Geez... another Overdrive/Boost

[nooneknows]

Hi,
I've always loved a particular tone, the Jimi Hendrix Monterey Festival stratomarshallcrunch. I'm not talking about 'fingers-tone', 'cause I'm not Hendrix, as many people already (surprisingly) told me. I'm talking about that "Sssscrounch" vibe coming from the amp, pretty clean with a raspy and boiling edge.
I tried many setup, Marshall amps, stratos and a thousand of different distorsion/overdrive/fuzz around. Nothing at all. A bit frustrating.
Then I found this forum and, after a bit of work, this is my quite succesful attempt to get closer to that sound.
I started from Aron Nelson's Booster 2.5 (and, of course, Jack Orman's MiniBooster). It's a really good box but, to my taste, it's too much compressed and treble sided, wonderful for hard distorsion but lacking a bit of bottom with semi-distorted sound.
Working with a lot of bat wing dust and snake oil (I've worked around with a lot of combination of different component values) I finally ended up to this Overdrive-Boosting gizmo I named MSM-Drive (hoping nobody else has ever used it).
The sound is not so smooth, it has a crunching edge and a pretty big bottom end, although the drive is not excessive (unless you use a humbucker guitar with Dist at max), very, very good for funkyish combined rhythm/lead work.
With lower Dist settings and a higher Vol it easily can drive an amp to dist zone, remaining sparkly.
I tried it with all my amps (Jcm 800 single channel, Jtm 45, heavily modded Peavey Classic 30 and even with a Fender Vibrolux of a friend of mine) and guitars and, to my ears, it always works great, with a particular preference for the company of a strato + jcm800.
The  .68 uF caps form gate to source of T2 e T4 can be lowered a bit (to .47 or .22 uF, not more) if you find too much basses, but I do prefer this way.
I'm too lazy to mantain a site so, if you find this flavour of circuit useful, feel free to publish it giving me a minimum of credits [:-)], if you sell it just give me 100.000 bucks and we'll be ok.

oh, this is the one:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/bstoppi/MSMDrive.jpg

Please, I'd like to receive some feedback from anyone breadboarding/building it, only to share opinions.

Ciao a tutti e grazie,
Marcello Stoppini

[Marcos - Munky]

Your booster looks very cool. Thanks for share it.

[nooneknows]

Hi,
I forgot it! there's a tiny sample (160KB circa) of the MSMDrive over here:

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/bstoppi/MSMDriveSample.mp3

Strato (neck pickup), MSMDrive (D7,T5,V5), jcm 800 (G6,V2,T6,M8,B7,P5), through a Shure SM57 directly to the soundblaster Mic In, first the effect is bypassed then I repeat the phrase with the OD on.

Ciao,
Marcello

[Lonestarjohnny]

Hi Marcello,
I can't get to your posting But, Wished I could though, I sorta did the same thing, I Built the Project and was pleased with the Booster but desided to try a few changes, First I tried a bunch of 5088's, Most had to much gain and were muddy sounding, I ended up sticking with a ECG 47 that is very transparent sounding, and has a very crisp crunch to the end of the boost pot, I tried some different input cap's and changed the electrolytic on the boost pot because I could hear some splattering of the high freg's when dimed all the way, This solved that problem, then I decided a Big Muff tone circuit would be nice, I messed with this for about 2 day's but never did like what it did to the original circuit, then I added a couple of diodes for some extra drive which I did find to be useful if added in on an extra switch, But to make a long story short I ended up going back to just a one knob boost, I get some great sound's out of my Magnatone M-10 A with this Booster so I give it a Big Thumb's up, I'm gonna use it with my Super reverb tonight, Can't wait !
JD

[MarkB]

Very nice!
It's got a great 'dirty' tone... I like it.
"-)

[puretube]

..."yahoo-type: copy `n`paste-thing"...

[Jim Jones]

Good job, Marcello!  Sounds like you nailed the tone you were going for.  Even if I had heard your clip without reading your description first I would have thought "Monterey".  

Jim

[Ansil]

..."yahoo-type: copy `n`paste-thing"...

actually click ion it and wen it comes up u are not authorized click it again  works for me

[smoguzbenjamin]

Just click refresh... looks like a cool booster!

[nooneknows]

Hi,
I'm sorry!
there was a mistake on the schematics (power supply zone), I re-published the corrected drawing, same url .
bye,
M.

PS. BTW, thanks for the feedbacks! :-)

[Lonestarjohnny]

Thank's Smoguz, Ansil,
Got there with the refresh Button after a few tries,
Good Sound For Jimi's tone Marcello, I'll try and do one this coming week and I'll give you some feed back, I may want a little less bass because I play through an old Plexi that already has too much Bass, but I hear what your after, I heard some Jimi in your P-3, Keep up the good work,
JD

[nooneknows]

JD,
I think you can also lower the coupling cap between stage to decrease basses, a value of 2n2 is still Marshall-compatible :-) I didn't try it yet 'cause I'm quite satisfied with the od I have.
please, keep me informed,
bye
Marcello

[WGTP]

Check out Doug Hammon's site for similiar type circuits.

[nooneknows]

Ok,
after a sunday of tweaking I decided to make a version 2:

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/bstoppi/MSMDrive2.jpg

Now there is a Treble and a Bass control, the vibe is even more marshallish than before.

bye
M.

[Fret Wire]

Nice work!  I'm gonna have to try this. Is that a 1 meg for the bass?

[nooneknows]

Fretwire,
yes it is.
You can even add a Mid control changing that 18K R to ground with a 25K lin Pot,  with the wiper connected to te .22 cap
M.