Boss OC-2/Pearl OC-7. Questions.

[strungout]

I recently built a Bassballs and I liked threading into synth-y territory. So, in the same spirit, I'm building a Boss OC-2 Clone, with the Pearl OC-7 upper octave part. It works well and I like the octave up better than the Pushme Pullyou that is added to a simplified OC-2 schematic.

I'm satisfied with what's on my breadboard, but, of course I'm wondering if I can get bettter/more effective.

So, questions:

-Anything new on the 'better tracking' front? Aside from the classic strategy of rolling down the tone and using the neck pickup.
-Any mods to make the upper octave stronger? Aside from etc...
-Would I gain anything at all from matching diodes in the rectifier stages?

Just makin' sure I didn't miss any mods. Any help appreciated!

Boss OC-2 Schematic: https://www.hobby-hour.com/electronics/s/schematics/boss-oc2-octaver-schematic.webp
Pearl OC-7 Schematic: http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabble.com/file/n26960/pearl_oc-07.jpg

[iainpunk]

there are ways to make the octave sound better through filtering and clipping.
that clipping works more as a wave shaping device that a normal distortion function, the gain before clipping needs not be high, in my experience is a gain of about 10 more than enough before that clipping, but i used different opamp rectification than the pearl pedal does, so your mileage may vary.

matching diodes probably won't make a difference because they're in a feedback loop of an opamp.

i have no adivce on the tracking tho

hope this helps,
cheers, Iain

[strungout]

Alright, thank Iain. I'll try adding more filtering and see where that gets me.

[POTL]

Madbean Lowrider, latest version (archived on Madbean website), listed as improved over OC-7

[iainpunk]

i mainly wanted to emphasize clipping, since that wave-shape function kind of tames the spiky nature of rectified waves.
cheers

[strungout]

So I went and raised R7 (Boss schem). It helped with the octave, a bit more pronounced. I'm staistfied. Thanks!

I just finished a layout for The Engineer'S Thumb compressor. I'll start on this one later.