Topics

Just breadboarded the 386 based Big daddy from ROG. And I was blown away at how much these 5 or 6 components worked. I toned it down a lil with the volume and put my od808 infront of it and I was chugga chuggin' like crazy. This is pretty bad ass. What  had me scratching my head was that the delay after it totally muffled the sound. Not good. What's up w this? And being that it's such a simple design there must be a way to design a more complex circuit out of this. Has it been done?

Does anyone have any experience with this amp at all? I have one that I've never used much.  Bc I just don't like the way it sounds. It's to bassy and extreme mid hump. I love my mids and all.. But damn. My real question is about the OD channel. It sucks royally the best sound I can get out of it is with the eq all the way down. The tonestack on this amp is fairly powerful it's just not there.. Musically I guess. The amps just to mushy or muddy, can't explain it. Does anyone know where I can find a schematic for this thing or any existing mods? I figured it's a long shot but never hurts to ask. Also a foot switch would be nice. I'm wondering if it's the same as a typical spst switch would work?

Good morning everyone. Everyone talks about swapping ICs for different flavors of sounds. I'm guilty my self. What I can't seem to find much info on this question. Lets say we have a typical tube screamerish circuit that uses the jrc4558. The schematic of that chip shows a bunch of transistors linked together. When you swap it with an op amp with fet input, what exactly happens? Is it  just luck when it works as a direct replacement. I can't help but love the opa2134 pair I have put in  my maxon od808 clone made by sabrotones layouts. But I can't help but to feel like I'm incorrectly using these chips. So is this acceptable? My ears like it.. But is the circuit really using these ICs full potential?

well bean, I know I would be intrested in an amp project. Even if it was just a small solid state. Just for my first one. I'm having a hard time finding an amp project that I trust, and is not a butt load of $$$. I trust your stuff and I love the way you simplify things for the dummies like me .. Just a thought. It may be to much of a hastle and I'm sure you've already thought about it.

I hate the way volume controls simply ground the signal. It often leaves unity gain set at max. Is this a good subsitue as a volume control? It seems like it would slightly boost the sig rather than ground it? This is a complete assumption.. Any thoughts or facts?

Hi everyone. It's been a while since I posted. Been building lots of "off the map stuff" using vero layouts and what not. I find the whole vero and perf thing very interesting and challenging. Really helps me dive into a project and understand it alor more that working on pcbs that usually turn out with no probs. The debugging thing is a big pain in the ass but is teaching me alot. On to the point of this post. I've been searching for projects using the cd4049ube and came up with a fair amount of info all though most of it is from 2001-2009 runoffgroove stuff. I attempted to breadboard the double d and that didn't come out so well. It's very cluttered with the pins so close. I also found the 3 legged dog that sounds a little more my style according to the sound clips. But I also saw several post about this circuit not sounding like it did in the ROG sound clips. I'm looking for some metal tones. I have not found anything that beats the Dr. Boogie and that's kind of my mission. Just wanting some new sounds. Have I found mostly every thing availale or is there somthing I'm looking over? Any fans of the 3 legged hound dawg? Thanks  for the advice in advance. Yall are very dependable.

I was reading about some of Keeley's stuff having an input control for different levels of pickup and what not. This appealed to me b/c  I uses actives alot. Is this simply a pot on the input just like the volume on the output? Or somthing more?

I just finished buildng the Sabrotone vero version of the "Jangle Box" it's very dynacompish with some subtle differences. This is my first time using the strip board. It's very useful stuff. I highly recommend it for personal stuff. The problem I ALWAYs run into with these ota compressors is that I get to much distortion. Before anyone jumps down my throat, I understand comps produce noise and yada yada.. I've built several.i just want to know if anyone has a lead on some info about any modifications I can make for my active humbuckers. I can get them pretty clean with hot passive buckers but the actives are just to hot! The only way I can clean it up is to roll back the vol on the guitar and compensate with the boosters after the comps.. What causes this? I can't figure out what part of the circuit that effects this. Impedance maybe? I don't think so. I'm wondering if the ca3080 just can't  amplify that hot of a signal without some clipping somewhere. Am I on the right page, or totally off? The comps I've build with the lm13600 don't dlip near as bad but I just want to understand this. If there was a way to weaken the signal before it hit the amp I think that might be the key but I'm still pretty amateur. Thanks for reading my rambling thought process. Anyone who knows about this I'd greatly appreciate. Thanks.

I just etched a sunking and finished putting it all together. I used 2 bs170 mos for clippers. Got them socketed for later. Also accidentally forgot to order dualgang 100k.. But I figured I wouldn't be using this as a distortion pedal so I used a d gang 50kb pot and added 51k resistor to both 3rd lugs. Still same effect without being able to be fully cranked?  I'm not all that thrilled w this at full clockwise. I like this better as a dirty boost.  Are the ic's worth swapping? It's pretty nice sounding but I definitely don't understand what all the "hype" is about. That's why I build it.. Bc I didn't have access to one. Does the original klon have the charge pump in it or not?

I have one of these and it's just laying around. It's too dirty for my taste. I looked at the guts to see any obvious changes I could make. It uses tantalums and the lm13700.  It uses mpsa18 transistors. A buttload of them. Would changing these transistors make any difference? Like a 2n2222 or bc109 or 2n5089? All the components look pretty good. Just a thought.

