Acapulco Gold.. All the kids are doing it

[Plexi]

Sorry for insist: but maybe a switch with 10uf electro on pins 1-8 of the 2nd LM?
Did you tried?

[Ben Lyman]

Sorry for insist: but maybe a switch with 10uf electro on pins 1-8 of the 2nd LM?
Did you tried?

Yes! I did try that, it just seemed so obvious that I had to try it... Not really any more distortion, just a lot of noise and it rendered the gain pots null and void.

[Cozybuilder]

Have you tried a coupling cap after the tone stack? As drawn the tone pot and 47K to ground will be in parallel with the 200K (R11) to ground at the Q base, giving a variable bias. Anything from 100nF on up should do it.

[duck_arse]

here's me being unhelpful again. tone stacks are usually sorted values/load-wise for what is driving them. here you are driving with a power amp, which will withstand low impedance loads. I was wondering about your following a power amp with a buffer - maybe the tonestack values could be recalculated to lower values that won't be loaded by the vol pot and what follows so you wouldn't need the last transistor.

but I might be muddle headed thinking, too.

[Plexi]

Sorry for insist: but maybe a switch with 10uf electro on pins 1-8 of the 2nd LM?
Did you tried?

Yes! I did try that, it just seemed so obvious that I had to try it... Not really any more distortion, just a lot of noise and it rendered the gain pots null and void.

That was what I imagine...even with gain at 50? (~1/2k + 10uf)
Take a look about that: in this cases is better to have a few of both, than one to full (in my experience).
Maybe get about 100/200 of gain on LM1, and add some edge/compression on LM2 is a good idea.

here's me being unhelpful again. tone stacks are usually sorted values/load-wise for what is driving them. here you are driving with a power amp, which will withstand low impedance loads. I was wondering about your following a power amp with a buffer - maybe the tonestack values could be recalculated to lower values that won't be loaded by the vol pot and what follows so you wouldn't need the last transistor.

but I might be muddle headed thinking, too.

That's why I aske before, maybe the recovery stage is redundant here, or are 'sucking' all the LM power..

[Ben Lyman]

Have you tried a coupling cap after the tone stack? As drawn the tone pot and 47K to ground will be in parallel with the 200K (R11) to ground at the Q base, giving a variable bias. Anything from 100nF on up should do it.

Holy cow! Thanks Russ, I was at first considering a JFET buffer like my last pedal (The Color Booster) and then I thought , well why not a cheapo 2N5088.
I'll get a 100n in there ASAP.

here's me being unhelpful again. tone stacks are usually sorted values/load-wise for what is driving them. here you are driving with a power amp, which will withstand low impedance loads. I was wondering about your following a power amp with a buffer - maybe the tonestack values could be recalculated to lower values that won't be loaded by the vol pot and what follows so you wouldn't need the last transistor.

but I might be muddle headed thinking, too.

Couldn't make it easy for me, huh? I see what you mean though.

Plexi, I didn't add a recovery stage, it's just a buffer because I thought it might help the tone stack "get along" better with different devices following the pedal. Maybe Duck has the answer in that I just need to scale down the values.

I am at this moment thinking how the IC2 is probably doing more than just volume, it must be getting overdriven by the IC1. I see more and more how simple EQD thinking was with the design, maybe it's like "LM386 as a preamp with volume all the way up" and going into "LM386 as a power amp"
Anyway, I will mess around with it some more. To be honest, I like this better than the Acapulco Gold but that isn't saying much. The thrill may be wearing off a bit, I'm thinking how much cooler it would be to have something that emulates a cranked Hi-Watt instead. Maybe a JFET Hi-Watt simulator.

Here's the update with a coupling cap b/t tone and buffer:

[pinkjimiphoton]

The V1.1 goes to 11 
Which would be the difference that C5 and C9 made?

well, the bigger caps are gonna let a couple octaves more bass thru so will be sludgier and louder but not necessarily a useable loud.

the smaller caps would make it tighter with more output in the mids and highs, so it will cut better. it will go to 11.

[Ben Lyman]

Easy build, only took 4 hours to box it up. Controls from left to right are level, tone, gain, and a pre gain with treble bleed that acts as a bass boost and cut, it really helps with changing from single coils to humbuckers.

Here's another long boring vid with my strat:

and an even longer boringer vid with my dual 'bucker tele:

[Elijah-Baley]

Hi, Ben Lyman! Did you draw a final schematic for this pedal?
Probably I'll build a basic Acapulco Gold to use some A type box, but how I use to do, I'm getting some info about the schematic and mods, etc...

Thanks!

[dano12]

I have a different vershun .....



.... mine's louder.

Madness! Such a thing is not possible! 

[duck_arse]

is possible, see see?

[Elijah-Baley]

Probably I was searching right that schematic, I was beginning to understand it. The control's name deceived me!

Thanks!

[bamslam69]

Made the Acapulco Gold the other week with the optional Gain pot.
Sounds good, but there's a fair bit of noise/hiss in it. (not there when in bypass, thought I'd mention that). Normal?

[Elijah-Baley]

I would like to build it, too, even if not in these days. What is the layout you follow? I probably use the veroboard layout on Guitar FX Tagboard. Sometime someone got squeal at high volume.

[bamslam69]

Yeah I used the one off the tagboardeffects blogspot
If anything, I have the 2x 386's that I can use in a tufnel, and rebox the pedal

[Steben]

is possible, see see?

Is that a sag resistor??
The zobel network sucks a lot of current.

I've always thought of a 386 based circuit to simulate "real" sag.

[PRR]

> The zobel network sucks a lot of current.

Only at MegaHertz.