Green Ringer mojo

[Crazyyellowfox]

I put together a green ringer a couple months back and wasn't happy at all with it.
The output was way too low and the octave effect was barely noticeable. It sounded
like a proper ring mod only if I strummed a chord, and I was overall unimpressed.

Last night I had some time to tweak and tinker with it. I was going to add the filter and
nulling mods, but before I did that I figured I'd play around with the type of diodes.

Originally, I used 1n4148 diodes. I swapped them for a couple schottky barrier diodes and disliked
those even more the output was cut in half from the 1n4148s and already I was unhappy
with how much of a drop in output I was getting. Then I tried some 1n100 Ge diodes, but first I
matched two as closely as possible with my meter for forward voltage and resistance. Luckily I had
more than a dozen of these as it was very hard to find two that were close, but I found a couple
that were nearly identical.

With the 1n100s I got some really nice harmonic content, the octave was much ore noticeable, and
some ringing of the 5th and 4th overtones. I really liked the harmonic content especially higher up
the fretboard, but power chords were really nice and nasty! I found the diodes! But... while the output
was slightly better it was still weak compared to the bypassed signal. So I swapped the first position
2n5088 transistor with an MPSA14. Voila! The output was perfectly matched whether the effect was
on or bypassed.

I'm loving the way it sounds now and I don't think I'm going to mess with the filter or nulling mods
and rather keep this a knob-less box... I don't really have the room in the enclosure to squeeze a pot
in anyway.

[rousejeremy]

Any sound samples?

[soggybag]

You should give the filter mod a try. It made the octave sound really pronounced in my build. The null mod is subtle and sort of focuses the octave sound. Probably matching the diodes did the same thing.

I like the idea of more gain going into the effect I might have to give he MPSA14 a try.

[Crazyyellowfox]

Here are some sound clips...

One clean: http://crazyyellowfox.net/greenringclean.mp3

and another with distortion after the green ringer: http://crazyyellowfox.net/greenringdist.mp3

[Chrome Dinette]

I like the Green Ringer, but I put the one I built into a too big box with a switchable boost and feedback loop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s84XOa7ui24

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1eK0JcWdFc


There are clipping diodes that can be switched into the loop and a pot to reduce the psu voltage.