hey pink? what's for dinner?

[pinkjimiphoton]

well, we're cookin' up some hog foots and greens, and some grits and bisquits...


and, well, pink's driver... presently on my breadboard.

used a pnp ge as a soft clipper. then i got twisted. and so did the circuit.

a LOT of balls... and tone... available without a lot of parts... no esoteric values, pretty much any ge pnp will work.

from mild overdrive to fuzzy ass balls, big muffish tone control with mid boost/cut

total 10,000 monkeys/10,000 typewriters/10,000 years kind of circuit

front end based on "pink's clipper" so it plays REAL nice with your guitar knobs, turn your tone down and it gets PHATTER...turn your guitar down, and it gets clean like a fuzz face....

hard ge clipping at the end. i am really digging this circuit so far.

so..... what did i reinvent/lummox across/rip off this time?

i don't recall seeing the soft clipping done like this before, but i'm sure it's been done.

if you're bored, and wanna have a play on the old breadboard...

here ya go... it's what's for breakfast. and lunch and dinner. and in between meals too today, been at it for the last 14 hours or so off and on,
tweaking and messing and tinkering.

i think it's good.

stupid pedal trick soon. vero/etc, too....

here's a schematic... again, based on a simple single opamp



thoughts/ advice/criticisms welcomed.

this is way more than a fuzz or overdrive... i was very surprised at how many tones i can coax from it.

i think i may be beginning to learn a little.

i THINK it's an "original"-ish circuit. as always... please educate me!!

and if ya build it, and diggit, let me know!!

forgot to label it, but tone pot is 100k linear

[Electron Tornado]

How's it sound without the diodes?

How does it sound with transistors with different hfe's?

How does it sound with an Si PNP transistor?

[pinkjimiphoton]

How's it sound without the diodes?

How does it sound with transistors with different hfe's?

How does it sound with an Si PNP transistor?

without the diodes, it's a mildly overdriven souning boost.

the transistor is just used as a diode, so hfe doesn't seem to matter.

no idea how it sounds with a silicon transistor. have fun and find out!

i doubt if a silicon would matter, really, as it's realy just being used as a clippng diode.

adding voltage to the e/c seems to give it a bit of a gain boost and a LOT more distortion. you can put the node of  the e and 1u on  switch for a footswitchable gain boost if ya want to.

i tried a bunch of permutations, and several ge transistors... i wanted to bring it some of the germanium "sweetness".. didn't bother with silicon.

jfets or mosfets would probably sound nice in this kind of application too, they don't hard clip like si does.
side's i don't have any si pnp's with lead long enough to reach the way shit is crammed on this particular breadboard.

it was plug and play/mix and match til it sounded good, and it's pretty messy!

i will say this for the transistor, it brought the tone stage to life. i have no idea why it works the way it does, but it does, i'm good with it!!

[midwayfair]

That's neat, and you're right, I haven't seen that configuration used in a feedback loop before. I can't help but think that it's slightly different than just being a diode.

Just one thing: JFETs do had clip, and I think you might need to rearrange things to use a MOSFET in that situation (remember that MOSFETs conduct in both directions).

[pinkjimiphoton]

That's neat, and you're right, I haven't seen that configuration used in a feedback loop before. I can't help but think that it's slightly different than just being a diode.

Just one thing: JFETs do had clip, and I think you might need to rearrange things to use a MOSFET in that situation (remember that MOSFETs conduct in both directions).

agreed, it definitely adds gain, but i think it may be thru leakage? it's being used mainly as a diode tho. if ya disconnect the 1u cap from the voltage divider on the pnp,
you lose  a lot of gain.. of course, with it without the 10k and 47k resistors it works, and is crazy loud and distorted, but it's way too much. as it stands, with the gain knob off, it'll boost.. hit about 8:00 and it starts to overdrive, right up to almost fuzz full out.

the ge transistor there as a diode is really cool... wondering if maybe it's amplifying in a limited fashion some how there? maybe when there's voltage present, it opens it like a gate? it's pretty quiet, surprisingly so, noise-wise.

[pinkjimiphoton]

think i'm gonna change the name to "flying spaghetti monster fuzz" after looking at it in the morning light

[rutabaga bob]

Another one for the build list!   

[pinkjimiphoton]

lol.... larry, dontcha wanna hear it first?

[Mustachio]

Jimi your gettin me hungry!

Really man I don't know how  you do it, you have some new type of circuit drawn up every other day , heck some times twice on Sunday haha! What ever your doing don't stop its great stuff as always! I gotta try out what you did here with the GE pnp trans as clippers. I recently was playing around using GE transistors as clipping diodes and in the octave section of the foxx tone machine, not the same way your doing it here. So I'll have to give this a try it looks cool!

Can't wait to hear it on youtube. Really man everything you play sounds good , I think its your fingers!

[pinkjimiphoton]

jim, here's a heapin' slab o' guitar beef for ya, my friend...

here's a vero. check against the schematic. i often make mistakes, cuz i'm a special kinda stupid like that. 



and... as per your command.... one stupid pedal trick video, for the newly renamed

flying spaghetti monster fuzz.

[lungdart]

Sounds good!

I've been playing around with the big muff tone stack myself recently, and I love it. Simple, extremely configurable.

