A long time ago I found out that patchpals are a thing and easy to build. They are basically some jacks or sockets and a couple of components . Some wrap them in shrinkwrap afterwards but  I usually don’t because I never came around buying so gigantic shrinkwrap.

I tried different designs and will make a couple of posts about them to keep the posts as short as possible for beginners.

diode clipper

This patchpal is not the easiest but my latest addidtion. It is based on a simple technique called diode clipping which clips a portion of the wave in one or both directions (+ and – portion of a wave that swings around 0V)

This is the schematic I used. The ins and outs are the jacksockets the resistor is a 1K ohm could be less tho – down to 330 ohm is safe imo

The diodes are connected vice versa with signal and ground (the arrow down) so please check the diodes orientation before soldering. Don’t forget to connect all grounds together so the jacksockets ground and the diodes need to be comnected at some point)

If you don’t like the blinking lights you can easily use small signal diodes like the 1n4148 instead. It’s important to mention that different diodes create different sounds. Some claim germanium sounds the best. Idk bout that tho 😅