disturbing distortion sound! help!!!

[g.e.o]

hello again. i just finished the rest of my projects and i have a question. my mxr dist+, big muff (stock) and rat (all made from tonepad's layouts) have a disturbing sound from middle to high gain. sound like a cheap distortion. that sound is a "tzzzzz" in the distortion sound which apart from that is great. i have already read the "distortion cookin" article and several other about changing my distortion but 1st wanted to make sure some things listed above.

1. do my projects sound like that anyway and its not something that i need to change? (havent played with any of the original ones)

2. if not, changing the opamp and transistors with others (same pinout etc.) will make it sound better?

3. if u made any of these projects do they sound like that as well?

thanx for ur time and sorry that i cant explain the sound i hear in a better way. also its not a hum or something like that. it's like it just comes from inside the distortion sound. hope u'll get what i mean.

thanx a lot in advance.
george

[burnt fingers]

I'm not sure I follow your description of the problem.  could you post some sound clips.

My first thought is that if it happens with three different circuits then it may be somehting other than the curcuits such as the amp, guitar, cable.   Also, try them one at a time.  Start with the gain low and see if you hear the noise you are describing.  check you cables and so forth.

Scott

[Somicide]

seems like an EQ issue to me.  Set your EQ flat on your amp, and play with them to get a smoother tone.  Or use an EQ pedal.  Sounds like a High-Mid issue.

[captntasty]

I can't give you any info on a fix but I can confirm that you're not hearing things.  I have a few effects and an amplifier that have that (what I call secondary distortion or fizzle) same symptom.  I always chalked it up to a bum component and decided to live with it.  I eagerly await some sort of definitive answer to your question from the super-knowledgable members.

[GibsonGM]

I have the same problem, g.e.o....but not with just DIY effects.  My amp distortion seems 'tinny' too...really high overtones related to the upper mids.  When I kill it with EQ, I lose my sustain and the 'splash' of a really in-your-face distortion. 

I think it's my guitar, which is old, mahogany, has a Dimarzio PAF hot pickup, and has the bridge mounted a little wrong so it's transmitting lots of highs.  Have you questioned it being your axe, and tried another?

Like the Capn' says, I'm eagerly awaiting some more info on this, LOL.

[Somicide]

I used to get this on my recordings (why I suggested the EQ).  I was boosting mids on my mixer, but the mid control doesn't have a sweep knob, only boost/cut.  It was like there was one "tone" that would be present on any note I played, one irritating frequency.  I no longer EQ with my mixer, and also actually know how to position a mic now ^_^.  Much better.

Try a different Amp, it can make a huge difference on how your builds sound.

[g.e.o]

1st of all i wanna thank everybody for the replies. here go.

i have 2 amps. a marshall valvestate 15R and a fender FM212R. on the marshall the disturbing sound is lots less and i can fairly say it doesnt exist. so no cable or guitar problem. i come to the conclusion its the amp that let it be shown coz its very bright and extremely clean and i guess it "doesnt like" very heavy dist pedals.

i recorded samples from my pedals to the point where its doin the "noise" and not necesserely to the max drive setting. the fender amp's EQ is set flat and recorded line coz couldnt with a mic(night time here). quality of the line is crap but still u can get the meaning. also i think it sounds lots more disturbing when hearing it directly from my amp. the speakers make it show more.

i also recorded a sample of my ts808 clone at max drive so u can compare that with the others as it comes for my guitar sound and amps "reactions".

i used the neck(single coil) to record the samples.

hope i'll help u understand and it also may be my ears being used to nice tube like sounds since am playing the blues and makes me think there's something wrong. let me know about that.

r there any samples of these pedals(original ones) that i could listen to and compare?

thanx a lot. here r the sample links

http://www.diystompboxes.com/DIYFiles/up/BM.mp3
http://www.diystompboxes.com/DIYFiles/up/mxr.mp3
http://www.diystompboxes.com/DIYFiles/up/rat.mp3
http://www.diystompboxes.com/DIYFiles/up/ts808.mp3

[ashcat_lt]

the samples definitely help, and confirm my initial suspicions.  This is what you get when you play solid state fuzz boxes through solid state amps.  I think it's the difference between even and odd harmonics or something like that. 

Your valvestate sounds better because it's a hybrid.  If I'm not mistaken it has a tube preamp and a solid state power amp.  That power amp is supposedly designed to emulate the response of a tube based power amp. 
You wouldn't notice this so much if you were plugging it into a pure tube amp.  Even a good simulator, like a sansamp, would give you better results. 

EQ really won't help much, and will probably end up destroying the part of the sound that you like before it fixes the part you don't.

[darron]

are you using a regulated power supply or batteries? ive had a rat do what you were saying when i used a non-regulated power supply.

[g.e.o]

i use batteries but it shouldnt be a problem i guess. i really start thinkin its just the sound of the pedals and theres nothin i can do. it would really help if i could find some original samples of big muff, rat and dist+ to compare with my clones. i will try to use regulated power supply though and see what happens.

