ELECTRA DISTORTION

[Renegadrian]

What about that resistor after the diodes?! 

[kurtlives]

I belive its like a softness control. Controls how hard the diodes clip.

[doug deeper]

yep, clips less off the top......
and bottom.
makes it sound like there is a clean signal mixed in.

[Steben]

What about that resistor after the diodes?! 

You could put a pot in there (say 1k or 2k) and make it another extra "softness" knobby. 

[gravity84]

LOL.  I remember the electra, actually, I believe I am responsible for that IIbe version (MTM was for my initials).  I was in high school those days, I believe I was a sophomore at the time, I honestly didn't really know what I was doing.  By college, my band at the time was doing pretty well for itself I was running a rack setup so I had left the diy world for quite a while.  A B.S. and a Masters in Physics later, I'm mostly doing sideman stuff now (bands come and go... ), back to a combo amp and pedalboard, of course I couldn't have passed the opportunity to mod my pedals.  That brought me to Brian Wampler's site, which inevitably brought me here.  I'd love to do a couple of revamps of the Electra.  I wouldn't want to be remembered for claiming to have modded a pedal by adding 4 diodes and a second volume (lol, wow...).  I read another post about the IIbe, someone said "how good can it sound with just one transistor?"  I will totally take this challenge on.

[Caferacernoc]

Here's a current comercial pedal that is essentially the same thing:
Lovepedal    Church of Tone COT50

Here's a modded schematic:
http://revolutiondeux.blogspot.com/2008/02/clock-of-tone-50-modifed-cot50.html

[mac]

I'd replace:
1. the 470 resistor with a 500 log pot and a >10uf cap, like the Fuzz Face drive pot. (Or just a switch to bypass the 470 with a cap).
2. the collector resistor with a trimpot to get the sweet spot.

mac