Best OD kit from BYOC or GGG for a 50w Plexi amp

[MichaelDavid]

Hi,

I'm a new member and new pedal assembler.  No way I'd consider myself a builder at this point having only built three kits so far - a BYOC Bluesbreaker, GGG Orange Squeezer, and a GGG PT80 delay.  I just follow the layouts and pictures and don't pretend to understand the electronics at this point sadly.  Fortunately, all three pedals have worked and sounded great with no problems so far.

Now I'd like to build a great OD to use in front of my Germino Club 40 amp which is basically a late '60s Plexi.  I've got a Fulltone Plimsoul that sounds just fantastic in every other amp I've played with it, but with the Germino it sounds a little thin, metallic, fizzy.

I've gotten some good suggestions on retail pedals that work good with the Club 40, but I'd like to build my own.  Which OD kit(s) from BYOC and/or GGG would sound best in front of my "Plexi?"

Thanks.

[LP Hovercraft]

BYOC 250+ kit maybe.  The consensus around here is that the 250 and Dist + circuit is quite "transparent" sounding.  Is there a recorded example of a sound that you are trying to achieve?  Though not a kit AFAIK, the Colorsound Overdriver would likely fit nicely in your chain and is quite flexible.  The project is over at Fuzz Central.

[superferrite]

What do you think is "good" tone?

The Triboost might work well if you are playing loud anyway.   A Rangemaster with a big input cap is a sweet addition to this sort of amp and you can get T-rex to Sabbath/Priest sounds from that.   The LPB! is what the guys from Manfred Mann has been using for decades with that sort of amp and he has a great tone with his strat.
Some fuzzes are what you might be listening to in Seventies rock, too.

[MichaelDavid]

What do you think is "good" tone?

The Triboost might work well if you are playing loud anyway.   A Rangemaster with a big input cap is a sweet addition to this sort of amp and you can get T-rex to Sabbath/Priest sounds from that.   The LPB! is what the guys from Manfred Mann has been using for decades with that sort of amp and he has a great tone with his strat.
Some fuzzes are what you might be listening to in Seventies rock, too.

Duane Allman live Fillmore
The Black Crowes - Ford, Freed, Dickinson, and Rich
Angus and Malcom
Cream
Big Sugar
Johnny Winter rock and roll
Bad Company
the hardest from a pure drive/distortion view would be War Pigs-era Sabbath (not counting fuzz tones here)

I know that's not a real narrow list considering that many of them used Fenders in the studio.

[23]

Well you have to take into consideration if your jumpering inputs and if not what input are you using. I have a 100w plexi reissue Marshall and I plug into the top #2 input. I use a fuzz face followed by a lovepedal E6 clone. The E6 is set up like a treble booster with just a little dirt and then I use the vol on the guitar to clean up the fuzz face and I usually run both pedals at the same time. Can go from black crows to over the top sabbath stuff. but again this is what works for me and how my amp is set up, I use it with a fender strat with tone control on the bridge rolled off or a les paul std with tone control on 10. Something similar you can look up is the Analogman Sunlion. Hope this helps some.

Maybe try a FF with an input cap blend control(?) and ride the vol on your guitar.

later sands

[CynicalMan]

Definitely a fuzz for Big Sugar stuff. For the others, I'd say one of the FET amp emulations, or just a booster. However, a Fuzz Face with switchable input cap and a pre-gain control is pretty versatile, especially if you use it to drive an amp.

[23]

look up the analogman Sunlion.................... rangemaster and FF     in one............. if its too complicated then try each on their own, I for one do not like putting more than one effect in a box, just me. Like I said before tho, how is your amp set up? IF your plugging straight into top 1 in then a rangemaster is going to be over the top Ice pick.

just IMHO, sands

[MichaelDavid]

look up the analogman Sunlion.................... rangemaster and FF     in one............. if its too complicated then try each on their own, I for one do not like putting more than one effect in a box, just me. Like I said before tho, how is your amp set up? IF your plugging straight into top 1 in then a rangemaster is going to be over the top Ice pick.

just IMHO, sands

I jump it, and plug into top 2 usually.

[MichaelDavid]

I should've clarified that what I want to build is an OD pedal that will sound the most like my cranked Plexi but at lower volumes.

Not bedroom volume, but sadly there aren't lots of places to turn a 50w Plexi wide open.  I've tried many, many smaller wattage amps, but they suffer from two problems:

1.  they have too little clean headroom

2.  they sound small and thin rather than full, warm, and just big even at low volumes like a higher wattage amp.

[LP Hovercraft]

BSIAB 2 from GGG. 

[superferrite]

I'm using an Easyface (hybrid fuzzface)>jfet boost into my Bassman 10 and I can get nice saturation a just above bedroom levels.   Cleans up great with the volume knob.
That amp is loud and clean, so a fuzz/boost combo might work for you as well.

