BlueLine - OD based on original Marshall BluesBreaker

[joshcontact]

Hey all, first post here. This has been an awesome resource, and I just wanted to share an OD I just finished. It's based on the original Marshall BluesBreaker. Couldn't find an original one that I could afford, so I decided on building my own. I ended up spending a lot of time over the next few months tweaking and twisting. Some things were inspired by other pedals, some changes sounded awful, some amazing, some theoretically did something but actually did nothing. Going through the design from top to bottom made me realize what a great circuit the original BB already is. It's no wonder it's gotten so popular. But one of the main issues I had was that the range of tone available from the 3-knob circuit was pretty narrow. Another thing I wanted to address was taming the high end... not cutting it, just taming it. Also, it's definitely true that this pedal doesn't get REAL dirty until you get to about 3 o' clock, so I wanted to see what I could do about that.

So in addition to the standard Gain, Volume, and Tone controls, I added a few things:

- a Presence control
- a foot-switchable lead boost with its own volume preset
- three gain modes: normal overdrive, "fat" overdrive, and clean boost mode
- a Bright/Smooth switch
- three switchable clipping diode flavors: LED, Silicon and asymmetrical Germanium
- a JFET makeup gain section
- a "Pre-Roll" knob (I'll explain)

The presence is great, really helps to smooth out some peaks or get it to cut through. Puts a reign on those way upper-mid and high frequencies. The lead boost is fun. Nice to use as a solo boost but also as a "ducking" feature at rehearsals, kind of like the soft mute on your tv so you can turn down and talk to people without having to mute all the way.

Normal overdrive is the standard BB overdrive, cleans up the same. Nice and easy. "Fat" overdrive mode is a little louder, higher gain, breaks up sooner and is a bit fatter. Like an amp cranked to 10. Clean boost is that, a clean boost with the pedal EQ. TONS of headroom - I can turn the amp to where I can barely hear the guitar, and engage the pedal and get it up to almost rehearsal level, clean. A side-effect of the placement of the circuitry lets me get a fourth flavor of overdrive when I crank that gain knob, but it stays sparkly clean until about 3 o' clock.

The Bright/Smooth switch affects mostly the clipping itself. Smooth mode is thick and creamy and Bright mode is nice and crisp (Food Network execs, are you listening?), and the diode switching gives me the standard Silicon and raises me LED and germies. The LED setup is really airy and light, almost subtle clipping. The Silicon is nice and smooth, and both of those are set up as symmetrical circuits. The Germanium diodes are setup in an asymmetrical configuration and they are WILD! Like an angry caveman clubbing your living room furniture. They're hairy and bold and punchy, super super cool sound with this circuit.

The thing that I'm really excited about tho is the "Pre-Roll" knob. When I first installed it I jumped for joy like a geek.  The knob lets you control what goes into your clipping circuit, as opposed to manipulating what is already coming out of the clipping circuit. In other words, it lets me adjust the tone without affecting the tone of the clipping itself (just like a real amp), which preserves all those harmonics, all that sweet juice coming out of the diodes that you'd normally attenuate using the standard Tone knob. It's like a backwards George Foreman grill of overdrive. It was really just an experiment that ended up being the standout feature. It's a really interesting sound, and it operates at a different frequency than the tone on your guitar and the tone on the pedal. I use a Strat through a '65 Fender Bandmaster with a spring reverb driver I built. That Pre-Roll knob sweetens and sweetens, putting a CHOKE CHAIN on those highs, and then at around the 2 o' clock point on it gives it a really humbuckery character, punchy and beefy, it's really cool!!

The graphic design was inspired by the NY Subway, specifically the blue A/C train that runs by my apartment here in Brooklyn, and some of the fantastic musicians I see hiding underground there.

So if you got through that, thanks for listening! I'm a serious introvert and a major recluse, so I just wanted to share this build with some people who appreciate in-depth guitar geekery! Thanks for the tips over time and I'll be around! Nice to finally meet ya's!

http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/diyuser/image.jpg.html
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http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/diyuser/image_003.jpg.html
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[UKToecutter]

Looks great,

How about some sound clips and a schematic?

[joshcontact]

Thanks! I'll plan on doing that tomorrow so I can crank it without waking the neighbors 

[UKToecutter]

Sod the neighbours.
Wake them up and do it now!!!

[joshcontact]

Well it IS a Friday night... hmmmmmmmm

[aab0mb]

Nice work from concept and research to execution.  Looks really great. 

Looking forward to the sound clips and a schematic for this beast. 


Your approach to mods is exactly what i look for.  Added functionality.

[joshcontact]

Hey thanks a lot! I'll definitely get some clips up tomorrow.

[joshcontact]

Hey everybody,

Sorry I haven't been able to get something good out, I only have Internet on my phone and I'm kind of in the process of getting booted out of my apartment because of a buyout.  And I'm broke, so that sucks.  I <3 NY! 

Anyway, here's a quick LQ clip of one (out of a few million) of my favorite settings.  Really excited to show off all it can do as soon as I can.

Thanks for sticking around and listening.

J

www.youtube.com/embed/pP4IxfgUg2w

[closetmonster.]

Sounds great!

Stoked to hear some more demos that showcase the different sounds. Really good work.

[joshcontact]

Hey all, another fruitful experiment!! I managed to get more transparent low end of this thing without making it too much darker! Man I'm so excited to share this! This things sounds KILLER now!

[joshcontact]

[UKToecutter]

Josh,

You keep teasing us.
How about a schematic?

[zombiwoof]

Regarding the bunching up of the distortion sound in the last quarter rotation of the gain pot, did you use a linear pot there?.  This is a problem with Fuzz Faces also, and the fix for those is to use a reverse audio taper pot for the "fuzz" control.  Maybe doing the same with the gain pot on your pedal would help to spread out the dirty range more to your liking.  Just a thought, I'm not sure if it would work in this circuit or not.

Al

[DougH]

Thanks for wearing shoes.