ancient prophet boost/od/dist/fuzz

[BetterOffShred]

Yeah man it sure sounded dope in the videos.  It'll be fun to try 

[pinkjimiphoton]

well, let me know what ya think once ya try it bro

[BetterOffShred]

Well I built it, but couldn't get it working so I stared at the schematic for a while and noticed my 100r was burning hot.. so I flipped the diode .. and still nothing.  Now laying in bed I noticed the 100u is flipped..   

And then I noticed Jimi already pointed both these out and I just didn't read them.  Doh!  Well I found some real failure trannies 40-50 and fairly leaky so I'll go swap the cap tomorrow after work and hopefully be on my way to fuzz town 

Thanks again Jimi

[pinkjimiphoton]

dude, so sorry for the hassle... did i do that, or did you?

the reversed diode and cap would make everything pull thru the 100r resistor. you can eliminate that, its just to smooth the ripple a little more in the power supply.

your q's should be fine, i don't think any voltage could reach them like that.

you'll get it. it should dial in fairly easily. again, sorry for the hassles!!

[BetterOffShred]

I wasn't bitching, you stated on the first page the diode and cap were backwards, I just didn't read that part.  I skipped right to the videos and started drooling.  And yeah the burning hot resistor was a dead give away!! 

I'll give it a little more time tonight after work, looking forward to it! 

[pinkjimiphoton]

dude, so sorry, for real... just looked at it and figured it out... lol...
yeah, it was a pnp pedal, usually everything i build is npn so i guess i was on autopilot!

[BetterOffShred]

Well it works great!  I just swapped the 100u and the diode, replaced the 100 ohm that burnt up and then it came to life.  I swapped the 1/3 position of all the pots though. 

Here's something I don't usually say .. it sounded even better with lower gain trannies.  Haha.  The 40ish gain sounded the best.  I have a box of mp16's that just didn't cut it for anything else, they sound fantastic in this.  Having played around with the biases for the set o have in now, I'm thinking to string up a starve pot to kind of further tweak the saggish stuff.  I also socketed the 1N34A diode and tried a few other things in there, but I ended up liking the 1N34A the most I think.  Seems the grittiest. 

Yeah I recommend this build to anyone if you've got a stash of weak PNP's looking for a home.  It's really a good build.  Thanks Jimi for sharing it with us again 4 years later and rapping with me while I got it working.  I'll be putting this in a 1590B with an inverter.  It's juice!
-Brett

[pinkjimiphoton]

yeah the original src15 trannies were crazy low... 10, 30 hFE. pretty much anything will work. its almost like an octave tripler cuzza the way the gain works with it. each stage basically slams into clipping on input so a lot of 2nd harmonic. its doing everything wrong from EE terms for sure... relies on leaky ass shitty ge's for the actual biasing...but it sure does sound good.
you may have inspired me to build another one. the original got sold for entirely too much money a few years ago. guy heard the demo vid and had to have it. i didn't used to sell prototypes, but in this case i couldn't say no.
really glad ya like it bro.
post a clip so we can hear it!!

yes, if ya add a master sag control, ya can probably dial in some insane sounds. there's SO MANY variations of this circuit.. the basic building block is being sold <with permission of course> now on guitarpcb.com as the photon phuzz..<for all intents, three of these is the circuit you built>. which is actually a completely different circuit <from ME, anyways, ha!>  this, the ancient prophet, the flying spaghetti monster, phat lardacious monkey balls, stupid simple overdrive... all came from that basic building block.

glad ya diggit. love to hear it. seriously. thanks so much!! <3

[BetterOffShred]

I was fixing to build a flying spaghetti monster too    that's a neat one from the videos I've heard. 

I have crap  recording ability being just a cell phone but I want to crank it up with the SG and see how it sounds maybe I'll try and record a lick or two.

I feel it's worth noting that there were multiple ways I biased the circuit that sounded good too.  I ended up going for a little lower gain sound, but with the gain maxed it still spits fire and does the swell hiss splat fuzz.  It really does sound good into a semi dirty amp, and is capable of loads of volume.

Having not boxed it yet I may add another input cap on a toggle to see how that boosts as described on the schematic. I'm a sucker for options.  I'll report back .. and yeah man as said before definitelu build you up another one. It's great!  Thanks Jimi