[fpaul]

I have a 50w plexi clone I build.  Lately I've been using a colorsound overdrive clone into a tonepad rat clone and am really happy with it.  Plenty of gain, endless sustain.  Not sure if you can get these as kits though.  I like the  GGG boutique fuzzface a lot too. Guitar is a Chinese squire strat with single coils.

[petemoore]

  All of 'em...you got the big amps etc., why not try a few things..that's what stompboxes are all about [the top doggers anyway].
    About electronics: 9v is a really good voltage to start with the voicing/clipping/boosting/whatever else, it's safe to work with and anything you can do [except have it be a tube amp/speaker or drive it down the road...] can be done at the 'scaled down' voltage, amplifying is voltage multiplication...no reason to not work the works at 9v until there's a real need for more power.
    You want distortion, that's why you crank the tube amp somewhat or more. Boosting makes the amp distortion increase, it makes no sense to me to buy tube amplifier and run it with the volume low. The guitar volume, boost pedal switch and settings then give the ability to drive the tube amp output and push the speaker into copaesthetic vibrative/distortions...whether fitting the current craze or need or whether it doesn't, the amp output can be made to distort-more, as well the speaker is a huge part of the sounds, and 'may' be expected to contribute to compression/distortion [or not...really depends on the speak/cabinet combo or enclosure etc.].
  A quick 'water distortion' analogy...send nicely shaped waves of water down a channel with perfectly smooth sides and bottom, nothing impeding [getting in the way of or changing the size shape of the wave] the waveform line, viewed from the side, this is analogy to guitar signal going down the cable of guitar output...
   Lets say it goes into a booster, now the wave is greater amplitude [greater distance between the peaks and troughs], but the channel >>to be continued

[petemoore]

  Continued:
    So now we have a boosted [larger] wave but it's still basically the same shape as what was input to the booster, it's still 'clean' [ish...everything tends to distort to some degree], and may make the output amp/speaker or anything else that...
   When hit with a strong enough signal, something that is on the verge of/or distorting will begin distorting or distort to greater amount when the strong signal is made even stronger, when the output waves become large enough that:
   Some parameter is 'hit' that causes signal degredation or a change in the waveshape.
   Say a set of clipping diodes [see dist+ or various other distortions, BMP etc.] is put in the way of the boosted up wave, it is like putting an impediment in the otherwise smooth, open top water-wave channel, when the wave reaches the point at which clipping occurs [analogous to hitting clipping diodes], the top of the wave is 'chopped off' by an 'upside down wall' in the channel that chops off a portion of the top of the wave, now the waveshape is nearly unrecognizable, and where the peak began getting 'cut off' and where it is ends it's contact with the 'wavetop chop-off wall' are new 'events', these events are sharp corners or 'sharp-knee' cutoff points. Now we have a much more complex waveshape, the number of events per time period has increased, in addition to the original 'rise/fall' events of the 'intact waveshape' we now have a higher frequency of events: Harmonics have been added to the waveshape, it is much more complex, more difficult to amplify and reproduce. If this is put into a tube amp/speaker that is already 'pushed' the harmonics make even more distorted tube amp in addition to the harmonics generated right in the box. Generally a good scenario such as 50w plexi with distortion+ boost/distorting it, a boost in front of the D+ would of course cause a greater portion of the wave peaks to be chopped off [clipped] increasing distortion even more, however this compresses signal to a great amout >>Continued

[petemoore]

  The compression is caused by lopping off a whole lot of wavepeak, so that there's only a small amplitude wave left, the distance between the chopped off peak and the trough is much smaller, so playing dynamics are greatly decreased, a very lightly hit note, even with the volume control down may seem as loud as a cranked hard hit low chord, the diodes lop off anything above 'X' [depends on the wave size at the clipping diodes], leaving only a small window between loud and barely any louder.
   The clean, undistorted signal may have 10x or 100x the dynamics, very loud and very quiet is possible.
  So a good compromise point to consider at this point is the trade-off between harmonic generation and how much dynamic range [differences in loudness] is left over after the wave was distorted.
   Voicing: when the signal amplitude is boosted, some frequencies may 'grow' more than others, speaker sensativity and pickup voicing are big factors, it behouves the DIY-er to personally voice circuits to their tastes as well how 'everything else' [amp/speaker/anything else that distorts or reproduces] responds.
    When super-hard clipping 1 stage it tends to get into garble or hard-fuzz tones, sharp cutoffs at clipping pionts may be softened by reducing HF's with C-shunts [capacitor to ground] or other methods [say across a base/collector or other positiion which would rolloff treble]. My experience with distorting bass is that if it is overdistorted at any point [and it's deemed undesirable, reducing LF amplitude before that point in the signal chain is the only way to keep the bass 'intact']...ie trimming bass early is worth a try, too much and mosquito-buzz sound may occur.

