Hello and welcome to what I hope to become the “unofficial” home of Joe Gagan’s “SkyRipper Fuzz”. Over a period of too many years, I have seen and played through a lot of really good overdrive and distortion pedals, some of my favorites being the DOD OD250, ProCo Rat, Ibanez Tube Screamer and the Boss DS-1 and SD-1. I was always aware of the “Fuzz Face” but never, ever gave it the respect it truly deserves until now. I built Joe Gagan’s “SkyRipper Fuzz” (as well as most of his other designs) and within the first hour of plugging it in and turning it on, I became hooked. I have never heard any one pedal that spits out so many unique and great sounds, all of them world class in my opinion. I truly consider it as much a musical instrument as any guitar or amplifier. It literally can be played, like an instrument with sounds that can be dialed in and also able to get completely random squawks, swirls, chirps, etc…. So take a look at the SkyRipper pictures and layout, listen to the clips and see if you don’t agree that this one truly belongs among the greats. Just imagine if Jimi had one.

A few words about me. First off, I'm just a hack who likes playing guitar, building a few pedals, working on my guitar (wiring, scalloping a neck, routing, generally anything I think I can do without injuring or killing myself to save a buck). I became interested in building my own pedals after stumbling onto Aron Nelson's awesome site, www.diystompboxes.com. This site and the resources it contains can literally keep a person busy with a soldering iron for years. After a few weeks of lurking on Aron's forum I came across a schematic of the SkyRipper Fuzz. It then took me a year to decide to take it on. To make a long story very short, with Joe Gagan and Mark Hammers help (answering my switch and 'dual gang pot' questions), I built it, it worked and ever since then, I've been twirling knobs, flipping switches, writing down voltages, taking pictures of settings, recording sample tracks, all while trying to document some of what the SkyRipper does. Other than that, it's just God, family, work and music.