I was thinking of building a 7-gainstage all-tube overdrive pedal.

[christube]

I was thinking of building a 7-gainstage all-tube overdrive pedal,but I am not exactly certain how to go about designing it. I would like help designing the schematic and layout, and I would put it together myself since i can sutter. So anybody interested is welcome to post their schematics on the forum as well as any comments. Thanks everybody!

[zachary vex]

well, first off, you might want to go for 6 or 8 stages, just because typical miniature tubes are 2 stages each.

[christube]

I mean 7-stage distortion with 1tone-stage.

[ragtime8922]

You're best bet is to take a listen as you build each stage. I think you'll find that it gets ridiculous after a certain ammount of stages. You can have each stage be low gain I guess but then you're going to run these 7 stages in to an amp with 3-5 more stages so listen as you build.

[bancika]

try cascode boost, it can give you lots of gain with only one tube

[theundeadelvis]

Umm is it just me or does the exclamation emoticon look like one of those little yellow guys is mooning you? Sorry, to throw that in your thread but I was wondering if anyone else's mind is as distorted as mine.

[Peter Snowberg]

Welcome to the forum.

I think you'll find that after 6 stages things get so noisy as to be unusable, but it all depends on the gain of each stage.

I've built 5 stage circuits where the 5th stage runs a reverb transformer using both halves of a twin triode in parallel. I loved the sounds it made. Gotta fix that amp one of these days.

Make sure you understand the dangers of working with high voltage first

If you're just getting started on designing, you may want to build another tube overdrive or two. Chances are good that you can duplicate stages in the "middle" of the circuit to increase gain. You'll probably want to have a gain control on several of the stages to adjust things from going too far.

Build away when you're ready, but you'll probably be content with less than 7 stages.

[amz-fx]

I was thinking of building a 7-gainstage all-tube overdrive pedal,but I am not exactly certain how to go about designing it. I would like help designing the schematic and layout, and I would put it together myself since i can sutter. So anybody interested is welcome to post their schematics on the forum as well as any comments. Thanks everybody!

You will need power supply decoupling because the phase shift in that many stages will likely cause oscillation without it.

regards, Jack

[Sam]

Seems like a bit over the top for me... And, yes it's mooning us allright.

[John Lyons]

Skucks, may as well make it an even 10 stages. And you may want to invest in some shielded wire stock as well.
John

[Ben N]

Once you are dealing with the power supply requirements, not to mention the layout and wiriing headaches that are bound to come from that much gain, why not just build an amp?  This isn't the place for it, but there are people and places (Ampage?) out there that can get you started towards a project like a Trainwreck, Soldano, 5150 or Dual/Triple Rectifier clone, but I am sure they would tell you to start a little smaller, because those super-high-gain projects are tricky.

Ben

[Steben]

I was thinking of a tube overdrive pedal using the (in)fameous 12V tubes like in the sopht amps.
I think even only two triodes (one tube socket) will do the job, accompanied with other electronics. Fairly easy with a single 12V supply!

[fikri]

If you have done something smaller than that, then i guess you will be ready for anything, but if you dont, why dont you try to 'introduce yourself' first to the tube world (HV danger, chasis layout, Power suply, lead dress, hums, buzz, oscilation, grounding point, etc,etc...). I guess 3-4 stages is worth to try first