[petemoore]

  Though you already have boost [the amp does], and compression [speakers compress], you may also have distortion [if the amp/speaker loading is sufficient] at the output tubes. Distorted input tubes is outside of the picture I'm trying to describe...starting with clean or clean-ish preamp-in-amp is recommended if using distorters...pretty much describes a plexi or old Fender format: clean preamp drives output amp to distort.
  So boost the output..distorts a certain way, mess with this and the settings and you may get really nice amp-distorting-tones.
   Boost/clip [voicing recommended]...something like a D+ or FF does this, the amp'll be hit with a more harmonically complex signal, with boost this can be very convincing distortion tone.
   Just Boost>Boost>Boost will make the second and or second and third stages distort...if the power supply is 9V, it takes only a stage or two to boost the signal path voltage to 9v or more, when a stage attempts to exceed the power supply potential it 'hit's the power rail'...wierd stuff happens that causes the signal peaks to get mangled, another way that clipping can be caused to occur, similar to diode clipping, different methods = different tones.
   You may find yourself gravitating to multiple soft clippings in multi-stage signal chain...somethings like:
 

[petemoore]

  Use a guitar with hotter pickup output [I like medium output pickups, then I have 'low output' to start with which can then be boosted to whatever I want, allowing big dynamic range and wider range between not-distorted and fully mangled or distorted greatly.
  Boost teh cranked amp which is pushing the speaker hard, recommended as first stage just for this reason, and becuase the guitar might be weaker than whatever the Disto-circuit needs to distort sufficiently, bypass switch is excellent addition to each stage [boost or distort] or couple of stages distorto-booster or multistage {BMP} type circuits.
   Boost>Distort...also really nice, more aggressive.
   Boost with light amount of distortion driving a distortion, even more aggressive.
   Boosted multi-stage distorter [lets call it a Jfet amp simulator or...anything else that has more than 1 clipping stage, each stage contributing...not too much distortion. Trying to get 1 stage to distort heavily and make lots of harmonics and boost, and be voiced...may be improved [or not] upon by spreading the 'tasks' across an increased number of active stages [see BSIAB, ROG amp simulators, many other multistage preferences.
   Boost>Boost/Clip real hard tends to sound rough or mangled.
   Boost>lightly clip/voice>Boost-clip sounds good...work it up or down or rearrange the voicing...up to a point the more you mess with it the more you know/the more you get close to what 'it' is envisioned as sounding like.
 

[23]

Im sure what ever Mr. Moore said has a ton of relevance Im just too tired to read it all right now...........

maybe you should be looking for an attenuator if you like the sound of your Plexi turned up? I think you can get a kit from Weber Vst.......... or you could try the thunder chief (correct me if I have the name wrong guys) from OLCIRCUITS.......... they have nice kits........ www.olcircuits.com I believe is the url.

To me the BSAIB II is more of an EVH sound, dont get me wrong I built one and love it, I just dont think its what hes looking for, but opinions vary.

Like I said above, if you like the sound of a plexi cranked then get an attenuator and crank that thing, wish I had one just never got around to building one, plus I mainly use my 59 slp for funk,( use a 50 watt 800 for metal and what not, boosted of course.)

later sands

oh and read all of what mr. Moore wrote, hes got alot of insight into things, hes helped me a ton.

[MichaelDavid]

Im sure what ever Mr. Moore said has a ton of relevance Im just too tired to read it all right now...........

maybe you should be looking for an attenuator if you like the sound of your Plexi turned up? I think you can get a kit from Weber Vst.......... or you could try the thunder chief (correct me if I have the name wrong guys) from OLCIRCUITS.......... they have nice kits........ www.olcircuits.com I believe is the url.

To me the BSAIB II is more of an EVH sound, dont get me wrong I built one and love it, I just dont think its what hes looking for, but opinions vary.

Like I said above, if you like the sound of a plexi cranked then get an attenuator and crank that thing, wish I had one just never got around to building one, plus I mainly use my 59 slp for funk,( use a 50 watt 800 for metal and what not, boosted of course.)

later sands

oh and read all of what mr. Moore wrote, hes got alot of insight into things, hes helped me a ton.

Yeah, I wrongly interpreted 'brown sound" to refer to tweeds rather than EVH.

Thinking now I'm going to go with the GGG Tube Screamer kit.

[23]

Sounds good, but I would do some of the mods they have on their page......... mid hump mod and diode select to be exact.......if the mid hump mod isnt on GGG (cant remember) go to www.beavisaudio.com............... he has a ton of mods that can be done........

have fun and good luck


sands