Well I bought a MKII from MikeB with the intention of comparing and eliminating one of the two Tonebender designs. I can't decide, they are both so awesome. The MKII is an out of control beast with an almost bass scooped eq and a ridiculous amount of gain. The MKIII is lower gain (still a ton though) and sounds gigantic, much more bass and great sustain. The MKIII is smoother as well.
The MKII has a trio of OC75's. The MKIII is an amalgamation from my germanium stash. From Q1 to Q3 it goes: Amperex AC128 (hfe 60), Mullard OC81 (hfe 90), ITH GET895 (hfe 260). Help me decide! :D maybe I should just keep both...
MKII
[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/jakefuzz/mkii[/soundcloud]
MKIII
[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/jakefuzz/mkiii[/soundcloud]
sweet! I like both of them, even though I initially liked the MKIII the most
what song is the riff at 1:50 from?
The MKIII has a unique sounding low end, sounds a bit better balanced then the MKII. But the MKII has got smacks of character, sounds almost like its got that sort of velcro tearing sound.
Both are awesome man. Put them both in an enclosure and call it the MK V :D
Paul
I forget what that song is called, it is a Zep tune I know that.
I think the MKII needs more bass. I changed the output cap to 100n. Ill see how it sounds tomorrow. Could be that I am playing a tele into a twin which is beyond bright to begin with. MKV here I come!
Quote from: JakeFuzz on April 19, 2012, 04:19:08 AM
Could be that I am playing a tele into a twin which is beyond bright to begin with. MKV here I come!
Ah-ha!! I forgot to say "nice clean tone, chimey!". I've got a fender 70's twin as well (original). Love it!
Yeah, i dont think they sound similar enough to get rid of one or the other imo.
EDIT: but then i'm obssessed and cant let go of any of this sh1t :D
It's hard to say from these clips. As said, they both have their charm. You should keep whichever works best with your band in the full band mix.
To me the MKIII sounds better. But I have found that there is a big difference in what enjoy hearing and what I enjoy playing. I like to hear much bass in guitar tracks but whenever I dial in my pedals and amp I usually set for a pretty bright hi-gain tone cause to it is so easier and more fun to jam with so I would probably use the MKII more.. but maybe that's just me.
so... keep 'em both! :)
Quote from: jtn191 on April 19, 2012, 03:35:41 AM
what song is the riff at 1:50 from?
Bring it on home!
I like the MKIII much better. The MKII would probably be better with humbuckers than it is with a tele or strat.
QuoteI forget what that song is called, it is a Zep tune I know that.
I believe the song is The Ocean by Led Zepplin. By the way I think I prefer the MkIII.
mkiii all day IMHO
I like the Zep tunes with the Mk II (more raw) and the Sabbath stuff with the Mk III (smooth, crushing). Hard to believe that was a tele. Thanks for the demo!
Thanks guys. Lots of love for the MKIII. I do like texture of the MKIII, I really like that the MKII is useable at low volume knob settings. I am interested to see if I can level out some of the bass in the MKII by bumping up the output cap. Ill report back tonight.
Hmm. Really like both. The Mkii has much character IMO, although lacks a bit in low end like you said. I think a bump-up in its bass will put it ahead of the Mkiii. Would love to hear a demo of the revised pedal.
I think the second it's in a band context, you're going to prefer that MKII. It cuts better and even on the clips it's more well-defined. It sounds more like what I expect a bender to sound like, too. The MKIII is almost getting buried under its own harmonic richness.
(I would prefer the MKIII for just pure riffy goodness, though.)
Wow, I didn't think that I would be saying this but I think the MKII sounds better than the MKIII now. Ill try and record a demo maybe tomorrow. I just switched the output cap to 100n. 100n could be a little too high but definitely moving in the right direction. Sounds much more balanced and full. It is more muddy than before but way smoother. I didn't have time for the side by side comparison but I am almost certain it sounds better. I am thinking something like 56n or 68n could be perfect. Very cool. 8)
I've seen a gut recently where the builder has put like 5 or 6 small caps on a rotary switch. Each one raises the capacitance of the output cap. Sounds like a good idea. I think it's in a D*a*m box, a Nth variant of the tonebender reissue.
[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/jakefuzz/mkii-revised[/soundcloud]
And 68n output cap wins. A little mud with the volume knob all the way up but smooth as butter. Now off to the for sale section to sell a MKIII ::)
:o
Just awesome tone. I think the singing lead tones make up for any bit of muddiness at full volume. Good work indeed
I agree that one is the winner -- sounds fantastic! I've put the parts for a Silicon NPN Mk II into a baggie to wait for my breadboard to clear off. (I've heard it can compete with the Ge.) Gotta try this.
Man that sounds great Paul! Even better than the fuzz faces in my opinion. So what I am I going to do with these CV7112's now? ;D
Sounds great Paul. You got better sounds out of it than I ever did on that first demo, but it sounds fantastic after the cap change. I'll have to make a note of that if I ever build another one. Nice work indeed!
