will rattle against the frets. The easy fix for this is to set the action a bit higher until the buzzing stops. If you find that you need to set the strings very high to avoid this, then you may need to look at the neck bow. You might also want to think about other reasons for rattling noises, such as the problem emanating from the nut or the saddles.

Nut is too high

A nut that is too high gives you similar problems to when you have guitar action that is too high, except that the out-of-tuneness is most noticeable in the lower frets, as the string is really having to be pushed down a lot more in those positions. If the string height over the 1st fret seems far too high, then maybe consider lowering the nut, or one of the slots if a particular string is affected.

Nut is too low

A nut that is too low is going to give you similar rattling problems to when your guitar’s action is too low, except that it ONLY affects the open string. If you are getting a rattling sound and suspect the nut may be the problem, put a capo on the first fret and see if the problem disappears. If it does, then the most likely problem is the nut. In fact, this is a great way to diagnose ANY nut problems.

Nut is pinching strings

Sometimes the guitar nut pinches the strings (i.e. grips them too hard) because the nut slots are filed too thin for the strings you are using. You will know if this is the case because when you turn the machine head, the string will make a pinging sound as it jumps up or down in pitch while being tuned. This jumping makes tuning difficult because you cannot really fine tune (not to mention the additional problems you will encounter if using a tremolo – but that’s for another day). The solution here is to widen the string slot on the nut (be careful just to widen it and not to lower it).

Nut slot is angled badly

The nut slots should be angled slightly so that the highest point in the slot is just where it meets the fretboard. You could probably just about get away with a perfectly horizontal slot, but I really wouldn’t recommend it. A slot which has its highest point nearer to the head of the guitar, or anywhere else between the front and the back is absolutely unacceptable, as this is, in effect, moving the position of the “zero” fret. Think of it like having a bridge saddle too far back or forwards, but at the other end of the guitar.

Strings are not wound onto machine heads (tuners) properly

Strings that are not wound correctly are subject to slippage or other issues. There are many methods to wind a string, but I personally prefer this method: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2011/08/stringing-guitar.html

Machine heads (tuners) are bad

Machine heads fail for a number of reasons. Sometimes they’re just not very precisely made, sometimes things wear out, or sometimes things break. However, machine heads are not the cause of tuning problems as often as you might think. If you are pretty sure one of your machine heads is being problematic, and you want to test it before paying for a new one, try swapping its position with another machine head on your guitar. Now pay attention to where the problem is. Did it stay with the string or with the machine head? If it stayed with the machine head, then, OK, feel free to buy a new one.

Uneven frets (high/low fret)

I’ve left this one to the end because, in my opinion, it’s the one you’re most likely to have to pay a guitar tech to fix. An uneven fret is a fret that sits too high or too low on your fretboard. If it’s too high then when you play one fret closer to the head of the guitar, the string will actually hit this fret instead. If it is too low, then when you play this fret, it will hit against the next fret towards the bridge of the guitar. A higher fret is easier to fix, but for both I would recommend just taking the guitar to a professional. There is one workaround you might consider, though. If the uneven fret is not VERY high or low, increasing the action of the guitar a little may make it not noticeable enough to be a problem.


Well, I hope the above information has been of some use to you. I’ve tried not to go into too much detail because it’s a lot to take in already, and, frankly, you could write a book about this stuff (as some have). As always, if you have any questions or anything else to say, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Making a (bone) nut from scratch

I’ve made a post on here before about making a nut (out of ebony) by tracing an outline around the old nut (http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2009/06/making-ebony-nut-and-saddle.html), but today I’d like to show you how to make a nut for an acoustic (or electric) guitar from scratch. This is for a couple of reasons:

1. The old nut might be missing or damaged.
2. You may not be able to trust or may not be happy with the shape of the previous nut.

So let’s look at the patient first. Here’s an acoustic guitar missing its nut. Just a quick note here... there are some remnants of glue in the slot and that should be removed with a sharp knife before proceeding further.

Assuming you have now cleared out all the glue, and are ready to start making a nut, you will first need a blank. Here’s mine:

I was going to tell you that the first thing you need to do is thin the blank a little so that it will fit in the slot, but it turns out the blank I had was perfect already. If you DO need to thin it a little, check out the ebony nut post to see how I did it there. Oh, and if the blank is already TOO thin, then forget it – you need a new, fatter blank.

So far we have a blank that is the correct thickness, but not the right width.

