stupid pedal tricks: PJP fuzz-overdrive mk ii

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey kids, it's your host, pink jimi photon
with yet ANOTHER episode of Stupid Pedal Tricks...

todays attractive little device is what i call (so far) the Pink Jimi Photon Fuzz Overdriver mk II.

i likes it. hope you do too.

i have to draw up the schematic, and do another vero layout, but you can find most of the circuit here:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=100956.0

anyways, here ya go:

[Jdansti]

Sounds great!

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks john, i think this may be the nicest one i've cobbled together yet!

[Jdansti]

It's definitely at the top of the list!

BTW-Did you happen to test a 1N34A in place of the 1N60?

[deadastronaut]

sounds great man...that'll be nice on a drop tuning too...

very true on the 'real amp' test comment...what sounds great indoors can be a different kettle of fish live....



keep it up man, always love you vids!!

[digi2t]

WOW! Nice range on this puppy. You`ve out done yourself there bro. Love the way it cleans up. Could probably replace 2 or 3 pedals on a board.

Also, you look to be feeling better too, nice to see you back to old self there.

[pinkjimiphoton]

It's definitely at the top of the list!

BTW-Did you happen to test a 1N34A in place of the 1N60?

i've been pretty much just grabbing whatever, i have a couple "styles" of ge diodes...bigger glass ones, and smaller ones that look suspiciously like 1n914's.
i didn't try another 34 there, i figured one of them and a 60 would probably sound good, i was surprised how well those two seem to go.. i suspect they clip quite differently!!

what ya see on the vero on the other thread i linked to is what's on the board, minus the fudges i added after ward.

i'm hoping to get the schem drawn up today...trying to find a pencil!! so i don't have to do it 300 times.

the biggest problem i'm gonna face, is i have no idea how to draw the schem symbol for a 3pdt, so i'm gonna just draw the wiring, hope you guys don't mind.

[pinkjimiphoton]

sounds great man...that'll be nice on a drop tuning too...

very true on the 'real amp' test comment...what sounds great indoors can be a different kettle of fish live....



keep it up man, always love you vids!!

i even played it with my 5 string bass a little, got some very for lack of  a better description "chris squire-ish" tones.
really glad ya like it rob. it does need a little improvement i think,
i'm sure someone that knows what they're doing can fix my mistakes and fudges in a much more elegant way, but i figure, WTF, if it works, kicks ass and screams, that's all ya need!!

i really didn't like it AT ALL live...was way too bright, and i could hear the maggots trying to chew their way out of my head (i hope that's all it was!!!!!!)

i think i had to put a fairly big cap on to nuke that, and bring it down to a more useable range...220n i think. i have it on my notes, but not handy here.

it sounded great getting hit even with all that treble with my toneblaster (which, unbelievably, has replaced my fuzzface!!!!!) live tho..
was playing a cyber twin, i modeled my princeton mutant as close as i could. the two together was a powerhouse, could cut thru even when there were 5 guitars on stage!!

it really likes to play with a percolator, too... so i guess it plays well with others.

i will reveal all as soon as i can..

cv axle in my car thru a couple bearings the other day, so i've gotta TCOB...stay tuned!

[pinkjimiphoton]

WOW! Nice range on this puppy. You`ve out done yourself there bro. Love the way it cleans up. Could probably replace 2 or 3 pedals on a board.

Also, you look to be feeling better too, nice to see you back to old self there.

thanks brother dino,
still don't have my voice back, but am indeed feeling MUCH better.

a big part of it goes to my rocknroll doc, ian... he set me up with one of his friends, a neurologist/pain management rockstar from mother russia named igor.

he shot my back full of cortisone and lidocaine  and knocked the nerves out that have been keeping me down for the last 24 years.  i could FEEL the pain flow down my back (i'd broken/crushed the vertebrae right around the bottom of the breastbone in a car crash in 89) and down my ass and legs...then it was gone.

half my life, dude. suddenly fixed with a bunch of injections. unreal!! i played my first gig sober (at least as far as the vicodins i've lived on for a decade or so) and was pretty much on fire.
no pain... a little discomfort in my left leg, but the rest.. man... i coulda kissed the guy, but, homey don't play for that team.

i think you should build one of these dino...it's kinda a utility, and started off just as an experiment. i had some bc109's, and i liked the way they sounded in the colorsound overdriver, so i set out to do a cookbook approach, using andrew carrell's "fuzzy blocks" pic.

