need diy stompbox recommendation

[smitty]

Hello,

Looking for recomendations on building a pedal that will do ultra clean on one side...  (Im thinking Jack Ormans Mosfet boost), and ultra creamy
overdrive on the otherside.....   Im really looking for recomendations for the creamy overdrive circuit,  and am wondering if I can build both
into the same enclosure...  ie.   ultraclean on left side, and creamy overdrive on the right side of pedal....   for the overdrive Im not looking for
a tubescreamer type brown grit....   Im looking for an ultra saturated type sound like a saturated Marshall plexi type sound.....

thanks for the help!

smitty

[DC9V]

Hi,

I haven't build either of the effects I'm going to mention so you'll have to take whatever I say with a pinch of salt.

If you're looking specifically for a Marshall Plexi sound, the consensus seems to be that the BSIAB II does that very well. You can find all the files you need for this project at GGG, also search this forum tons of additional information and try youtube to hear what it sounds like.

Alternatively take a look at Joe Davisson's JFET Vulcan. After listening to Aron's sound samples I found I liked it very much and put it on my to-do list; I especially like how it doesn't sound like a TS at all . Gaussmarkov's site has all you need for this project.

I'm sure others will chime in with other ideas as well...

As for building two effects in a single enclosure, it's possible and has been done many times; just run a search on the forum for examples. Just wire the output of the Mosfet booster into the input of whatever overdrive circuit you've chosen. The good thing is if you engage both effects at once the booster will push the OD further into drivin' madness  

[erikb1971]

wow.. that gusmarkov's site is a goldmine!

[petemoore]

Looking for recomendations on building a pedal that will do ultra clean on one side...  (Im thinking Jack Ormans Mosfet boost),
  A whole range of subjects to cover with this one:
  What's it driving [will it stay clean ? Getting rid of ''down the line distortion'' when boosting is a matter of finding what is doing the distorting and 'fixing' it, often this requires larger speaker and/or amplifier.
  and ultra creamy overdrive on the otherside.....   Im really looking for recomendations for the creamy overdrive circuit,  and am wondering if I can build both
into the same enclosure... 
  Yes, both in same enclosure, common power supply, if you stick with NPN Neg Gnd. schematics.
 

[petemoore]

 ie.   ultraclean on left side,
  Ultracleanest for me was a SC plugged into the board through a huge 3-way powered speaker, the sound was rather uninteresting and uninspiring though.
  and creamy overdrive on the right side of pedal....   for the overdrive Im not looking for
a tubescreamer type brown grit....   Im looking for an ultra saturated type sound like a saturated Marshall plexi type sound.....
   Starting at both ends and working toward the middle is one approach, then, once the clean sound is ultra'd, it can then be considered the 'distortion platform' because these settings and hardewares will pre-shape the sound, determinine what the clean sound settings will be helps to shape the distortion circuit to 'match'.
  After having worn through Jfets and CMOS type circuits, it may be old school but the clipper to ground type circuit turned out to be my 'central distortion engine', by feeding it predistorted, straight and preboosted signals it works out very nice for me, at the same time as building amplifiers and cabinets, having the distorters and boosters in boxes allowed greater driving and distorting flexibility.

[petemoore]

  I've still got and use a variety of pedals, but for general usage the 'flexi-distortion' deal on the PB does most tricks pretty well, OS comp and Jfet Boost offer driving options to the D+/w Tone control, the Jfetzer type circuit is on/in the box before the D+..because I like the D+ to boost the amp some, because the D+ limits signal:
  Hitting the Distorter with a little boost makes it distort harder but the output stays almost the same.
  Hitting the amp with the Pre-Fet boost makes the 'clean-ish' side match closer to unity by boosting to about what the setting of the diodes/volume on the D+ control very hard limiting on the D+ output.
   The 'creamy' part to my reconing is a number of things, but the simple R/C tone control after the diodes/before the output certainly is a big part of it.
  "Creamy'' involves careful voicing through the circuits, adding circuits can multiply harmonics and amplitudes, some frequencies 'grow' more than others when amplified...all cone speakers roll off some highs so it's a balancing/matching act to get the circuits frequency compensations to sound 'creamy'.

[Earthscum]

Honestly, if you just build a distortion with a buffered out, you would have both clean and dist with a single switch, like Boss, Ibanez, DOD... That's what it sounds like you're looking for?

