New Overdrive Pedal and Soundclip

[Doug H]

I built an overdrive pedal I designed a few months ago. It is inspired by the Route 66 amplifier. It uses 3 2n5089 transistors, so I named it "Highway 89" (Real original...I know... :oops: )

The thing is, I understand that Dr. Z does not want his amp schematics posted on the internet. Out of respect for him I am not going to post this schematic on my web site. In some respects it borrows pretty heavily from the amp design.

However, I would still like to make my schematic available to builders on here who may be interested in it. Here's what I would like to try:

I have posted a soundclip of it on my site:
http://home.cfl.rr.com/dbhammond/hwy89.mp3

1. Listen to the soundclip.

2. If it sounds like something you are interested in, and you want the schematic, email me at dougbhammond@yahool.com. I will reply with the schematic attached.

To be honest, I am trying to keep this real convenient for me, so it's important that you make the request to my yahoo account. I can access that from anywhere. I don't always have access to an email system to answer requests in this forum, so please don't post your requests here in this thread.


About the Pedal:

It's a warm moderate gain "blues" overdrive, with thick midrange, tight bass, and cleans up really well (like completely) with the guitar volume control. The cleanup is nice because it doesn't get thin or lose smoothness. It is the most useful clean sound I've ever gotten out of a pedal- nice and chimey, not too thick or thin. In fact I use this in my gig and leave it on all the time. It makes my transistor amp very "tubey". I turn down my guitar for clean and turn it up for a slight volume boost and a nice fat lead sound with some drive and sustain.

It is 2 gain stages with a 2-band tone stack in between, similar to the amp. Turning up the treble increases gain as well, similar to the amp. I mostly dime the gain but you can get some nice thick R&B rhythm tones with it at a lower setting.


About the Soundclip:

This is through my transistor amp, with the pedal gain maxed. The bridge pup is maxed. The chords demonstrate the cleanup on the neck pup with it set on 7-8. After a little noodling I turned up the neck pup so you could hear the difference.


Thanks,

Doug