toning down rangemaster output??

[bobster]

hi guys-
forgive me if ive asked this before but im wondering is there any way you can put a gain pot onto a rangemaster?
my home build works great but the boost is very wild and strong and sound man is getting groutchy..........
any suggestions / advice welcomed
cheers - rob

[zhx]

I'd try adding a - say 100K - pot in the input between the switch and the circuit board. It would mellow the sound in the way guitar volume pot does, if I'm not terribly mistaken... Try first if the sound is better with your guitar volume backed out a bit, before messing with the pedal...

Then again changing the input cap changes the frequencies boosted. That is another thing you might consider tweaking.

[soulsonic]

I like adding a switch that switches the emitter resistor bypass cap in and out. With the cap switched out it lowers the gain alot, so the switch lets you choose between high and low gain modes. Super simple and works great.

[R.G.]

I'm confused. Doesn't the output level pot let you turn the output level down to zero?

If you want less signal out, you could also turn down the guitar volume coming in.

Or do I misunderstand?

[bobster]

thanks guys , some nice ideas there . i tried a 50 k input pot on my fuzz face to good effect so maybe i'll give that a try....

zhx , is there a simple way to describe installing the switch for the emitter bypass cap? i have a toggle with 3 solder points on it looks like a sp/st maybe?  [i'll also do a search for switch installing here but i am electronically dim!]


RG  , what i was aiming at was to preserve the tone of the pedal at say 75% on the dial but just bump down the level boost a bit if that makes sense!
b

[Toney]

So, like um. You could turn your amp down....
What sort of amp are you playing? The RM is designed to spank the front end of a tube amp.

If you are relying on it for a volume boost with a SS amp results will vary.

[zhx]

I'm not quite sure what soulsonic means, but here goes:

You probably have a spdt switch that basically means the middle lug connects to the outer lugs by turns. So connect the middle lug to the Emitter, lift the cap from E and connect to the right/left one and the remaining lug either goes to ground or is left empty...probably is left empty. (then you could use a simper switch also) I really dont know if you're supposed to bypass eller totally break connection to the cap. (probably break)

Soulsonic probably can tell you more... I'm just guessing here...

[Pushtone]

I don't use my RM much as I don't have any dark sounding vintage amps. It's like an ice-pick into my Epi VJ.
Last night I found a way to tame that RM tone.

I was driving the RM with a GGG IC buffer that I added an impedance control to. The impedance control is my attempt
to copy the Radial Dragster. I used a 500K pot and 100K resistor to ground at the input of the buffer.
Dialing the control down takes the tone from the bright buffer sound to total roll-off of the highs.

With the highs roll-off and fed into the RM I got an awesome sound that was crisp and crunchy, but not harsh like the ice-pick sound.
The impedance control allowed me to control how bright the RM got.
It was amazing to me how the RM brought back the tone lost at the input to the buffer because of the low impedance input.

I figure the same "pot and resistor to ground control" could be installed in a RM enclosure ahead of the circuit. You don't rally need the buffer there.

[bobster]

thanks guys thats some cool stuff to work with.......

toney , its an old ac30 im using with no top boost and i cant turn it down any more than i am already !  its down at like 9 o clock on the normal channel and just rips
cheers - b

[R.G.]

what i was aiming at was to preserve the tone of the pedal at say 75% on the dial but just bump down the level boost a bit if that makes sense!

It does. It tells me why you're confused. The rangemaster does not create a tone all by itself. The tonal qualities come from the preamp tube in the amp being overdriven, not from the pedal. So lowering the output of the pedal changes the amount of drive to the preamp tube and changes the quality of what you hear.

You have a couple of choices. The best is probably to turn down the volume control of the amp. This is what Toney was saying.

As to:

its an old ac30 im using with no top boost and i cant turn it down any more than i am already !  its down at like 9 o clock on the normal channel and just rips

Do you mean that the volume control won't rotate counterclockwise any more than that? I'm confused - volume pots generally go all the way to zero. If you get the tone you like with a certain setting of the RM, then turn down the amp volume control until you get the output volume you like.

Granted, you will be missing
(a) the speaker compression, and other effects of the speaker running at full tilt
(b) the combined effects of loudness on your ears
(c) anything that the massive overdrive was doing to the post-volume-control stages in the amp.

You're probably wanting all of the above just like it is, but quieter.

Don't we all... 

[soulsonic]

The switch I was talking about is just any old spst on/off switch to break the connection between the bypass cap and the emitter. There's some slightly fancier ways of doing it that are less likely to make a 'pop', but the basic switch works fine.

As far as the setup with the amp goes, maybe what you really need is a simple attenuator to place between the amp and the speakers. I wouldn't recommend a commercial one, most of them are garbage (the THD Hotplate may be an exception, but I've never messed with one). You can do a simple 6dB pad with just a couple resistors that will knock down the volume a little bit and still allow you to get the overdrive you want from the amp. Of  course, you'll miss a little bit of the drive on the speakers, but you'll still be getting the distortion from the amp. If you want a schematic or layout I can do it in about 5 minutes - its a VERY simple circuit.

[zotch]

"The rangemaster does not create a tone all by itself. The tonal qualities come from the preamp tube in the amp being overdriven, not from the pedal. So lowering the output of the pedal changes the amount of drive to the preamp tube and changes the quality of what you hear."

Dag; no wonder you don't see any RM clones on eBay with an output control (I saw a 9T cap switch model, but no level control). I was gonna try to see of some of the 'magic' resided in the driven transistor...like so many others must have.

Back to the archives, to see if anyone's put a motorized gobo disk between a Neovibe's lamp & LDR's...

[soulsonic]

Really, I ALWAYS use a 10K pot for the collector resistor/volume control - it's always worked great for me.

[zotch]

Pinpoint flash in brain as I look at schem duh, that IS the output level, not a gain/drive control! And to think I've been building tube amps fer years; glad I'm workin' w/lower voltages now. Doh