"Fire Starter" mosfet overdrive Layout & mp3

[MartyMart]

http://aronnelson.com/gallery/Martys-layouts-and-photos/Fire_Starter_OD

I've played with this for a while, after reading Jacks info at AMZ.
It's similar to Dragonfly's "Fire Cracker" with a few changes.
All diodes are 4148's and it has assymetrical clipping.
The tone is nice and full, without getting too bass heavy.
It has a nice top end, if you want more "fizz" leave out the 500pf
cap before the output, but I recommend using it.
Gtr vol will adjust the drive, but it wont fully clean up, there is a
decent amount of boost, enough to kick a valve amp nice and hard !
It seems to nail the "brown sound" quite well, Eddie fans will enjoy it !
Simple, straight forward medium gain OD with minimal parts count 
Enjoy,
Marty.

PS : I'll add a sound clip a.s.a.p

[MartyMart]

Sound clip :
http://aronnelson.com/userfiles/Fire%20starter%20OD.mp3

Fire starter - condor cab sim - soundcard
Touch of reverb added.

MM.

[vanhansen]

Hey, that's pretty nice.  Too bad I don't have any mosfets laying around.    In fact, I really need to stock up on a lot of stuff.  Got too many things to build and box up.  As soon as my wife gets working again, there's gonna be a nice sized parts order.   I like the sound of this one. 

[jmusser]

Hey Marty, that sounds real good to me, and a lot different from the original Firecracker. I especially liked the dirt in it. It's always blown me away how much a few changes can make in the tone of a circuit. The recent changes I made to the Super Full Wave Octaver that Gez sent me, and the changes to the LoFo MoFo that transformed it to the One knob Fat Fuzz are good examples.

[MartyMart]

Hey Marty, that sounds real good to me, and a lot different from the original Firecracker. I especially liked the dirt in it. It's always blown me away how much a few changes can make in the tone of a circuit. The recent changes I made to the Super Full Wave Octaver that Gez sent me, and the changes to the LoFo MoFo that transformed it to the One knob Fat Fuzz are good examples.

Yeah, I'm not so good with the "maths of why something works" but I'm getting better
at "squeezing" good tones out of stuff ! 
The reason I did that to the LoFo MoFo is that I didn't want to waste the circuit ( cos I didn't like it )
so just stuffed larger caps on it 

MM.

[Dragonfly]

nice job Marty !  ive been meaning to "revisit" the firecracker, but havent had time...nice to see that you were able to take the idea and run with it !



andy

[San Luis]

Hi there everybody!

I heard the soundclips and I just loved that tone, I plan to build it up: Great tone and simple enough for a newbie as I am..... 

Just one question: I'd prefer to have a "gain" control in the stompbox rather than using my guitar's volume knob, so, if possible, could anybody tell me how to make it? 

Thanks a lot!

(also a newbie in english forums, so I'm sorry if i did/said something wrong.... )

[MartyMart]

For gain control :
Ignore the 3k9 from fet's gate ..... and ......
Use a 5k pot, lug 3 from gate, lug 2 to the + side of the cap
and lug 1 to ground along with the cap - side.
Now you have a 5k gain pot
You may need one extra "strip" of vero to do this at the bottom before ground strip.... OK?

MM.