On Board boost?

[digideus]

Hey everyone,

Im fixing a Kay flying V guitar at the moment that used to have a "Gain Boost" switch.  Basically, there's 2 holes in the body for a switch and an LED.  The switch was simply an On/Off affair.

That part of the circuit is now missing.  I think  lot of people ditched it because it was quite primitive and if you left it on, it would drain your battery.

I am looking to replace the one on the Kay without buying one of the artec/modboard things.  Basically, I was looking at the beginners project on here and thought "if we do away with the pot and just have it as a switchable boost, I could make it to go inside the cavity...."

Unless someone has a better (inexpensive) idea (or better yet a Kay flying V with the gain booster in place!) I may have a go at making this as small as possible and have it switchable on the input jack so it wont work without a connection and save the battery.

Not sure about the LED yet.  I guess I can use a tiny one and mount a holder in the body.

Anyone got any ideas/comments/suggestions? 

[Eric.nail]

You could do a simple SHO clone boost. Put it on pref board. You could mount an internal trim pot to set the level. Let us know what you decide on! Sounds interesting!

[Mark Hammer]

Stratoblaster.  That's what it was made for.

Ideally, you probably don't want to run the thing at more than a gain of 3-4, or so.  Why?

1) If you are powering it off a 9v battery, there are headroom limits, and you'd like your guitar output to be a faithful representation of what the guitar sounds like, NOT what the guitar sounds like with bad clipping.

2) A great many effects are designed around an anticipated input signal level, and will not behave predictably or optimally if overdriven.  For example, it may be harder to nail any sort of medium-to-light compression from a compressor, harder to nail medium distortion from a pedal, and you may overdrive any time-based effects that don't include companding.

An onboard preamp is great for buffering, and for providing optimum S/N ratios, but be cautious in how much gain you use.