I’ve always liked the Craig Anderton Tube Sound Fuzz / Way Huge Red Llama. It sounds equally good on bass, without a clean blend, as it does on guitar. But what to do with those four extra, unused inverters in the CD4049?
Well, I recently stumbled on a schematic of the Way Huge Fat Sandwich online. I don’t know if the schematic was correct, had any errors or not. But, what I took away from it was how the CD4049 inverters were stacked in parallel, in two groups of three, within the basic Tube Sound Fuzz configuration.
So, that’s what the Tube Steak is about – no unused inverters in a TSF/Llama fuzz. Well, that and the really cool internally illuminated enclosure that I made for it.
Check it out:
Here’s an audio/video clip:
Here’s my schematic:
And here’s a PCB layout:
The PCB layout is double-sided, but there are only two traces on the top layer and they can be eliminated pretty easily if necessary.
Finally, here’s a little table of which components to change to what value to get work-alike versions of a couple different CD4049 fuzz circuits:

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Great sounding pedal! I’m going to try it out. Just want to check a couple of things first to make sure I’m not adding confusion to a simple project.
In the “little table” above, should the column headings be R2, C1, C2, C3, and C4? (R2 instead of R1 and C4 instead of C5).
The values for those 5 components in the schematic differ from the values shown in the “TSF” line of the table. Maybe the values in the schematic are for the Tube Steak Fuzz, but “TSF” in the table stands for Tube Sound Fuzz? Which values are used in the pedal in the video? I’m assuming the schematic is right for that (Tube Steak Fuzz).
Thanks!
Yes. Your corrections to the “little table” are correct. My apologies. Also in the table, TSF stands for Tube Sound Fuzz. The values in the schematic are for the Tube Steak, and those are the values used in the pedal in the video.
Thanks
~ Charlie
Thanks for the quick reply! I’m looking forward to building it. I’m waiting for some better 4049s to arrive. The ones I have are a bit noisy.
wich one are noisy and wich one are not?
Good souding OD the other based 4049 OD’s are often too bright.
Table of values updated.
~ Charlie
I was considering building one of these, do you still have the gerber files handy (or other cad software files such as eagle?). Thanks in advance 🙂