Crayon

JHS designed the Crayon as the accessible younger sibling to the Colour Box, capturing that vintage preamp character without the complexity or power demands. The circuit emulates plugging straight into a cranked vintage preamp, delivering compressed overdrive and fuzz sounds that defined classic studio recordings. It's the direct-in tone that bypassed amps entirely.

The Pre-Vol knob functions as gain staging, sweeping from subtle preamp enhancement through tube-like crunch and into intense gated fuzz. The Tilt EQ provides active tone shaping—flat at noon, clockwise boosts treble while cutting bass, counterclockwise reverses. A Hi-Pass toggle reduces low frequencies at either 200Hz or 750Hz via internal dip switch, enabling lo-fi aesthetics or mix-cutting clarity.

Volume, Pre-Vol, Tilt EQ, and Hi-Pass make it work equally well for guitar and bass. At 15mA draw, remarkably efficient compared to the 193mA Colour Box. Preamp-derived character in compact form.