Dallas Rangemaster Mystery (at least for me)

[rockaffe]

Having received two oc44s as a gift, I thought of giving myself a Dallas Rangemaster, based on the original scheme (positive ground).
It's battery powered and when plugged into my own Vox Ac30 it sounds great.
The problems arise when I try to implement it in the rest of the pedalboard, which at the moment consists of a chorus (behringer), a delay (boss dd-6), a ts808 (homemade) and a Fulltone OCD (homemade).
If connected with the other pedals, the Rangemaster loses all the low frequencies, it almost seems that the signal goes in reverse phase.
The only combination that leaves its sound nearly unchanged is placing it in front of the chorus with no other pedals in the chain.
What am I doing wrong?

[FiveseveN]

If connected with the other pedals

Connected how? This is one of those arcane circuits from centuries past that has to be connected directly to a passive pickup in order to sound the way you'd expect.

[FSFX]

This document gives a very extensive analysis of the Rangemaster circuit operation and its interaction with pickups that may help explain a lot of the results you are getting.

https://gitec-forum-eng.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/poteg-10-08-05-3-range-master.pdf

[Steben]

If connected with the other pedals

Connected how? This is one of those arcane circuits from centuries past that has to be connected directly to a passive pickup in order to sound the way you'd expect.

in 99% of the situations this the true.
It needs a high loading device (a guitar ... for example) to counter the huge trebly character.
A Rangemaster does two things and passively a third:
- it boosts
- it cuts bass
- it cuts very highs if loaded by a guitar.

This means it is a (high)mids booster by pushing a bit and then cutting back a lot.
If you place it behind a low loading device (most pedals) you loose the third effect.

[FSFX]

If connected with the other pedals

Connected how? This is one of those arcane circuits from centuries past that has to be connected directly to a passive pickup in order to sound the way you'd expect.

in 99% of the situations this the true.
It needs a high loading device (a guitar ... for example) to counter the huge trebly character.
A Rangemaster does two things and passively a third:
- it boosts
- it cuts bass
- it cuts very highs if loaded by a guitar.

This means it is a (high)mids booster by pushing a bit and then cutting back a lot.
If you place it behind a low loading device (most pedals) you loose the third effect.

One more thing:
It produces a peak in the response which, depending on the pickup inductance, is somewhere between 1.5kHz and 2.5kHz.
This is due to the series resonance created by the input capacitance and the pickup inductance.

If driving from a buffer then you don't get that peak in the response.

[rockaffe]

If connected with the other pedals

Connected how? This is one of those arcane circuits from centuries past that has to be connected directly to a passive pickup in order to sound the way you'd expect.

Guitar > TB > Amp - Sounds ok
Guitar > TB > Chorus > 808 > ocd > Sounds terrible
Guitar > Chorus > 808 > ocd > TB > Sound terrible

[FSFX]

Guitar > TB > Amp - Sounds ok
Guitar > TB > Chorus > 808 > ocd > Sounds terrible
Guitar > Chorus > 808 > ocd > TB > Sound terrible

The Rangemaster was never intended to be connected to anything other than a passive guitar pickup on its input and a VOX amp on its output.
That is just what it was designed to do to give a bit more brightness to what otherwise was a rather dull setup.
It was designed at a time when there were not many other pedals around that it would ever need to work with.
So that is just what you get with an original Rangemaster circuit, along with all of the other quirks of it like noise and scratchy output pots.
If you take away the small 5nF input capacitor then the actual input impedance of the circuit is just around 10k ohms once the bypass capacitor across the emitter resistor starts to take effect.
At far lower frequencies the impedance rises to about 15k as a result of the emitter bypass capacitor. So that in conjunction with the value of the input capacitor and the impedance (reactance & resistance) of the source driving it has a considerable affect on the circuit's performance.

[Steben]

On top of that it is all hard to mimick once you want the complete picture with guitar volume roll off.
A multi band EQ is great for set tone spectra. But you cannot simulate the response once you roll off volume and get a cleaner, flatter (eq) tone. You would get a thin tone with the same peak and that would mean losing the joy of these old quirky circuits.
Same applies to Fuzz Faces but with different freq curves.

[GibsonGM]

All of the above!  I think of the RM as a stand-alone (the way it was intended), simple vintage circuit that does what it was meant to do.  It's not meant to drive modern high impedance devices - there are many other booster that do this FAR better.   But those don't give you the mid-60s quacky OD that a RM does!
Good question on your observation about how it doesn't play too well w/others.   

You'll probably find other boosts don't do too well w/things like Chorus, Flange either, because they're intended to operate in a more narrow range of input signal and will clip (usually nastily). 

So now you'll have to explore a bunch of other boost pedals like the LPB-1, TS, AMZ boosts, Fetzer, Wamplers et. al.....oh what a shame!  

[rockaffe]

Thanks everyone for the replies and advice. I apologize for my requests that are always a bit trivial for you who are experts, but this is also how I always learn something new.

[FSFX]

Thanks everyone for the replies and advice. I apologize for my requests that are always a bit trivial for you who are experts, but this is also how I always learn something new.

No need to apologise.
The passing on of knowledge and experience to others is what these forums and the FB groups are intended for.
You can't easily go off to college and learn a lot of this stuff anymore so the Internet provides a great way for learning from others.

[GibsonGM]

I knew nothing before coming here; some might say nothing has changed, lol

[Steben]

Thanks everyone for the replies and advice. I apologize for my requests that are always a bit trivial for you who are experts, but this is also how I always learn something new.

Ow come on  don´t. We love trivial.... at least most can give answers then.