We'll skip dist for a second.

What do you want the clean channel to do? Do you want it to just boost the signal? There are many threads on here regarding signal boosting. Your amp only has so much headroom, and it is expecting a guitar signal. If it gets a boosted signal, the preamp goes into overdrive. Good for tubes "grind", sounds like crap in Solid State.

I would actually, if you do want a clean boost, to build an op amp 10x stage driving a James style (just a recommendation) tone stack with an output buffer. I mean, think about it... it's kind of useless to have just a clean signal without a purpose. To me it's like using a 1W dormroom amplifier to plug your acoustic into. The guitar is probably louder than the amp. But, clean option with a tone stack and small boost makes sense. Tone shaping or driving long cables makes sense, but making an exact active version of the passive signal doesn't.

So, take into consideration what you want that clean channel to do, and you may find like I did long ago, that you don't need "ultra clean". All I needed was a buffer to drive the cable back to the amp, which is already in my Phaser at the end of my chain... my DOD overdrive, my DS-1 (bass OD) all have buffers as well.

Now on to the distortion... I keep hearing about BSIAB, and that's what immediately came to mind for some reason (I'm a bassist, I've never touched the circuit, lol).

[smitty]

Hi,

I haven't build either of the effects I'm going to mention so you'll have to take whatever I say with a pinch of salt.

If you're looking specifically for a Marshall Plexi sound, the consensus seems to be that the BSIAB II does that very well. You can find all the files you need for this project at GGG, also search this forum tons of additional information and try youtube to hear what it sounds like.

Alternatively take a look at Joe Davisson's JFET Vulcan. After listening to Aron's sound samples I found I liked it very much and put it on my to-do list; I especially like how it doesn't sound like a TS at all . Gaussmarkov's site has all you need for this project.


I'm sure others will chime in with other ideas as well...

As for building two effects in a single enclosure, it's possible and has been done many times; just run a search on the forum for examples. Just wire the output of the Mosfet booster into the input of whatever overdrive circuit you've chosen. The good thing is if you engage both effects at once the booster will push the OD further into drivin' madness  

Thanks very much for the great information....   I like the sound of both overdrive units....   its a toss up between the 2 units,  I think putting a clean boost in front and
slamming the distortion w/ the clean boost could be interesting as well....   It looks like on the Jack Orman site..  he has a dual pcb board to build something like this,  but
I need to research and find out if his board will handle the overdrive side of the equation....   

thanks again,

smitty

[smitty]

Honestly, if you just build a distortion with a buffered out, you would have both clean and dist with a single switch, like Boss, Ibanez, DOD... That's what it sounds like you're looking for?

We'll skip dist for a second.

What do you want the clean channel to do? Do you want it to just boost the signal? There are many threads on here regarding signal boosting. Your amp only has so much headroom, and it is expecting a guitar signal. If it gets a boosted signal, the preamp goes into overdrive. Good for tubes "grind", sounds like crap in Solid State.

I would actually, if you do want a clean boost, to build an op amp 10x stage driving a James style (just a recommendation) tone stack with an output buffer. I mean, think about it... it's kind of useless to have just a clean signal without a purpose. To me it's like using a 1W dormroom amplifier to plug your acoustic into. The guitar is probably louder than the amp. But, clean option with a tone stack and small boost makes sense. Tone shaping or driving long cables makes sense, but making an exact active version of the passive signal doesn't.

So, take into consideration what you want that clean channel to do, and you may find like I did long ago, that you don't need "ultra clean". All I needed was a buffer to drive the cable back to the amp, which is already in my Phaser at the end of my chain... my DOD overdrive, my DS-1 (bass OD) all have buffers as well.

Now on to the distortion... I keep hearing about BSIAB, and that's what immediately came to mind for some reason (I'm a bassist, I've never touched the circuit, lol).

Hello and thanks for the youtube clips!    The reason for the Clean Boost is purely functional, as I am a lap steel player, and I need a bit more Clean output through my amp for
clean soloing, which is necessary as a steel guitar player....    I also like playing with some serious overdrive for more Rock tones....   Ala David Gilmourish type tones with
heavy overdrive and delay....    Definately going to check out the BSIAB...   I like the sound of the III box.....

thanks again,

smitty