Quote from: pryde on April 25, 2012, 02:01:28 AM
Just awesome tone. I think the singing lead tones make up for any bit of muddiness at full volume. Good work indeed
I totally agree, rolling down the volume knob gives me an incredibly useful overdrive sound and at full tilt I get a ridiculous lead tone.
Quote from: mgwhit on April 25, 2012, 02:41:12 AM
I agree that one is the winner -- sounds fantastic! I've put the parts for a Silicon NPN Mk II into a baggie to wait for my breadboard to clear off. (I've heard it can compete with the Ge.) Gotta try this.
Can't wait to hear it. I've never heard a Si tonebender (other than 'the fuzz' ::)). I just tried some of Tim's 2n2925's in a fuzz face and it is the smoothest sounding Si FF I have heard yet. Could be good in a TB as well!
Quote from: shawnee on April 25, 2012, 11:07:03 AM
Man that sounds great Paul! Even better than the fuzz faces in my opinion. So what I am I going to do with these CV7112's now? ;D
Put them in a TB! :D The CV's have a very unique natural warmth and harmonic quality to them. I think they would work well in a TB type circuit. You could probably get away with putting them in just one position with good results. This is an awesome pedal but I am still a FF fanboy for life, maybe I am too attached...
Quote from: Mike B. on April 25, 2012, 12:38:09 PM
Sounds great Paul. You got better sounds out of it than I ever did on that first demo, but it sounds fantastic after the cap change. I'll have to make a note of that if I ever build another one. Nice work indeed!
Thanks Mike. Great build quality BTW. This has become one of my favorites. I noticed the small ceramic caps on the underside. Those go from collector to base? The old smoothing out trick? Did you notice a big change in sound when you put those in?
Thanks Paul. And yeah, those caps from C to B were to smooth out the high-end and some of the hiss. It worked pretty well. Before I added them, it was almost too much - especially with my Strat and AC15.
Hey Paul, I picked up a MKII pcb a few weeks back. Did you use the Solasound values in yours with the exception of the output cap? I have been on the fence about whether to go the direction you did, or if I should go with the Marshall SupaFuzz values (10uf's input and bypass caps instead of 5uf's) to achieve a bit more bass.
Thanks!
Tim
Hey Tim. You know I am not sure. The board is built to the guitarpcb mojo MKII specs. I don't know which model this corresponds to exactly.
http://www.guitarpcb.com/apps/webstore/products/show/2166316 (http://www.guitarpcb.com/apps/webstore/products/show/2166316)
There are also small smoothing caps from collector to base on all the transistors. Honestly though this circuit needs as much bass as it can get. With the higher output cap it does get a little muddy. I am not sure if adding more bass before saturation will cause it to get really flubbed out or not.
Ah yeah, thanks for the link! That looks like a Solasound Tonebender MKII Professional with diode polarity protection, 4.7uf electros instead of 5uf, adjustable bias, and pulldown resistor on the input added on to me. Other than those 4 things the component values are all MKII Professional spec. I am gonna go the Marshall Supafuzz route which ditches the 10nf input cap, changes the 4.7uf/5uf electrolytics to 10uf, and subs 47k in for 100k on the collector of Q2. I'll see where I need to go from there. I am putting some Jazzmaster pickups in my partscaster this week (jazzcaster or twangmaster?), we'll have to see how that works with the rest of my pedals as well as this one. Thanks Paul!
The Marshall Supafuzz doesn't just change the input cap from 5uF to 10uF -- it also changes the input resistor to ground from 100K to 10K. The interesting thing about that is that it actually changes the corner frequency of the low-pass high-pass filter to a higher value.
5uF & 100K = 0.3Hz
10uF & 10K = 1.6Hz
To be fair, both of these values are stupid crazy low and there might be something else affecting the actual cut-off frequency, but I can't see much value in dropping from ~5uF to 10uF in that position.
(I've been using the schematics at Fuzz Central (http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/mkII.php), which seem to jive with the GuitarPCB schematic other than modern touches, like the 1M drop down resistor and the bias trimmer.)
Yeah forgot to mention the 100k to 10k change there. I always find myself messing with the higher value tone control cap in MKIII's, I am sure I will end up trying a few values for the output cap here. From the schematic I thought that was a high pass filter, cap before resistor, maybe I have it backwards? Either way low E is ~80hz so it shouldn't make much difference yeah?
Yes, I misspoke -- it's a high-pass filter. And that's what I was getting at. Unless something else is changing the performance of that high-pass filter in a way that I don't understand a lower cap value isn't going to matter a hill of beans for guitar. However, letting in lower frequencies could negatively affect the performance of the transistor, which is why I would be nervous about dropping that value in a way that would lower the corner frequency.
I think this is getting into a pretty good thread Hijack at this point. For sake of politeness lets discuss it in a new thread because I have some more questions about corner feq. and the affect it has on transistor performance. Thanks! Link to continuation of discussion: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=5623.0