Need a Recommendation

[niggez]

I play a Standard Strat with single coils into a Fender Hot Rod. I love the onboard drive channel, but now I'm in search for an alternative distortion in a pedal. I owned the boss ds-2 for a while but i didnt like the turbo mode, so i sold it. I found the normal mode of that one useful, but sold it because i got almost full retail price for it.
Now I#ve breadboarded the ds-1 and the bluesbreaker, but they werent satisfying my taste.
I am trying to find a pedal thats a bit more "detailed" than the onboard drive channel of my amp, because this one is a bit "smoother" in my opinion. Something that lets me add a bit of crunch, more aggressive, but doesnt make the sound dirty. Theres no need for extreme amounts of gain, for my purpose. I would be thankful for suggestions, because although i enjoy breadboarding, i just want to be sure to pick something that -might- be useful once its done 

[Michael Allen]

blue magic or a minibooster

[demonstar]

AMZ MOSFET booster is great. But I've found it works better with some amps and guitars than others. Really great for pushing my marshall DSL100. It pushes it anywhere up to a really saturated silky smooth sparkling overdrive.

Don't work anywhere near as good on a fender princeton if i remember right when I tried it. I think it just gels well with the valves and fits well with the tone I was after from my marshall.

Maybe breadboard it and see how it works for you.

[niggez]

ok I will try these out, although your description "silky smooth" seems to be similar to what i have right now, for which i need an alternative. But I will try it nonetheless

[Dragonfly]

CRUNCH BOX

[niggez]

Thanks for that one. I'll breadboard the crunchbox first.

[petemoore]

  Here's suggestions
  Build your box, try not to drill all too many holes in it or consider it a 'scratch box', used for getting the circuit off the ground...put switch and jacks so circuit board swaps can be made.
  The board put in it are relatively inexp., try a Jfet and a Bipolar...make these boards moddable...so as emitter R/C can be a default R and smaller values...make emitter resistor large as default R with long legs above board, then you can tack a pot or other resistors parallel to it to alter gain, the first stage like this, a boost, has a lot to do with what is multiplied...what sound it makes when pushing a clipping stage or clipping stages.
  so now you have a boost or two to get signal amplitude to a level where various diodes, Jfet, Bipolar, CMOS, mosfet, Mu amp or whatever else you choose can clip it back down some.
  Get something on the breadboard and try the booster sound, booster through breadboarded circuit sound, sound of both with booster's source or emitter R/C to ground altering gain/frequency response...splice a cap in series with signal path, easily done using an offboard wire.
  If you throw something together in a box you may like it. If you take the time to choose and tweek and then re-choose, still...making the circuits ~accessible after boxing them up is always nice.

[demonstar]

ok I will try these out, although your description "silky smooth" seems to be similar to what i have right now, for which i need an alternative. But I will try it nonetheless

Cool! I should have explained better but when choosing the words silky smooth it was compared to that harsh crunch sound usually associated with transisors (the almost fuzzy kinda crunch on cheap practice amps)

Anyway see what you think.

[niggez]

hmmmm...still no winner among these... 
Thanks for all the suggestions, and your pm petemoore!
I found a schematic of the ds-2 and am thinking about cloning it withouth electronic bypass switching and without the turbo mode. After all, it satisfied my needs in the normal mode, giving me a good alternative to my amps distortion. Just the right amount of crunch i found to sound good...

It scares me off though, because its so over-boss-complicated. And I am having trouble identifying which parts exactly i can leave out....
If one of you could take a look at this i would be very greatful. I crossed out parts in red which i think i DONT need, and blue lines are jumpers. I'm not sure about the fets that are part of the connection to the turbo mode.. could i simply jumper them? or are they supposed to be "open" when turbo mode is deactivated?

I would probably also swap out the tone control for something simpler than this.

If this image is too small to read, heres where its from: http://www.freeinfosociety.com/electronics/schemview.php?id=132

[niggez]

If i swap out the tonestack for something simpler i could probably manage to breadboard it Can someone comment on the fets? would i jumper them s/d? or should they be left open? (open as in, no connection, no signal passing through them...)