BYOC Mouse

[johnny5]

Ever since I played a friends Turbo RAT I have been interested in building one. For simplicities sake, I ordered a kit from BYOC figuring they have done all the tweaking for me. Well, i built it and I think it sounds bad.

Very compressed and has WAY too much MIDS. very nasely and not very usable.

Since then, i checked out that Turbo RAT again, and it sounds WAY better than mine. it is so much more open. The circuits looks almost identicle, I can't figure out why it sounds so much different. Could it be as simple as the LM308 chip?

Couple things i noticed about mine;
1) When the effect is on and i adjust my volume on my guitar, I can hear the frequency response change, almost like a wah. Could this point to a bad conection on the first 1M pull-down resistor?

2) when i pull the cord from the input and leave the effect on, it squells like crazy. the pitch of the squeel can be changed by the gain or tone pot. Again, something weird in the input of the thing.....

any ideas? 

thanks,
Johnny

[Ed G.]

Turbo RAT uses LEDs for clippers. It has more output, less dirt.

[the recluse]

I'm pretty sure there is a saying around here (I can't remember who coin/immortalized it) "If there is a chance you did something, you probably did..."

If this was your first, or one of your first pedals, there is a really good chance you goofed on something.  Not to dis your abilities, but there are lots of mistakes that we all make, and when you're starting out with this stuff some are easier to make than others. 

It sounds like something is faulty in your build, so you probably want to start trying to figure out what it might be.  I think if you had a bad connection on the 1M resistor, you wouldn't be passing signal.  The squealing you refer to could be from a number of things, not the least of which being wires being too long and crossing each other in inopportune places. 

[johnny5]

I'm pretty sure there is a saying around here (I can't remember who coin/immortalized it) "If there is a chance you did something, you probably did..."

If this was your first, or one of your first pedals, there is a really good chance you goofed on something.  Not to dis your abilities, but there are lots of mistakes that we all make, and when you're starting out with this stuff some are easier to make than others. 

It sounds like something is faulty in your build, so you probably want to start trying to figure out what it might be.  I think if you had a bad connection on the 1M resistor, you wouldn't be passing signal.  The squealing you refer to could be from a number of things, not the least of which being wires being too long and crossing each other in inopportune places. 

thanks for the response. I have made somewhere around 10 working pedals thus far. Funny too as i was especially pleased by how well i did the wiring on this one.

I have also build the GGG Red Fuzz which i love and now learn that it is very similar to a RAT. My Red fuzz is also much more open sounding. I'll keep pokin till i find it. Just trying to tap some experts minds.

Thanks