i literally just drew it up in diylc, with 109's and all the electros were 10u.
so i built it, but ignored the values i'd drawn in (except most of the resistors) and put in values i'd liked from other fuzzes..
added the permanent compression control... just a diode to ground from e of q1, i think it's a modified emitter follower(?) like a fuzzface, and it just kept coming to life.

the second diode clipper was the key... made it from a nice overdrive into a fuzz, but the volume was was too discrepant.

so i fudged it.. again, sure there's a better way...

but i used a second 3pdt, tied all three of the middles together to BOARD ground, and switch one  connected the second diode clipper to ground on pole one, switch two swapped between led's on the tricolor one i used depending on which pole was active, and the big thing was equalizing the volume back down between the two... in overdrive mode, it was more than twice as loud... i mean, great for bluesy leads, but too much, you'd have to roll it back, ya know?

so i hit on a fudge... took a second lead from the wiper of the volume pot (the other went to the bypass switch) and tied it to a 100k trimmer... and then connected that to switch 3 pole 2 so that when it was not in fuzz mode, i could use the trimmer as a variable resistor to dial it in til they were close to unity gain... a very fine margin. i tried to tune it when it had a little boost, so it's pretty wide open to interpretation. i ended up using the 220n cap from the juntion of the trimmer and jumper from the volume pot to ground, right there on the switch.

had to add a 10k resistor from the cathode (?) of the bicolor on one side to the switch as well, no more pops. that solved the dual footswitch prob i had been having. now the on/off indicator is grounded to the star ground, and the bicolor is grounded to the board, but floated with 10k resistors.... so you can tell which "mode" is active at all times.

for me, that was a leap.

thanks!!

[Jdansti]

>the biggest problem i'm gonna face, is i have no idea how to draw the schem symbol for a 3pdt, so i'm gonna just draw the wiring, hope you guys don't mind.

Either way should be fine, but if you want to use the 3PDT symbol, here it is:

[pinkjimiphoton]

coolio!! thanks john!!

i have to go to my bud's house this morning and do cv axles and control arms on the front of my car.
i was lucky last nite, and made it the 12 miles from here to there before the car became completely undriveable..by the time i pulled in his street, was leaving pieces of some kinda
metallic shit behind me....

it was a scary ride a few times, thought it was gonna go south. once the cv blows out completely, the front wheel stops turning. not a big deal, but when the control arm goes, the wheel becomes free hanging. not fun.
must have been the cold weather that just did it in.

i'll try to get to this today. gonna download the sim/schem gus did to give me a starting point.

[Jdansti]

^ Good luck!  Those dang boots that protect the joints have a way of tearing, and if you don't catch it in time, the joint's too damaged to salvage.  My wife's Pilot is due for CVJ work.

>but when the control arm goes, the wheel becomes free hanging. not fun

Yep.  Haven't had that happen while driving, but learned about it when I changed a clutch on a FWD car when I was much younger and thought I could do anything.  I had to swing the left wheel assembly out and remove the shaft before I could drop the transmission.  I found that replacing the clutch on a FWD car can be a life changing experience.

[Jdansti]

BTW-The 3PDT switch can be broken up as three SPDT switches on the schematic and labeled SW1a, SW1b, SW1c.  Each "sub-switch" can be placed anywhere on the schematic which would help keep the drawing a little cleaner.

[pinkjimiphoton]

BTW-The 3PDT switch can be broken up as three SPDT switches on the schematic and labeled SW1a, SW1b, SW1c.  Each "sub-switch" can be placed anywhere on the schematic which would help keep the drawing a little cleaner.

great tip!!

the car was a bitch... took us almost 5 hours to get it apart, cuz we looked at the book, which is based on a complete teardown and rebuild...so it doesn't really apply to all the crap ya gotta
dissassemble to dissassemble all the crap you're taking apart.
bear with me, get to it soon.

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, i totally suck at this.... i didn't add the input switching, but i DID add the "channel" switching, as i think it's an integral part of the circuit.

[deafbutpicky]

thanks Mr. pink,
will give it a try next weekend, when I got the parts.

[pinkjimiphoton]

cool, have fun!!

like i said, some of the stuff i did there's probably a better way to execute than i did, but , it works!!

[digi2t]

Dude, I say you do quite well on the schematic drawing. Easy enough to read, and has a certain... "je ne sais quoi" with the fancy signature.

Download TinyCAD bro, it's free. That's what I use. It's got all the symbols you need as well.

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks dino,
i have a bunch of CAD programs, but i'm too "add" to learn 'em.

[deafbutpicky]

I'll have to swap the trannys anyway, so the trimmers come in handy, and a little tweaking
is expected, so let's see how it comes out.