SANSAMP GT2.... Help me understand it.

[Brian Marshall]

I have been eyeing this schematic for a while, and keep looking at it, but i just dont get it... how does it work.  

It seems to me that it must use opamp clipping, which i have tried really hard to make sound good, and had no luck.

BUT then i looked through the schematic (on tonepad) and the op amps dont really look like they are set up to distort.  Not set for enough gain.

can anyone help me understand it a little better?

general idea, not a complete circuit tracing... i just want to know where the clipping occures?

[Vasiliok]

Yes!
Opamp clipping used in this schematics!

To get good nice sounding opamp clipping you must use original SansAmp ICs - TLC2264 (or dual opamps TLC2262).

SansAmp with TL072 will not sound as original unit!

[Brian Marshall]

ok, that makes a little more sense, because i have done everything to make a tlo72 clip gracefully, and other than a statticy pukey sounding fuzz, i really didnt find much of anything to be useful.  Certainly did not sound like an amp.

brian

[Transmogrifox]

TLC2264-- is that a CMOS op amp?  I have thought about using them to make a distortion...

[Ansil]

it is a fet amplifer.  it rocks  to me it is better than the holy mtoher grail chip 4558 .....   there be a new chip and 2262 is thy name

[Brian Marshall]

i actually dont like the 4558 chips at all except in a tube screamer.  seems really spazzy to me on the low end.

[bwanasonic]

One thing I really like about the GT2 (the tech 21, I'm nowhere near building a DIY version) is the graceful way it goes from clean to full saturation using the guitar volume knob. I no longer use it in my stage setup, but for a long time I used guitar/ GT2/ Dyna-Comp/ Volume pedal/ Tube Amp. With the GT2 set for full-on Santana-esque saturation, I could dial my guitar volume for the amount of clean/ dirty I wanted and use the volume pedal as a final volume control/ manual *noise-gate*. I have never found another current mass-production pedal that pulled this off as well as the GT2. I have been curious how it pulls it off myself. A "Technology Of" article on the sansamp/ GT2 would be a boon to DIY.

Kerry M