Ampeg Scrambler questions.

[sfr]

Tossed one of these together this afternoon.  After some long, frustrating trouble-shooting ending with the realization that, like an idiot, I never connected the ground, (which is something I should have checked before I started going through everything else, although I did find a wrong-value cap) I got it working. 

I really love this thing.  It's just very organic, it responds so interestingly to your picking attack and the setting of the knobs.  I've already found several cool sounds.  I also get a much more pronounced octave type thing out of my normal guitar than I do with other octave boxes.  (DIY guitar I built a while back, and the "neck" pickup is backed off quite a bit, it's really more of a middle-position type)

Really cool sound is to play lead into the Scrambler with blend and texture at full, and then run the signal into a clean pitch-shifter, like the Boss PS-5 set for a 7th or an octave down or something.

So a couple of questions -

One of the things I like with my Octavia build is hitting it hard with a distortion+ or LPB.  Or both.  I have to ride the volume pedal to stay in control, but I can get some really cool synthy-sounds out of it.  So of course, I tried this with the Scrambler fairly early on into using it.  Oddly enough, with the "texture" knob at full tilt, into the octavey-ringy-sound, if I hit the pedal with a boost or dist. first, I get a volume *drop*.  The volume then swells back up to what I expect after a little bit, if I hold a note.  Sort of like, after the octavey part of things dies out, I get the normal distorted signal through back at full volume.  If you're willing to play legato, it makes a cool sound, but is this standard operation for this pedal?  Is there a way around this?  Obviously, I don't get this effect with the blend turned down.  I also don't seem to have problems with this if I turn the texture down to the point where the octave-y madness stops. 

Also, like I mentioned before, the thing responds amazingly to your picking dynamics.   In particular, I can get some really cool bell-like ringer type tones by picking softly. Would love to be able to get that sound with a little more volume w/o having to use another pedal/circuit to boost it. 

[sfr]

Sorry to be the guy who bumps his threads, but I've been pouring through this pedal, and can't seem to figure out why hitting it with a hotter signal results in such a dramatic volume drop out of the Scrambler - has anyone else had this?  It seems like it may just be an artifact of the octaving, as the signal goes back up to expected levels when the octave (which you can't hear because the level has dropped so significantly) fizzles out.  Is this expected behaviour for this pedal? 

Thanks!

[christian]

Is this expected behaviour for this pedal? 

This happens on other really-really high-gain distortions too, and specially with other fullwave-rectifiers. I'm not sure why it happens, but it has to be something with the FWR. Just dont drive it with a booster It has plenty of buzz in  it already, I enchaned one build by changing the input buffer to FET buffer and did some other additional mods that I cant remember.

ch.

[oldrocker]

I believe the Ampeg Sub-Blaster is the reissue of the Scrambler and they recommend this for the signal path.
http://www.logmonster.com/images/full/?pic=Scramb_1154298539-422-12986.jpg

[hairyandy]

I believe the Ampeg Sub-Blaster is the reissue of the Scrambler and they recommend this for the signal path.
http://www.logmonster.com/images/full/?pic=Scramb_1154298539-422-12986.jpg

Actually, the Sub-Blaster is Ampeg's new clean octave-down pedal.  The Scrambler reissue is just called the Scrambler.  They both look identical but they are different pedals.  I assume they used the same enclosure and format to save manufacturing costs...

I have both of the new pedals and they are both very cool!

[oldrocker]

HairyAndy,  I thought that might be the case.  Question would that signal path pic I posted still hold true for both the Sub-Blaster and the Scrambler?

[tcobretti]

OT, I have built a scrambler and also agree that it is incredible.  One of the amazing things to do with it is run it into another distortion/fuzz of some kind (for example a Tone Bender Mk II), crank the texture all the way and the blend down all the way, then use the blend knob to slowly feed in octave til you have nice balance between octave and Tone Bender.  The blend knob allows you to turn any dist/fuzz into an octave.  I'm gonna build one with an expression pedal for the blend knob.