Big Muff Triangle (1st version, PNP) build issues

Started by Rickenhofner45, September 22, 2011, 07:25:56 PM

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Rickenhofner45

Hi all. First time posting on here.

Well, first things first. I attend a Tech high school, and take Electrical Engineering, and I'm in my senior year. (Woooo!) To start off the year, I thought I'd make an original Big Muff to use with my bass. I have already made pedals before, and still have one of them (my own clone of the current Big Muff).

Here's the thing. This Big Muff that I just finished putting together the other day works, for the most part. Volume pot works, and there might be a problem with the tone and sustain pots. When I turn either all the way down, I get almost no sound out of the amp at all. You can hear it only when you crank the amp's volume up pretty loud. And to be honest, the output isn't that great no matter how I have it, and sounds absolutely nothing like any of the other 1st edition BM's I've heard.  

ALRIGHT. Second problem. I have set up, with a DPDT toggle switch, two different types of diodes for the clipping stage. Two sets of 1N34s, and two sets of 1N4148s. The germaniums work perfectly fine, but when I switch to the 1N4148s, I get a crazy oscillation/buzzing sound, that you can sort of hear the bass's sound through. I'll be honest, I can't find out what's wrong. I've tried new diodes, a new switch, I just can't figure out why it's doing this. Maybe using a 4PDT will remedy the situation by isolating the diodes from each other?

The voltages from collector to ground on all of the transistors (2N5087) are all on average about 4v. The lowest being 3.5 volts. Those values should be spot on, since they're right around the Q-Point, which since it's a 9v circuit, would be 4.5 volts.

The wires are somewhat long, because of the large size of the enclosure I have, so maybe that would be causing all of the noise. (1790NS from SmallBear)

Anyone have an idea what is going on here? Any help would be greatly appreciated! I will upload pictures tomorrow after school, since that is where the project is currently at.


http://www.singlecoil.com/triangle/triangle.html    <---- Here's the website I got the design and such from. I used 100k Clarostats (I believe they are linear), because from what I had read, the schematic was mis-labeled.


???

Rickenhofner45

Ended up being a loop between Q2 and Q3,due to the way I wired the switch. Problem has been solved.