Big bag of Ruby mods [renamed]

[dano12]

wow... dude looking at ur site... great site, but beyond that.. wow.. amazing pedals... that tubescreamer thing.. Thats effing amazing... where do you get those look meters?!!?! i loooove those... people at gigs would be like why the hell do you nede that many switches.. i love it.. total control!!!! :-D!!!!!!!!! i deff am gunna have to try to do something like that.. isaw your site a good long time ago.. but i couldnt find it again.. i remembered the kick ass enclousers.... sorry to be off topic.. but effing amazing bro

Thanks for the kind words. The meters were from Mouser--search for analog panel meters. They are not cheap though.

All the switches for mods are not terribly practical for live use, but then again I design for the 80% of folks who don't gig.

[DEZREJECT]

hmm and you know when it comes down to it i think theres two schools of rock.. theres the guitarist that just plays, then the modder... usually the great guitarists didnt mod their pedals... thats where i guess im the crossbreed.. not claiming im the next amazing guitarist dont take that the wrong way... but more so over that i like to have total control, ESPECIALLY live because everything changes live... in a studio it doesnt need to be on the mark exact at that exact second.. you can redo the take if its shitty... but live... especially in a touring situation... most of hooking of your intial fan base is how good the show is... then say compare it to a release... if you can nail exactly how it sounds in the studio where as far as the fans know you spent a year tweaking EVERYTHING... if you can recreate that perfect... that is in my mind as a musician my job when playing a show... yeah sometimes a little different solo is cool.. but to a point you get what im saying? but also beyond that with a pedal like yours... you can play with different combinations...

i always read about people breadboarding, and all that... i just cant do it... if im gunna build a pedal im gunna build it, done totally... and then if i dont like it.. i might play around a little to mod this or that... but beyond its not gunna go anywhere... usually ill only build something i want though so its not a total shot in the dark... but the point is... with say that Lab-esque pedal idea you NAILED dead on... with that you can find which combination of different things work good... and for me its not so much sitting at my work bench fiddling around to find that perfect sound.. its spur of the moment.. at a practice jam or whatever have you... and then.. WAIT ive nevre tried the bridge of this song with the deep, bassy, double germanium diode clipping, etc etc etc (fill in mods here...).. then you do.. and now you have that perfect sound for that song that you may never have thought to use there.. and then say you could rebuild the pedal with that mod switchable or permanent, but the point is its like a prototype to dial in exactly what you want....

id compare it to my amp.. i have a peavey XXX half stack... i love it.. i have about 3 different sounds i love out of every channle.. ranging from all influence styles... classic rock, metal, and then my own unique blend of i guess all those influences if you will.. the point is... if i were to now rebuild this head.. which i have considered doing for a custom enclouser type deal... now i would just make the different channles with those 3 settings switchable... no need for the 5 controls per each 3 channles... especially in a live situation because ive tested this all out so many times.. i have what i like, what i want... and i can have the "lab" deal for in the studio for the one off ideas.. but for live i like it stupid simple once u get it dialed in right you know???

honestly when i first started building i built a lil headphone amp...i wanted to build a pedal like yours that you could switch everything around and basically have the control of a head but pocket sized.... but obviously experience limited what i could do or was intimidated to do... im not exactly sure but i think it was ur site that kind of inspired me to get into modding per se... so in that sense dont thank me for thanking you, just let me thank you again haha

yeah lost post... i had a lot of coffee... love me, hate me, deal with it haha

[dano12]

Ok I have the Noisy Cricket Mark I completed and tested. I added a very simple tone control, a boost switch, and I couple of LED indicators. I also added the headphone jack suggested on the generalguitargadgets.com site. All in all, I'm very happy with this little amp and the progress I'm making actually learning a bit about how these circuits work.

Here's the schematic:

[Peter Snowberg]

Wow! How did I miss this thread before?

First off, NICE JOB!

There are a couple of things that may be mentioned above but still need attending to. First, C7 is unnecessary and should be omitted. There should also be a some series resistance in the input. I would use the same 33K value found in many tube amps and place the resistor between the input jack and the 1.5M. That will help with RF rejection and it will provide a little protection for the JFET. A small cap (47-100pf) should also be installed in parallel with the 1.5M. The 33K and little cap form a lowpass filter to keep RFI out. Finally, R4 should have a cap in series with it (10uF). That cap preserves the DC balance between the + and - input transistors. The chip obviously operates without it but it sounds better with it in. (check out the internal schematic on the datasheet)

Again, nice job!

[dano12]

Edit: I've updated the schematic with your suggested changes.

Wow! How did I miss this thread before?
First off, NICE JOB!

Thanks very much. It is really gratifying to be making forward progress against what seems to be a huge learning curve

First, C7 is unnecessary and should be omitted.

From my understanding of the headphone mod on general guitar gadgets, C7 and R9 form a Zobel network for the headphones. Is the fact that C7 should be omitted because I already have a 220uf cap before the output jack?

There should also be a some series resistance in the input. I would use the same 33K value found in many tube amps and place the resistor between the input jack and the 1.5M. That will help with RF rejection and it will provide a little protection for the JFET. A small cap (47-100pf) should also be installed in parallel with the 1.5M. The 33K and little cap form a lowpass filter to keep RFI out.

So these changes are basically geared towards reducing RFI? Even on my breadboard with long nasty wires all over the place it is quiet as a mouse.  I wonder if I am just in a good, low-RFI area...

Finally, R4 should have a cap in series with it (10uF). That cap preserves the DC balance between the + and - input transistors. The chip obviously operates without it but it sounds better with it in. (check out the internal schematic on the datasheet)

Very nice catch. I read the datasheet and it talked about putting a small cap between the gain pins. I assumed that since I was using a pot there was no reason for the cap. I just tried it on the breadboard it does clean things up a bit.

Thanks very much for the pointers!

[dano12]

I've updated my Cricket page to include the Pico Cricket and the Tube Cricket.

http://beavisaudio.com/Projects/NoisyCricket/index.htm

[vfr800fiman]

I love the "The Noisy Cricket Mark I" on your web site.
I built a Ruby for my Niece, and now I think I'd like one for
myself as a practice amp.

Anyone ever think about putting a CD jack in the circuit to practice
along with your favorite band? I think you'd need 2 pots to mix the
2 signals for your own taste (or sound  )

I've been saving an article from "Silicon Chip" called the "Guitar Jammer" that
has this nice feature.

Glenn