a trifecta of stupidity

[pinkjimiphoton]

so a friend asked me for a treble booster... well, they asked me to repair a rangemaster clone, it arrived doa, i said dude, i don't wanna deal with fixing it...i'd have to make it work to mod it, and i'm like... not worth the time/expence.

so i grabbed some random shit  on my bench, and threw together my own.... sorry, no schematic or layout yet.... on perf, which i never used before.  not sold on it..

but i wanted to mod it from typical treble booster, so there's a nod to the bazz fuss as well as my "photon phuzz" barry's selling at guitarpcb, and added a hard clipper to the ass end.

no math involved. no brains, even. just total stupidity.
fired right up.

this was first iteration:

second iteration, i tacked on a bigger input cap to take it out of treble boost territory and make it a more standard fuzz tone.... this is the version the guy chose...

i was still tinkering with it, trying different q's to see what i liked... so far, i have three distinctly different tonaliities with 3 different q's... gonna find one more, and mount 'em all on a rotary switch i think... for my own personal one, anyways..

this particular variant just @#$%ing kills for playing slide... check it out

i'll up build info n stuff later when i get it drawn up. its pretty simple tho

a1m input pot... eliminates needing a pulldown resistor, lets ya choose how hard to drive it

31.7n for the input. yes, the oddball value DOES matter. but you could sub a 33n cap. 4.7n if ya want the treble boost only

100k/100k voltage divider, center to b of q1.

bat 41 between b and c, cathode to c

bias adjust, b10k trimmer/3.3k resistor

output cap 22n chicklet

4148 hard clipper

e connection's a 47r bypassed with a 22u

power supply standard 4001 (c to b+) 22n and 47u cap

try a bc550, bc337, mp256 ge (looks like mn256) mpsa 18... all will sound different. choose what you like for the q

anyways... too many fuzztones already? balderdash...

[iainpunk]

i'm 91.3% convinced that the 4148 hard clipper doesn't do anything.
sounds great tho!

cheers

edit, you might want to try some of the trannies in reverse Beta as well, might sound really cool, might succ ash

[pinkjimiphoton]

oh, it DOES... but ya gotta crank it. this thing sounds best full blast. without it, its too clean. this adds just the right hint of harmonix when ya juice it, bro

[pinkjimiphoton]

verified vero


schem when i get to it

ummmm... try two. i been dicking around with it some,  after realizing i @#$%ed up the resistor for the led... and i smoked a pot lol... one of them nites..

changed the voltage divider in search of more volume to two 1m's which seemed to help marginally

changed the output pot to b500k. its just above unity gain this way. it sounds great, just not loud enough.
sounds best into an already breakin' up amp...
anyways.... this is what's built at the moment, and the vero is good. sorry for @#$%in' it up earlier.





ian, i did try reverse beta, i @#$% with that shit all the time

[iainpunk]

oh, it DOES... but ya gotta crank it. this thing sounds best full blast. without it, its too clean. this adds just the right hint of harmonix when ya juice it, bro

yeah, ofcourse it does, i assumed the Collector-Base diode to be in the other direction.

never mind, haha
cheers

[pinkjimiphoton]

about as close to a schematic as i'm likely to get, too lazy to draw it and scan it

[ManicStrat1982]

Sounds killer Jimi! Thanks!

[pinkjimiphoton]

i'm 91.3% convinced that the 4148 hard clipper doesn't do anything.
sounds great tho!

cheers

edit, you might want to try some of the trannies in reverse Beta as well, might sound really cool, might succ ash

hey bro
just to be sure last nite, i temp snipped the leads on one side of each diode,  they all definitely seem to color the sound a bit.

this circuit is just barely unity gain, so ya gotta really peg it. below full blast its not loud enough to really clip well. but when it does.. its pretty sick, real thick and octave uppy.


i gotta cobble together another gain stage tho i think. only want two knobs on this, so gonna keep the input gain but the output i'm trying to decide if i want it to be able to drive the second stage, or limit it. ahhh... decisions, decisions..

[pinkjimiphoton]

Sounds killer Jimi! Thanks!

why thank ya, sir!

stay tuned. this one may evolve into a few variants

[pinkjimiphoton]

here's the daughterboard i worked up for it.
i didn't draw a schematic cuz its pretty easy to suss this vero, there's no cuts or anything to make it confusing, and you can see where everything basically connect to 4 rails. this goes between the output of the first board and the volume pot. done deal.
still keeps the tone right but adds a bit more nuts.

[pinkjimiphoton]

what's the final thang sound like?

this

[rutabaga bob]

Nice one!  On the project list!

[pinkjimiphoton]

[rutabaga bob]

What are you looking to hit with the two trimmers: a certain voltage, or 'tune by ear'?

[pinkjimiphoton]

tune q1 for the least static when turning up pre,
tune q2 for best tone/volume

[stallik]

Built one up tonight and so far, ended up junking the pots. Guitar volume works instead of the Pre and the post is just hard wired out (no daughterboard). No idea what transistor you're using so I've auditioned what I had laying round and have a couple that sound pretty good. Also had to play a little with some cap values as jimmi's stash is bigger than mine...

It's late so I can't play through a proper amp - that'll have to wait till tomorrow but so far it sounds pretty good

[pinkjimiphoton]

i honestly forget which i ended up going with, but it was like, a 5089 or bc550 or something similar. ge sounds ok, but may be hard to get enough balls.

[pinkjimiphoton]

here's the full gospel on one vero

i'll scan the schem when i get a chance

[stallik]

I'm finding that with the right guitar > this pedal > an old valve amp, this sounds awesome.
Other combinations just OK
The good combination appears to match what Jimmy demo'd. No surprises then...

[pinkjimiphoton]

in the demo, its being played thru a 5 watt hotone solid state marshall thing driving a 12" peavey scorpion

https://www.ebay.com/itm/123950598611?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

no toobz in the equation at all