pig problems..

[vdm]

hey everyone,

finally the pig makes some sound which is great (i had the power and signal leads mixed up on the sockets), but the sound im getting is woeful.

i have the trannies socketed and ive tried it with and without the piggy trannies, seeming to make a difference but still horrible either way.

the sound is really wooly and sounds like when i tried to overdrive my SS amp with IC distortion circuit and all it is, is horrible gated sound, as if the IC refuses to deal with that big a signal - though this time there's no opamp:?

on top of this the gain pot seems to change the gain and sound a little bit, though minumum is still LOTS of gain, and max seems to choke it up even more. and the volume pot is very strange as well, i am using a 500k linear instead of audio, just cuz i had it lying round, but when the volume is set to zero the signal still passes through, and max volume setting is only slightly louder than minimum, both of which are around unity level.

im using pn100's as was suggested, so i'll go try swapping them for some bc549c's and i'll try a different volume pot and see how that goes.

any suggestions as to what i could have done wrong are welcome, and also turning the trimpot's does change the sound, but i still cant seem to find any nice tone there either.

thanks guys,
trent

[petemoore]

Take your Base Collector and Emitter [E B and C] voltage readings from ground.
 Post them here.
 Use the audio probe method and see what you can find out.

[vdm]

well ive fixed the volume pot problem - i think the pot was wrecked so i replaced it. the gain pot now does a lot more, but still minimum is quite high and max is only a lil bit more.

pete, i dont have a voltmeter so i can't measure voltages, but changing trannies to bc549c's and 2n3904's seemed to make a big difference (after i figured out the pinouts were opposite), but im still getting that woofy too-overdriven sound, even though the signal isnt high gain. it sounds like something is limiting the gain of the trannies way too much. anyone know which components specifically control the max gain of the trannies?

ill have a go with the audio probe and see what im getting after the first transistor stage, and hopefully that will help a bit.

trent

[petemoore]

For the record, I think we're talking about a FF...Miss Piggy.
 I use trimpot for Q2 [FF] collector resistors. No DMM...a trimpot would indeed be a good idea there.
 The DMM your best friend ... for helping you define troubles with circuits.

[smoguzbenjamin]

Absolutely! If you're going to do anything with electronics, one of your first purchases should be a DMM!