Dr Boogey build report with pic and soundclip

[John Lyons]

Finally finished this one. No squeal!!!

I used shielded wire on both in and outs to the switch and to the board,
on the treble wiring, and on the gain and volume pots.
Guitar amps do this all the time (volume and gain wiring) for high gain builds.

I think the Dr boogie has more gain than the actual amp.
Somethig about the fets produces more gain.



Here's what I did to get to this point:
200pf caps from gate to source on Q1, 2 and 4.
Changed 20pf to 150pf
Lowered the 1M gain pot to 500K
Lowered the 2m2 resistor to 1M between stage 1 and 2.
Lowered the 1M to 470K right before the 3rd stage

There still is not much lower gain setting but I'm happy with it as it's not supposed to be a subtle circuit anyway.

Here is a clip of the lower gain setting and the high gain setting which is about half way up on the gain knob!
There is a little more gain on tap but it gets a little too overmodulated after 12 o' clock.

http://www.mrdwab.com/john/Drboogie1.mp3

The enclosure is Oak finished with dissolved 78 RPM records and shellac.
Sort of an antique/distressed type look.

John

[tungngruv]

Man John, that is a fat distortion! Does it have pretty much one sound or do the tone controls really change up the tone? Also, was your amp clean or overdriven? I'm really impressed with the amount of chunk. Thanks for he clip!

[John Lyons]

Yes, the sound is very fat yet articulate.

The amp is pretty clean but not squeaky clean. It's a master volume high gain amp but the Pre volume is on 2 1/2. I forgot to record a little section of clean amp in the clips... Like I was saying, the gain is only about half way up on the pedal. With a totally clean amp it would sond the same if the Pedal gain was up a number or two probably. The Dr boogey has way too much gain. I lowered the gain in 4 places on the circuit and this is where I am now!

The Tone controls are at the end of the circuit so they do a lot. The bass pretty much lives in the 3/4 to full position for a full sound but the mid, presence  and treble can make the sound more scooped/lead boosted, fuzzy or airy. Mainly the mids are adjusted between a solo and a chunky scooped rhythm sound. The Treble and presence are set to taste for the amp and main sound but the mids are the main character change between rhythm/solo work.

The Lower gain sounds are brighter due to the bright cap / bypass cap across the gain knob. The lower the gain setting the more treble gets passed.

John

[John Lyons]

Here are a couple more clips.

http://www.mrdwab.com/john/Drboogie4.mp3

Bridge PU and neck PU lead work (sort of)
http://www.mrdwab.com/john/DrBoogie5.mp3

[jonathan perez]

be sure to change that to WWW. not WWW/

[jonathan perez]

by the way, youve totally inspired me to build one

[Barcode80]

wow, i had passed on this circuit due to the fact i play no metal, but it sounds to me like it is crunchy enough to play some straight rock rhythm on. might have to build, and i will probably use your mods...

[John Lyons]

I guess I played up the metal chugga chugga stuff a bit on the sound clips to show off the articualtion and gain but yeah...you could do rock with it no problem.
I really talked trash about all the Mesa hype a few years ago but for modern rock sound you can't beat it.
I guess As much as I hate 90% of modern rock bands the guitar sound is still nice.

John

[MartyMart]

That's a beautiful build John and GREAT clips
I may go back to mine and add the full tone stack ( just used a simple tone control ) 

MM.

[Alex C]

Wow, that sounds amazing!  The palm muting sounds wonderfully chunky- very nice!

The enclosure looks great as well.  I think there was an error in your post though, because the "guts shot" didn't show up, and I know you're not the type to tease us with descriptions of mods and intricate shielding/wiring and then not post a pic. 

-Alex

[Dragonfly]

DAMN IT ! 

I dont even play high gain stuff, and your clips make me want to build it !

I HATE YOU !  (but in a manly, non-hatred kind of way....)

AC

[John Lyons]

Ha Ha!!!!!!!!! see, that's the thing. I don't play metal stuff either (although I listen to the classics, 80's metallica, slayer, etc at times) but this circuit makes you want to rock out the metal.

I posted some more lower gain soundclips on my site below.
All the gain settings get that dry clipped but super articulate sound that dodes not compress at all.
I think this is the 3K9 cold biased clipping stage for sure.
Although in a real DR the value is 39K and 10k in the Soldano I think (which mesa ripped the DR off from)
Every string is crystal clear yet distorted (oymoron?).
I may have to play with that resistor value and see how it affects the clipping.
May be a good place for a Warp control (variable clipping, resistance to ground)

As far as gut shots...yikes!
My builds seem really messy to me but here goes (first gut shot ever...i'm nervous, don't tease me  )



The longer black wires on the left are grounds and the +9v to the power jack.
I'll shorten those although they won't add any noise.

John

[Marcos - Munky]

Nice box, John. Just a question, how did you soldered the shield of the wires to ground?

[bdog57]

Basicaudio,

How did you record your soundclips (mike, cab emulation, etc.)?  This has to be the best-sounding rhythm guitar I've heard on these pages...and I've been lurking for quite a while now.  Some of the other clips of the Dr. Boogie sounded like they'd been recorded direct with no cab emulation -thus reducing my interest in a very interesting concept (Mesa-in-a-box).

Also, do you or anyone else here know how to lower the gain?  It'd be nice if someone could find a way so that the entire range is useable as the consensus seems to be "WAAAAY too much gain"   Then again, I believe that the actual amp itself has way too much as well.

[rtill]

Totally impressed! that sounds and looks unbelievable!!!!  so if you were to sell one of these...........how much would they go for?

[Barcode80]

marcose, i don't see anywhere that he soldered the shield to the foil. it seems the jacks are grounded together because they are bolted to the foil via their spots in the box.

[John Lyons]

Marcos
I separate the shield braid from the inner conductor and solder on a small piece of wire (about an inch) to the twisted up braid, then I shrink wrap the connection so the new shield connection and the inner conductor wire are sticking out. This way the shielding braid isn't able to unwravel and break. I ground the Shield wherever I can run a wire to the board. I usually collect all the shields and solder them together and run one wire back to the board. There is only a connection to ground at the input and output jacks.


Bdog57
Thanks for the compliment!
The soundclips were recorded with a home built AX84.com "High Octane" preamp built into a 70's 100 watt bassman Amp and run through 2  Celestion 12" G12K speakers in my Fender Twin Reverb open back cabinet. The amp was recorded very quiet and I could talk over my playing.
I used an Electrovoice RE20 mic placed between the dust cap and the suround of the speaker about 2 inches from the grill cloth (a Shure 57 would work just as well but have a bit more midrange and treble boost) then run into a tube mic pre made by David Royer then into a Berhinger U-control UCA202 USB interface into the computer.
I used Cool edit pro 2.0 to edit the samples. I just "normalize" the the clips to get the most volume. No EQ or compression.

The Berhinger USB input was $30, I just got it. It works great and has Analog RCA ins and outs as well as Optical and a headphone out.

The pedal and amp sound even better than the clips so it's not just my recording gear.

John

[oldrocker]

Hey Basicaudio,  The clips sound awesome.  I've got to build me one of these.  I've been thinking about it for a while now and I think you just made up my mind.  Once I finish the Maestro FSH I'm going to give it a shot.

[ildar]

Just applied the PnP blue to my board, will etch tomorrow and fight off the Tryptophan blues on Thursday to build this beautiful beast.
This is great because I don't have to alter the board to apply the mods that Basicaudio used, which sound incredible!