Orange almost squeezed but...

[Greg M.]

Just finished the squeezer from tonepad and I think everything is OK except for the fact that the sustain pot poops out past 9 o'clock.  My questions is this:  have I switched the two pots?  One has 10ka and one has 10kb.  I assumed 'a' was for audio.  Am I wrong?  Thanks for your help.

[RDV]

Well, the sustain pot as you're calling it is really more of a bias pot for the Jfets I think. Most folks just use a trimpot and leave it on the board, just set it where it sounds good & then leave it alone.

RDV

[bwanasonic]

a is for audio and b is for linear. Which did you use for what? I used a linear for the external volume pot on mine, and it's been a great lesson on why you don't use linears for volume pots! The usefulness of the pot is indeed concentrated around 9'oclock. There really is no *sustain* control on an Orange Squeezer in the Dyna Comp sense, the other pot that biases the JFETs being more of a *gain reduction* control. If by *poops out*, you mean you get no sound past a certain point in the pot's travel, you have discovered why this is probably best suited to an internal trim pot. Some dedicated tweakers have found ways to make this a somewhat useful external control, but if you are building it as per the original, use a trim pot. Keep in mind the original had NO external controls other than off/on.

Kerry M

[Greg M.]

I did it right then (used 'a' for volume, 'b' for sustain).  I guess I'm just so used to having a couple of pots to fiddle with that I coudn't see a one pot pedal.  I should have just used a trim I guess, but I'll just set it and forget it.  Thanks guys.