Mark the edge(s) with a pencil and cut it down to size with a hacksaw (not while it's sitting on the guitar, as the photo might suggest).

The next step is to shape the blank nut to the same radius as the fretboard, and make sure the strings pass over it at a suitable height above the other frets. This is the step that you can miss out if you just trace the previous nut’s outline, and is also where a lot of people get stuck. However, it’s not hard at all.

You will need a very specialised tool for this next step, namely the “half pencil”.

Here’s a “whole pencil”. We need to split it down its middle.

First let’s remove that pesky eraser thing at the end. A pair of pliers will make short work of that.

A decent sharp strong knife is required now. I don’t recommend using a craft knife for this – it’s too brittle. Here’s the knife I used.

DISCLAIMER: If you don’t know how to use a knife safely, stop here. I will not be responsible for any injuries you might cause yourself.

If you look at the end of the pencil, you may be lucky enough to find where the two halves were stuck together originally (yes, that’s right, a pencil has two halves, plus the lead – they don’t just drill a hole through a long piece of wood and insert the lead that way).

Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t see the join, so I had to guess. My first attempt was a disaster.

Further detective work revealed a faint line down the sides, so I tried to follow that. Success!

The half pencil is pretty rough at this stage, not least because the lead itself will remain mostly intact. That’s fine.

What we need now is our trusty piece of sandpaper sitting on a nice flat piece of, well, pretty much anything hard (in my case a floor tile).

Sand the bottom of the pencil until you have a nice flat surface and you are now the proud owner of a half pencil!

You can see from the photo how much carbon has gone everywhere. It’s probably a good idea to wash your hands at this stage to prevent more unwanted carbon marks. Also, to stop the pencil lead from falling out (there’s really not much holding it in at this stage), I recommend running a length of Sellotape (Scotch tape) along the exposed part of the pencil to hold it all together.

Place the half pencil on the frets and pull it across the fretboard, while drawing a line on the nut (which you’ll need to hold in place for this part).

You will now have a line marked on the nut where, if you were to file down to this line, it would be exactly in line with the other frets.

In fact, you need to make a line a little higher than this. Some people would recommend freehanding it, but I prefer placing something under the pencil and drawing another line. A good safe distance is about 1-2 mm. I thought I had one of those wooden coffee stirrers lying around, but I couldn’t find it, so I used a lollypop stick.

You can tape this to the bottom of the pencil and draw another line to give you a good (safe) line to shape the nut to before you start filing the string slots.

Here’s the nut with the second line drawn:

And here it is filed down to that line:

Next thing to do is mark the position of the string slots. For this I have a nice little position chart. I got it with my nut files, but I’m sure you could find a printable one easily enough online.

Here are the nut files I’m using:

I use my nut files to file slots down to about halfway between the two lines (not quite finished in this picture).

Remember not to file the slots exactly level (horizontal), but rather at a bit of an angle, angled down towards the peghead side of the nut.

You’ll probably also want to shape the back of the nut so that it curves down a bit on the peghead side. This helps the strings to find their way to the machine heads without too much interference.

This next part isn’t entirely necessary, but if you want to make the nut nice and shiny, you can use something like these micro mesh pads from stewmac.com:

First use the roughest one (be careful not to alter the shape/thickness of the nut), then move through each pad until you get to the smoothest one. You’ll end up with a nice shiny nut. You could just as easily use different grades of sandpaper to do this job, or possibly some other sort of abrasive.

Here’s the finish I got after just a few minutes’ work with the micro mesh pads:

I’m sure an even better finish could be achieved with a little more effort.

So now it’s time to test the nut out on the guitar. DO NOT glue it in place at this stage.

As you can see the strings are sitting a bit high, but the good news is that we can simply file a bit of height off the BOTTOM of the nut now – no need to do all that shaping, slot filing and shining work all over again.

I mark the nut with my best guess for how much to take off (remember you can always take more off, but not really put it back), so better to take off a little at a time.

Another test fitting after removing some height and I’m happy with the results, though I’ll play with it for a while before deciding for sure.

Once you are sure you are happy with the nut, you can glue it in place (although this is not entirely necessary, as the strings will hold it in place very well – just be careful if you ever remove all the strings at the same time).

The question is which glue and how much to use. I’d recommend a very weak glue. Cheap white craft glue, even watered down about 50% is more than sufficient. A single drop near each end of the bottom of the nut is enough.

Finally, here is the happy patient, with its new bone nut, made from scratch. Please feel free to leave a message if you have any questions or comments.