That dreaded question....

[digideus]

Im new here (as you can tell by the question I posted) and although I have experience of electronics and soldering (i used to be an AV installer) I have very little experience of building stomp boxes, although I have fixed dry solder spots on PCBs and completely re-wire guitar electronics all the time in my capacity as the local "go see him to fix your guitar" guy (I wouldnt say Luthier since I havent built one from scratch yet, although I have several builds underway  )

Anyway, the question is this.... I am looking for a massive high gain, controllable stomp box project to undertake.  I love the sound of Marshall amps, Hate boogies, I play with active pickups for "that" kind of sound and could do with something between my guitar and a bog standard stack that will give me fully saturated gain tones to die for.  Controllable means I can EQ the heck out of it!

The two projects i've come across that seem to make sense to me are the Dr.Boogie and the Diefet.  There may be more, but I havent come across them in the last 2 days of poking around various DIY Stomp Box sites.

Am I missing something?  Can anyone point me at another project that can give me everything I am looking for in a pedal?  I will probably end up building a Diefet just for the sake of having one since the videos ive seen on youtube are fairly impressive, but you never know, someone may have an idea and it would probably be a good discussion on the pros and cons of the current DIY Stomp Box market

[ghostsauce]

If you hate the sound of mesa, the Dr Boogey might not be for you.  Not stock at least, maybe the geniuses here can suggest some mods.  I love my boogie, and it sounds nothing like my marshall, but it does sound amazing through an EMG81 especially running at 18v.  I'm sure that if you play around with some of the values you'll find something that sounds good to you though.

There are also a couple marshall boxes from Runoffgroove.com
http://runoffgroove.com/thor.html
http://runoffgroove.com/eighteen.html

Those are meant to sound like a marshall, so I think that'd be your best bet.

[digideus]

Thanks for the reply

Ive checked out the Thor already but the gain is nowhere near enough for me, and the Eighteen seems far more bluesy than anywhere near the modern high gain of the boogie or diefet.

[Galego]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcbbgLHnjXE

Does this work for you? I have posted the schematics in the pictures thread. I didn't play it at full gain and used the stock MKII pickups in my Tokai.

[aleister]

you might want to check out catalinbreads dirty little secret if you are wanting the marshall sound. good luck with your quest.

[MikeH]

Crunch Box!

It doesn't have a full tonestack, but it nails that cranked JCM sound pretty well, IMO

[armstrom]

build a double-d (if you only want the insane gain sound you can build just the "bounce" section. That will give you the squealing fuzzy insane gain it sounds like you're looking for. Here's the project site from ROG.

http://www.runoffgroove.com/doubled.html

You can hear clips of each channel on the clips page here: http://www.runoffgroove.com/salvo.html#doubled

Renegadrian has done a vero layout of just the Bounce channel (high gain) here: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=73877.0

Good luck!

[digideus]

Thanks for all the replies so far.

I'd spotted the Crunch Box on youtube and its definately got the basis of the sound Im after, and I think with some EQ'ing I could make a usuable sound out of it.

The Double-D looks and sounds interesting.  the 100% gain soundclip on ROG made me smile.  Its perhaps a bit 80s, but again, is the basis of a great sound.  I will have a look at teh single D layout you included in the post - thanks

Dirty Little Secret didnt grab me at all, and even though I know its good to buy a commercial product, I would rather put my money towards a Metal Muff (a possibility) or a Wampler Triple Wreck (far too expensive for little old me! - hence this thread!)

anyone got a good link for a crunch box clone?

[ghostsauce]

No clone links here, but I have heard some really nice sounds coming out of the Boss MT-2 after some mods. There are all sorts of mods floating around here and other forums (google it) to try.. I've heard some really kickass tones created with some easy component swaps.  I know you probably want to build your own, but you could buy a second hand mt-2 and re-house it and mod it to death.

[DiamondDog]

anyone got a good link for a crunch box clone?

That would be here and here to start with.

[Zapp Brannigan]

Try this:
http://www.guitarjfet.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=44
It is in russian, but it is not a problem, I can translate if you need. That stuff is worth building and sounds absolutely awesome.