Ghetto Stomp build issues

[DJPsychic]

Just finished wiring this Ghetto Stomp build and have run into a few problems.


A) Guitar signal seems to only come through when I touch LUG 3 of the TONE pot. (I only had access to B100k PCB Mount Pots btw)

B) There isn't a lot of gain on tap. How can I increase this?

C) Volume at max isn't very loud. How can I increase output?





(I know pedal is a mess at the moment)

[Marcos - Munky]

From what I can see by the vero layout, it's an electra-based overdrive. So you can't expect lots of volume and gain from this circuit.

For the tone pot, sounds like a damaged pot or a bad solder. Try to reflow the solder on lug 3.

[DJPsychic]

From what I can see by the vero layout, it's an electra-based overdrive. So you can't expect lots of volume and gain from this circuit.

For the tone pot, sounds like a damaged pot or a bad solder. Try to reflow the solder on lug 3.

Yeah those pots are cheap all I have at the moment, I'll play around with that one lug.

Is there anything I can do to increase volume or gain? 

[idy]

Replacing diodes with LEDs would increase output.

[Marcos - Munky]

You have just a single gain stage. You can indeed increase the gain of this stage up to some point, but the gain is basically already on the maximum for an overdrive, and if you push it a bit more it'll start to sound fuzzy and probably not good. Or, at least, different from the original purpose of the circuit. If you want more gain out of it but still keep the circuit sound, the best idea is to add another gain stage.

[iainpunk]

for more gain, you could put a 100nF capacitor parallel to the 680R resistor, this ups the gain quite a bit

[DJPsychic]

Cool I'll try that. Funny story, I searched the forum for Elektra volume boost and apparently I asked this same question last year. My first build was an Elektra. I think the quarantine is getting to me

Yesterday I put on my jeans  in the morning then proceeded to put on another pair of jeans. Send help.

[DJPsychic]

The Elektra uses a B10k for gain and A100k for Volume. Could I use these instead of the B100k's the Ghetto Stomp uses? Would this improve tone?

[Marcos - Munky]

The difference between A100K and a B100K pot is how they change their resistence when you turn them. Check this page (http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/potsecrets/potscret.htm), there's a graph around the middle of the page.

So basically you won't change the tone, but change how your volume pot will respont to smaller turns.

And since the gain is just a input pot, by using a bigger value (the one you already have), you can get lower gain settings. But full gain will be the same.