kap'n krunch booster/overdrive

[pinkjimiphoton]

hi guys, been playing around again, and stumbled across something that's probably been done to death a gazillion times. but it sounds pretty good, and uses a weird feedback trick, at least to me being a newb.

basically, it's an eh lpb1 with a diode clipper. nothing special.

but what i did was add another footswitch, so i could make the diode clipper switch in and out. thought it would be cool.
EPIC FAIL. ya could KINDA tell when the diodes were in...mostly because of a volume drop. so i doubled up the diodes, discovered a combination of silicon ge and an led seemed to sound best...(on the vero layout below, i put them in the way they are on this one) and i'm sure i screwed it up, but it sounds different with this particular combo than the others i'd tried...basically, an led in parallel with 2 1n914s on one side of the clipper, and two 1n34a's on the other.

it sounded pretty good, but still had a bit of a volume drop. i already had wasted a 3pdt switch on this and an led to show when the diodes were in the circuit, and had 1/3rd of a switch left, so i figured i'd try a few things and see if i could find anywhere that i could boost the circuit from. and for a change, lucked out..i had spent a couple hours playing with an lm386 overdriver, trying to add it to this circuit...again, epic fail.

but if i take the emitter of the transistor, and wire it to the third part of the switch so that when the diodes are engaged, it shorts the emitter directly to ground,

BINGO.

i'm too newb to know why it works, but it does...get a mild level boost, and a very old-school distortion sound that cleans up surprisingly well. you can use it as a booster for solo volume, THEN kick in a boost on top of that...sounds nice thru the couple amps i've tried it thru.

now i realize it may be a fluke, but i figured i'd share the layout that it ended up using...i didn't bother adding the in/out footswitch, but did add the "boost" switch.

if anybody wants to try it, and builds it, please let me know...hope maybe someone finds it useful.

it may suck, too, and only sound good to my relic'd old ears....but anyways, i can't take credit for this, cuz all it really is is an lpb1 with a boost and clipping diodes..

[joegagan]

when the emitter goes closer to ground, gain goes up.

very cool- you accidentally found the most simple way to solve the vol drop when switching in diodes. this is how i used it specifically  to get the volume UP when didodes kicked in , not the other way around. when i first tried the dino fuzz hot ( basically FF>LPB1>diodes), i was amazed at the thickness but clarity of the distortion. it reminded me of deep purple EXCEPT both the guitar and organ together!!!!

[pinkjimiphoton]

wow, cool!! thanks for the explanation joe!

sounds alot like a distortion + kinda, or one of them old dod overdrives. i'm gonna be stuck on the road for a couple hours, will try and upload a couple clips later.

may come in handy for someone down the road then i guess.. i wonder if it'll work on any other boxes? there's definitely a slight volume boost when the diodes are engaged...not alot, but enough to be noticeable, which is exactly what i was hoping to accomplish.

time to put the lab coat on again, i guess...lol