Kay Tremolo Transistors

[Canucker]

I've seen a variety of layouts for the Kay Trem with different transistors in place of the not so easy to come by 2SC828P's .... I went with 2N5088's. It works fine with a clean guitar sound but the second I turn on the overdrive the effect has a mind of its own...the trem effect goes if I'm playing or not ...when I play it seems like two separate things going one...like the trem isn't affecting what I'm playing...its just going on separately and at equal volume... Kind of cool but not overly useful....so I figured I'd use some lower gain transistors...I grabbed a 2n3904 and put it in the Q1 position http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv347/harvandheavy/flanger-chorus-phaser-etc/KAY_T_1_TREMOLO_PERFBOARD_LAYOUT.gif  and figured I'd test it out before moving to the next...it cleared up my issue as far as applying some distortion ...but now the effect is way quieter then my clean signal...so I figured replacing the other old transistors wouldn't help my cause any...so it became time ask here before doing something else. I've read a few "issues" post on this build and there are some that complain about volume drop or distortion (when its suppose to be clean) but rarely are the transistors used in the build mentioned.

[LucifersTrip]

but the second I turn on the overdrive the effect has a mind of its own...like the trem isn't affecting what I'm playing.

do you have the trem after the distortion

but rarely are the transistors used in the build mentioned.

because the exact tran model doesn't matter...just the hfe's. my 2SC828's are in the 100 - 150 range

[Canucker]

the distortion is built in to the amp....its a little solid state amp I use to test my builds. I tested out a few of the 2N3904's and have four of them between 128 and 132. Don't recall what the 25088's rated at but obviously much higher.

[John Lyons]

Trem into distortion will make the trem much weaker.
You ideally want the trem after distortion.
Modulation is usually best there.

[Canucker]

Yeah I pretty much knew time based stuff goes after distortion but with it built in theres not much of an option...plus when I changed the transistor the quietness was also on the clean channel.

[Canucker]

thinking of building this in combination with an LPB so I have some volume control and can go louder....which would you advise I put first?

[John Lyons]

Trem > lpb

[Canucker]

so its a good idea? or would you advise a different method of boosting the volume? Should running them both off the same battery not cause any issues?

[John Lyons]

Should be fine, go for it.