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey lungdart, ya looks like a newbie... welcome!!!

yah fun to play with... definitely reccomend adding the midrange control to it, makes it so much more versatile.
and it's pretty forgiving of part values, too.

now... couple problems, or potential problems.

it's somewhat photosensitive, and PROXIMITY sensitive. if ya touch the shaft of the gain control it buzzes... cuz it's connected to the base of the pnp.

i checked it for voltage etc, and tried isolating it with a cap and a resistor in a couple combos, but it doesn't work or sound the same at all.

since there's gonna be a knob on it, i figure screw it, good enough. but the proximity thing is kinda cool... don't know if it will act the same once boxed or not.

i really dig this thing, getting some wicked tone out of it. the more i play with the knobs, the more levels and flavors i can get out of it. the video of course sucks, it sounds way better than that crummy compressed bull.....oney...

once i build the vero, i'll try a bunch of different transistors. i tried 3 or 4 of them at random in the circuit, and tried connecting it in every permutation, like, swapping the leads around. since it's basically a diode,  it doesn't really seem to matter... i went with the way it seemed to sound the best.

so... anyways... fun use for crummy low gain germaniums again.

[Kipper4]

Nice work Jimi. Amazing variety of tones.
It might be my ears but I'm hearing a fair bit of an octave type of sound too.
Thanks for sharing. I might bread it when I get back.

[Derringer]

I'm hearing Leslie West tone here

nice work Jimi

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks guys. it's a cool circuit!! hope you like it if you try it.

[pinkjimiphoton]

does anybody smarter than me (shouldn't take much, lol) have an explanation
for why the transistor works like that? i know it's got the diode action going to clip, but connecting it as i did i believe it's amplifying somewhat as
well as clipping.

and is the base of the pnp being connected to the pot dangerous? i didn't get any form of voltage reading, but it sounds like putting your finger on the end of a guitar cord.. it honk/buzzes somewhat.

i took voltage readings in dc and ac and milli amps but didn't find anything, so i don't think it's "live" or anything.

i figure it's gonna have a knob on it, but better to ask first.

it's definitely "wrong" i'm sure from any standpoint from ethical to electronic, but it sure sounds good. i'm thinking of putting this on a switch if it doesn't pop too bad, so it can give a "turbo boost" to the original distortion which is a little sweeter and milder... more of a decent overdrive. maybe switching output caps will be worth trying with it, put a bigger one in when it's off so it's nice and phat, and a smaller one with the beef on.
just ideas, if any brave soul decides spelunking into this cavernous black hole after that white rabbit nobody else saw took off down it kinda decides to play with it.

pretty sure it could be improved upon slightly. but i'm really digging it as is. thinking about boxing it with mictester's really cheap compressor, the two are both in need of boxing and sound really good together, very natural... the comp rounds off the distortion nicely, tho it loses the cleanup from the guitar sucking all the distortion out. without it on, the guitar sounds much sweeter turned down, cuz you're not squashing it down til the distortion is evident.

cutting the output transistor from .47 to .1 makes for a slightly tighter sound. switching in the .47 makes a great bass boost.


brothers buy ol' pink here a clue?  i'm thinking the transistor is "on" and working as an active drive circuit inside the feedback loop of the ic?

this is honestly just crap that was lieing around on my bench when i was cleaning up, so i didn't play with values too much, mostly just plug sh*^ in and see what it does... changed resistors on the voltage divider on the input, tried from 10k to 470k, and 100k won.  also tried it asymetrically, with various combos.
i wanted to try and use one of these crummy ge's as a clipper. i tried it hooked up every possible way i could think of, and e and c sounded best as the diode.. slightly different tones depending on which orientation of the connection. as it ended up sounded best to me.

i wanted to see if anything would happen if i connected the b of the transistor, so i tried grounding it. and, being fearlessly stupid and willing to blow stuff up in the pursuit of toane, and since it was right next to it stuck it in the positive honeypot and holy cow did that scream. too much. so i tamed it down with a resistor or two or three, and decided i liked it. the tone controls in particular came alive, as did the volume, which prior wasn't much above unity.

i'll take some voltage readings to post in a little bit and post them.

[pinkjimiphoton]

vero w/voltages and schem

probably build this today to see if it's good...

[italianguy63]

Hey Jimi-- since you are playing around with changes in tone by touch or proximity.  Maybe your next project should be a ---

Fuzz Theremin

[deafbutpicky]

Hey pink,
in the mood again huh? For the tranny amplifying let me try some highly speculative idea,
as it's germanium  with all the mojo, leakage and stuff it might provide some conduction for the
signal on the collector to V+ with a signal on the base present, thus  giving it a shortcut around the 47k
and enhancing the gain following the gain formula for inverting op amps in a crude way, as for the signal
in the feedback loop it's not of interest if getting shorted to ground or V+, it missing at the input, and that's what counts
for the OPA. Don't know for sure, just hit me if I'm dumb here...
Nice grunty sound btw...

[pinkjimiphoton]

Hey Jimi-- since you are playing around with changes in tone by touch or proximity.  Maybe your next project should be a ---

Fuzz Theremin

lol.... let's see if it still does it when off the breadboard and in a metal box!

if it does, we can say it's a "feature". lol

Hey pink,
in the mood again huh? For the tranny amplifying let me try some highly speculative idea,
as it's germanium  with all the mojo, leakage and stuff it might provide some conduction for the
signal on the collector to V+ with a signal on the base present, thus  giving it a shortcut around the 47k
and enhancing the gain following the gain formula for inverting op amps in a crude way, as for the signal
in the feedback loop it's not of interest if getting shorted to ground or V+, it missing at the input, and that's what counts
for the OPA. Don't know for sure, just hit me if I'm dumb here...
Nice grunty sound btw...

thanks bro. i follow up to a point... so it's working as a switch you think? man, i wish i knew how to do a sim of it to see what it does. maybe i can catch it on my computer with one of them free o-scope things.