Kustom quad 65DFX

[9Lives]

I know that when tampering with diodes  different diodes behave differently in different situations. On the typical hard clip op amp circuit I have found LEDs to be very harsh to my liking. Will this produce the same results? What I want to achieve is that real saturated lush and tight chugga chugga sound. So I know that I need to figure out a way to hard clip here. How come i when I tied the 2 diodes to the main ground it interfered with the other channel? Where do you suggest I tie the diodes to?

[oldhousescott]

I can't see any reason why adding the diodes to the dirty channel should have affected the clean channel. I would suggest trying again, either with LEDs or the string of 4148s. LEDs to ground are the basis for the Riot, Crunchbox, and certain version of the Rat, and they all sound like tight Marshally distortions (of different flavors) to me.

[9Lives]

can I just tie it to the positive leg of c14 and wire it externally to grd? I won't even have to remove parts again?

[oldhousescott]

Yes, that should work.

[9Lives]

OMG this amp has done a 180. I just cranked it and it's way better. It seems like the tone stack for the clean channel is improved to. But they're separate aren't they? The clean channel doesn't need much improvement but I can't help but wonder if the same mod would  improve it. What do you think. I also figured out how to make a channel selector. Very simple. Also doing this with the diodes will it saturate more? And if I string the 4148s how many do you recommend?

[9Lives]

srry.. But would doing this (c 14 to grd) be considered shisty in the diy world or is it fine? Little things that aren't up to par bother me.

[oldhousescott]

IMO, you do what you have to get the sound you want. If you add a string of diodes, or even just use LEDs, I would suggest using hot glue to "bolt it down" to the PCB.

You can certainly apply the same or similar changes to the clean channel. Yes, the tone controls are separate and shouldn't interact, so the changes you made to the dirty channel shouldn't have affected the clean channel at all.

[9Lives]

ok check this out. I used a piece of vero to make 2 sets of diode clips. 1 had 3 4148 X 3 4148 and the other side had 2 bs170 with ge diodes to source and 100pf caps parallel on both sides. I soldered a wire on the + side of c14 and ran to the common on a spdt center off switch. And attached each pole the 2 sets of diodes. I hope I did this right. I figured since they both went to grd there was no need for a dpdt correct? I would imagine toggling between hard clipping and n/a would have a more dramatic change.  Do you see a prob with my metheod?