There's a few odd caps it calls for like 82n and a couple others. I have alot of odd size caps but not a couple. Is it alright to use the next size up on these? I hope bc I already soldered in. Has anyone used the mosfet clipping on this? And one more.. On the etched wiring diagram on the pdf it has a 3PDT with the middle lugs unused. I'm guessing a dpdt would be better?

I'm looking for a somewhat bulk order of pots just to have something to put in these builds. Maybe temp maybe not. I've managed to build a stock of all other parts except pots. I just can't seem to get a good enough stock on all values. I saw this grab bag for like 30$ but it's 1/5W - 3/4 watt linear, single and multi turn pots. It's like 300 pcs. Seems like a good idea just to have values for experimenting with until orders come in for the alphas. Question is can I use these different W pots? What is a multi turn? ( turns more than one turn?)  I'm assuming the normal pots we use are 1/4w? Thanks

what do yall use to keep your components and different parts in? I'm using some type of box I stole out of my wifes craft stuff. It's a cheap jewl box that one wrong move I'll have components everywhere. I wanted to use my tool box but didn't know if the metal would damage the ic, and trannys. Any ideas or anyone know of a better solution? These type of things are harder to come across than I imagined.

Is there a purpose for the TL072 for the RC version? On the pdf it calls for that chip for rc and "any dual op amp" for the ac version. I used the LM4562 for the AC but it doesn't sound quite right on the RC. Haven't tried the 072 in the RC yet.. Just wondering if it NEEDS it for some reason?

Hi all, I've just dug up some sweet dpdt stompers that I can't bring myself to disgaurd. I prefer them SO MUCH over the 3pdt. Just better quality hands down. Unfortunitly these are solder lugs. The ones that are in a "X" pattern on the bottom and the legs kind of come off the sides. Anywho I can't mount it to a pcb. I'm wondering if any one can point me in the direction to an already designed layout ready to transfer and a daugherboard. The only ones I find are pc mount and the other is drawn with a sharpe. Seems risky to do it that way to me. I'm still learning to use eagle. Can't figure out the final stages of designing layouts YET. THANKS

After blindly learning to build pedals with the "fake it till you make it" attitude twords all of this I've managed to learn a great bit about all of this thanks to alot of the members of this forum. I went straight to the difficult  builds  simply bc that's what I wanted to do. So for the past couple months I've really taken a step back to learn and actually understand what it is that I'm doing here. In the process I've learned to debug, etch and all sorts of things. And combing over the AMZ site and exhausting the 1 transistor boost and EVERY relative of it. I didn't realize how fasinating a couple of parts could be. So after all that I think I'm ready to play around with some of the Xotic effects. I just etched one of bean's older designs (Quasar). I just used a chunk of $$$ and stashed evey useful piece I could think of. My question is really for some one who has built both versions of this pcb. I just can't decide between the RC and AC. I've heard both demos and I can desifer the differences through youtube... I'm looking TO color my tone and be able to get that crystal clear boost and have the option of putting some dirt on it. I'm leaning tword the AC just seems (to me) a lil more versitile. But I know nothing about this. Any experienced builders care to chime in? Thanks in advance.

when I set up a pedal to run at 12v is the bias now 6v? Or is it still 4.5?

Home etched, came out ok. It's clipping pretty bad when I give it any volume past hmm I'd say 11:00. Of coarse it cleans up when I turn the volume down on the guitar but I wanna try and get around that. I accidentally used a 10k trimmer on one of the fets but it still reaches bias. So ok right? The only other part I subbed was the 680pf. I used 1n (close I had laying around). Is this a headroom issue or do I just need to mess with the biasing some more?

I just etched one of these just for the hell of it as a sunday project and pieced it together with parts I had laying around.  Is it supposed to be this bassy? It colors the sound very well and it doesn't roll off the high end, it just creates sooo much bass it rattled things off the shelfs in my shop. I did have to sub in a couple parts. C1 220pF I used .22 tant +-  and all my 47uF elec caps were 169 :/ so I used a 68uF. I used 1n5818 for D2 and 3, the max1044 pump and J201 fet. Also used tants for the 10uF caps. I'm playing through a passive ESP guitar through a Kustom 10" speaker (cant think of model but pretty dark)   

it's not a bad sound by ANY means. I was just expecting more of a boost and it's definitely a low end enhancer. Is this how it supposed to sound?

Let me attempt to explain this bc I'm scratching my head and I just can't undrstand what's going on. I run a few true bypass pedals with a compressor up front and a maximizer at the rear. I made a dual IC buffer that I run through out the chain. I HAD a charge pump in the buffer and all was well.. I started fooling around with these germanium transistors and made a boost from Orman's Multi purpose transistor board.  And a few problems started to occur. The germanium tranny behaves very strangley.. Through off the whole board.. Some how the pump on the buffer stoped working (coinsidence I think). I took it out and now every things all jacked up. I keep reading that head room should clear up the booster. I inserted one in the GE boost and it still sounds like it's clipping... Not a pleasane clip either. And it only performs when the buffer is before it.. What's up with that?? Do I need to get a pump back in that buffer and take it out of the booster? It's also making my high gain pedals fade in when I switch them on... It's so weird. Could it be the buffer clipping? That's the only thing I have not tried yet. It's running at 12v at the moment. Hope his makes since.. I'm well known to ramble. (also etch first pcb today woo hoo!! Just wanted to add that)