help on a drive pedal

[wyn]

Ime looking for a little help on this pedal guys. its not revolutionary but it sounds good and ime looking for a bit feedback. any good suggestions on how i can tweek it a bit more?

its a simple drive pedal i made because i was just playing around and boom, there it was.

the schematic i borrowed used a 250k on both ends......

do i need a pulldown resistor and a decoupling cap?

HIT ME!!!

[wyn]

heres the schematic....

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/102729661034733473192/albums/6256279940418454449/6256279936527874114?pid=6256279936527874114&oid=102729661034733473192

[ElectricDruid]

In my view you don't need more decoupling. The input and output are both decoupled from the voltage around the transistor by the 100n caps. And for pull-down resistors, you've got the drive control at the front, and the volume at the end.

So it's fine, I'd say. Go ahead and rock out

Tom

[mcknib]

Alrite Wyn,

If you've got it on a breadboard and you're just looking for some tweeking fun and experimentation there may be something on Aron's simple mod page for you to try

http://www.diystompboxes.com/wiki/index.php?title=Simple_mods&redirect=no

[duck_arse]

wyn - you need to add an arrow to your transistor symbol. just so's we know. and, your drive pot as drawn, set to low, will kill your signal. is this how you want it? you could add a minimum/stopper resistor between the pot and ground, so you never go silent.

[Marcos - Munky]

Are you sure your drive pot is drawn correctly? This way you'll be just adding more resistance to ground. I think the correct way is wiper to 100nF cap, one lug to input and the other one to ground.

[wyn]

heres what ive got, ive been on the facebook site all day and got a lot of help with small stuff that ime not so good at.

the gain pot was wired wrong, got that fixed and now theres an arrow on the transistor

made a low pass filter as well!  thanks to Elton R Osmani for being patient with me on that one.

sounds damn good!! hope someone tries it out!

thanks for all the feedback guys!

the diodes are 1n4148s.....


https://plus.google.com/u/0/102729661034733473192/posts/Gv4pCD7L4vr?pid=6256392626380875682&oid=102729661034733473192

[Ben Lyman]

Very cool circuit, I might try this out myself on the BB. When I was trying to improve my FF build I settled on this suggestion by justinfun in reply #9 of my thread, give it a once over and see what you think:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=112427.0

[wyn]

Very cool circuit, I might try this out myself on the BB. When I was trying to improve my FF build I settled on this suggestion by justinfun in reply #9 of my thread, give it a once over and see what you think:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=112427.0

way in over my head sorry

[wyn]

watch out for the pinouts on the BC183 

https://plus.google.com/u/0/102729661034733473192/posts/QK6cshGxqyD?pid=6256443138475133042&oid=102729661034733473192

Wyn

[Ben Lyman]

way in over my head sorry

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse you. If you wire a pot at the input for gain it's sort of like turnin your guitar knob up and down. I put a 500k pot at the input in series with the wiper lug soldered to the same lug that comes from the guitar (via the input jack to 3PDT) and the other lug goes to the input cap like this:

Lowest gain the minimum resistance is 500k, meaning you still get a guitar signal thru, albeit a cleanish signal. Full turn of the knob opens the path wide open to the guitar signal for max gain.
Hopefully that makes sense 

[wyn]

where does your ground from the pot go?(lug 1) is it wired the same way as mine or did i just draw it wrong? 

or do you have 3+2 to input and then 1 to the cap... to get a minimum when turned all the way down.

Is it better with the 500k?

[Ben Lyman]

...do you have 3+2 to input and then 1 to the cap...

that is correct, no grounding on that pot, that's why I say it is wired in series.
"Is 500k better?"
I like 500k better 
at minimum (counter clockwise) it puts 500k resistance on your guitar input which equals lower guitar signal than say putting 100k on it.
Henceforth and heretowith  more resistance=less guitar signal at input=less overdrive 
it's worth a shot on the BB to see if it works for you, I like it, it seems to preserve some of the highs when going for the cleaner sounds

[wyn]

...do you have 3+2 to input and then 1 to the cap...

that is correct, no grounding on that pot, that's why I say it is wired in series.
"Is 500k better?"
I like 500k better 
at minimum (counter clockwise) it puts 500k resistance on your guitar input which equals lower guitar signal than say putting 100k on it.
Henceforth and heretowith  more resistance=less guitar signal at input=less overdrive 
it's worth a shot on the BB to see if it works for you, I like it, it seems to preserve some of the highs when going for the cleaner sounds


ille try it, thanks for clearing that up

[wyn]

Ille call it the Ben Lyman mod!

[Ben Lyman]

I can't take credit for this one  I'm sure it's been done a million times before, some people call it the "Pre-Gain" knob. Here's a vid of my Ge FF w/500k series pot. Skip to 1:00min and I turn the pot half way down for OD, then at 1:30min I turn it all the way down for even cleaner sound.

[wyn]

tried it out and it works fine, but i seem to like the 100k better.prefer  its normally full up and i can roll off on the volume. that gives a lot ofvariations on the sound. i think ille stick with the 100k - for now -  But thanks for that little mod tip, it could come in usefull for something else. might try it on my next FF. maybe ille build 2 versions and try them out against each other.

Wyn

[wyn]

heres the decal

https://plus.google.com/u/0/102729661034733473192/posts/UVHV7yXm5mm?pid=6256794432003653666&oid=102729661034733473192

[Ben Lyman]

Great decal, I love muscle cars, my main transportation for 20 years was a 1970 1/2 z28 w/factory 4spd... until my wife got pregnant with our first 

[wyn]

Great decal, I love muscle cars, my main transportation for 20 years was a 1970 1/2 z28 w/factory 4spd... until my wife got pregnant with our first 

got a pic?