fuzz within Neutron/Mutron?

[the3secondrule]

Just finished my Neutron, on the GGG PCB (http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/neutron_filter.pdf?phpMyAdmin=78482479fd7e7fc3768044a841b3e85a).

Overall, I'm really happy with it, but I was wondering about the possibility of building in a small fuzz circuit, ala the Bassballs, to go after the envelope detector, and before the filter.

On the schem linked above, it looks to my noobish eyes, that I could insert a small fuzz circuit (possibly a bazz fuss or similar) between U1a and U1b to give the filter more harmonics to chewon, without messing with the envelope detection. possibly with buffers before/after the fuzz.

Am I in the ballpark?

J

[Mark Hammer]

You're certainly in the parking lot of the ball park.

An additional stage would be placed between U1a and U1b.  This is not "after the envelope detector" as such.  Rather, the envelope would be detected from a point before the distortion has any impact on the signal dynamics (and obviously it will, because that's how they work).

Note the following about the Mu-tron/Neutron.  Part of the gain needed to produce a sufficient envelope signal to drive the optoisolator comes from the input stage, U1a.  One of the quirks, and perhaps charms, of the design is that turning up the sensitivity turns up the overall gain of both the audio and envelope-detection path.  What this means is that you won't want or need to have gobs of gain in whatever you stick in between U1a and U1b.  But it also means that you'll need some means to adjust the output of the distortion stagesince whatever gain you set it too will be multiplied by whatever the gain of U1a is when you twiddle with the sensitivity control.

[the3secondrule]

thanks Mark.

now, bear with me, because I've had a beer or two... I can insert my distortion stage between U1a & U1b - this distortion stage would need to have an external volume control, rather then my initial plan of having a trimmer to "set and forget" the volume, because it would need to adjust for changes to the mutron gain control.

So possibly, there could be some merit in inserting an effects loop between U1a & U1b, so I can add Fuzz/Overdrive before the filter, without effecting the envelope detection...

now would I put this fuzz/effects loop, and associated buffers before or after R4?

Cheers,

J