[darron]

i use batteries but it shouldnt be a problem i guess. i really start thinkin its just the sound of the pedals and theres nothin i can do. it would really help if i could find some original samples of big muff, rat and dist+ to compare with my clones. i will try to use regulated power supply though and see what happens.

batteries are the best i find. power supply won't help. i only sugegsted that since i'd expect to hear that sort of thing only if you were using an unregulated power supply

[g.e.o]

no. i only use batteries for now and whenever i wanna test something. did u hear the rat sample? does it sounds like yours? imade no modifications in mine. if u have something good in mind pls let me know.

[darron]

yeah. i had a listen. the rat was a band member's. originally he was using an unregulated power supply and it sounded decent. he used it on stage for a few years. then i modded it with a bright blue LED and it sounded crap! well, that's not true. it sounded as excelent as ever but had some annoying tone and static. i was looking for shorted wires, poor soldering etc. to explain how just installing an LED could do this.

i made him an adaptor to run the rat off his boss power supply and it went away. i tried the old one then it came back. though... i never tried it on battery, but it doubt that's your problem since you said you aren't using an unregulated power supply.

[petemoore]

  I call that 'leaky high pressure pipe' sound...it's like if the 'pressure' or amount of drive exceeds a certain amount on the input of an amp, 'side splashing' or 'pinhole leak' sounds emerge. Like there's a leak, or some crud in the 'soundpipe'...
 I got rid of alot of it by placing a tube in front of my LM386 amp.
 

[NoFi]

Those sound samples definitly dont sound right to me.
Actually they sound as if the op amps were overloaded in some way or if some feedback was applied from the output to the input or somewhere in the circuit, quite synthy and shrieky. Strange.
If its not the pedals, then maybe the input stage of the amp has something wrong.
I had those type of sounds come out of my very first amp (a ten watt marshall) after fiddling with the spealer and connecting the speaker output to a poweramp lol.

[GibsonGM]

Wow, g.e.o., my condolences!  Those sound rotten, but I know you've flatlined the EQ, too.  My high mid issue isn't that bad, but it's still there.  I'm wondering if, like NoFi suggests, something might be loading down the front end of the amp.  Maybe a buffer before the amp, or just after your guitar, would help things by matching the ouput of the guitar to the amp input impedance.

My 'kill the front row' shred is from my axe.  Kind of like Jimi at Monterrey, think of Wild Thing, that sort of high crunch.  I'd love to get the definitive answer to this one!!   

[g.e.o]

1st thanx a lot for once more and here we go.

1. the amp is brand new and have tested many other pedals on it and always sounded perfect. so i dont think its the amp.

2. the buffer thing between the pedal and the amp might be possible to help but can anyone tell me how to do it?

3. am sure there's nothing wrong in the built of the circuits. didnt do any mods as well.

4. i kinda think pete's right. i also have the sence that something's "overloaded".

5. i used the pedals all alone. no other in front or after each one. just to help u understand its only the guitar, pedal and amp connected.

6. i will try to get my clones to a guitar shop and compare them to the originals with my guitar and see what happens. i'll try to use the same amp as well if they got it.

7. my marshall is not having any tubes and i find it wierd that it doesnt reduce that "sound" that my fender amp does. i expected and because its only 15W to be the one which was going to give me bad samples but hell no! its great. could it just be the fender coz its too bright for that kind of stuff?

8. also the samples i uploaded are worse as it comes for the quality coz as i posted before are recorded from the line exit of my amp and believe me, Fender sucks at this point. but at the same time makes that "noise" less recognizable coz it kinda fits the quality i get from the line exit.

9. just like GibsonGm i would really really love to get an answer to this one! crap. it took away all the happiness of builting these pedals.

thanx for ur time people! really appreciate it! Peace!

[g.e.o]

also can somebody tell me how to stop the click sound from the switch? is there a mod or something like that. every time i turn off my pedals it makes it and pissing me off! cheers!

[g.e.o]

hey people. i pm petemoore about this but would like ur knowledge as well. here's what i found out. when i plug the pedal all on its own in my amps input and the volume is to 0 i can still hear the sound of my guitar. only with the pedals i said i have the disturbing sound problem. i tried connecting it to my effect loop in/out ant it goes crazy and makes the "microphone noise" i mean the noise it does when in max volume u place ur guitar close to the amp. hope u know what i mean. what the hell is this? what should i do? thanx in advance.

[petemoore]

 Grains of salt ok, cause I'm not there...
  The samples I can play now, they don't sound too terribly 'off' or wierd to me.
  When I think my pedals are wired and working right, I subject them to some of the type of scrutiny described in this thread:
  DEBUGGING - What to do when it doesn't work
  Starting with one pedal at a time, and testing voltages...if near or at/below unity maybe audio probe, but the voltages will 'tell the tales...from a birdseye view'.
  If all the caps are placed, and the voltages jibe with operational standards, really the only next test is to try different 'stuff'...because the pedal is almost certainly working properly...audio probe comparisons may be of help too, but they can be 'viewpointy' and hard to translate to exact definition by words...in general a gain stage's output set high should be able to amplify it's input, tone controls 'suck signal', buffers are ~1/1 input to output level...
  One thing to try is volume up on amp, down on effect and vice versa, perhaps turn the treble down on the effect...
  depending on everything exept the pedal, any 1 pedal will/may sound exactly a whole lot different w/ exact same settings.