Dr Boogey or Boogeyman?

[Electric_Death]

Not sure what the major differences are between these pedals.
Can anyone enlighten me and possibly suggest which is a more favored build by the lead metal guitarist?

Thanks guys.

[John Lyons]

The Boogey man had issues as far as I remember.
The DB has been built by many many people here
and is completely worked out.

John

[oldrocker]

I can't comment on the Boogey man but I just breadboarded a Dr.Boogey and this pedal rocks.  I also have the BSIAB2 breadboarded, trying check them both out at the same time.  Both are awesome designs and it wouldn't be hard to make either pedal a decent metal stompbox.

[DUY1337GUITAR]

DR BOOGEY!!!

My friends and I are happy with this thing.  On my friend's epiphone LP with active EMGs, they sound close to a high gain brown sound when you have all knobs at 12 o' clock, but you can also get awesome lead sounds and chug.  The problem about this stompbox is that it's very high gain and can have lots of noise without a properly regulated power supply.  I use a battery because I don't have a good power supply. 

Here's a video we recorded yesterday.  Skip the first 3 minutes to skip to the DR Boogey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tLM8SNXHwM&feature=player_profilepage

[Electric_Death]

I just bought the PCB from John Lyons.
I'm going to attempt to incorporate it into a preamp for a home brew "boutique" type amp,

Has anyone used an overdrive in front of this pedal so it's gain can be set low and the noise issues likely circumvented?

[DUY1337GUITAR]

I know that a JFET buffer really cuts down the noise.  On my guitar, the buffer is always on so I didn't notice.  But on my friend's guitar, I installed a switch to turn the buffer on/off.  When he played through my Dr. Boogey it was humming and screeching until he switched the buffer on.  My other friend has active pickups which already has a preamp, so that didn't cause noise either.

[Electric_Death]

Then there IS a use for the jfet buffer.
I built a couple some years ago and as far as gain increase is concerned, was completely unimpressed but did notice the noise reduction. I switched to the LM386 as an "active" circuit but it is useless for pinch harmonics-it bleeds off too many harmonic frequencies so I installed it in my bass-great upgrade and it's been on the same battery for more years than I can count now.

My high gain rigs however have no noise due to so much modding and fine tuning other than the grounding buzz of the pickups.
I don't recall, do the buffers eliminate grounding buzz?

BTW guys, I heard a few Boogeyman pedals on youtube and must say, it seemed to sound and perform better than the Dr Boogey.
At the same time, DUY's Dr Boogey sounds great. Your tone controls actually make drastic changes in tone where as most builds I heard, they did very little.
Reminds me of a lot of tone stacks I've built and ended up eliminating from my circuits as their influence was so very minimal.

[slideman82]

I know that a JFET buffer really cuts down the noise.  On my guitar, the buffer is always on so I didn't notice.  But on my friend's guitar, I installed a switch to turn the buffer on/off.  When he played through my Dr. Boogey it was humming and screeching until he switched the buffer on.  My other friend has active pickups which already has a preamp, so that didn't cause noise either.

You mean a Jfet buffer before the Dr B?

[DUY1337GUITAR]

Then there IS a use for the jfet buffer.
I built a couple some years ago and as far as gain increase is concerned, was completely unimpressed but did notice the noise reduction. I switched to the LM386 as an "active" circuit but it is useless for pinch harmonics-it bleeds off too many harmonic frequencies so I installed it in my bass-great upgrade and it's been on the same battery for more years than I can count now.

My high gain rigs however have no noise due to so much modding and fine tuning other than the grounding buzz of the pickups.
I don't recall, do the buffers eliminate grounding buzz?

BTW guys, I heard a few Boogeyman pedals on youtube and must say, it seemed to sound and perform better than the Dr Boogey.
At the same time, DUY's Dr Boogey sounds great. Your tone controls actually make drastic changes in tone where as most builds I heard, they did very little.
Reminds me of a lot of tone stacks I've built and ended up eliminating from my circuits as their influence was so very minimal.

Oh you watched the video? thanks
I was also unimpressed by the buffer, but I guess I have a use for it now.  Not sure if it reduces ground noise from pickups though.
I've never heard the boogeyman before and I'm getting interested, but I'm planning on making a second Dr. Boogey and maybe star-grounding it.  Either Jerin is buying it or I'm just going to sell by advertising to my subscribers.

ok, time to check out the boogeyman
hope your project goes well

[Electric_Death]

Oh you watched the video? thanks

I'm that Deth guy from youtube.

Sounds like to me you're making the most common mistake with gain stages everyone seems to make, even veteran stomp box builders.
You want a little bit of distorted gain with a lot of CLEAN gain in front of your distortion. This is why active pickup systems are so popular but there's really no magic to them, they just add an additional clean gain stage and it performs exceptionally well because it's directly in the guitar eliminating the resistance of a long cable. I have owned easily a dozen commercial pedals, built a half dozen but ultimately got the best performance out of a simple dual op amp based overdrive I designed from scratch.

It produces very little distortion but a lot of clean gain with very specific clipping and frequency amplification...and contrary to belief, you can overdrive an op amp and have it sound just fine.
My amp's distortion is never past 3, generally kept on just under 2 and my pedal circuit is about 20% output on both gain stages of the dual op amp but I get mind shredding response, sustain and tone without the signal being heavily clipped though it sounds and behaves as though it is. Basically you're just sending a hard clipping circuit a very hot clean signal.
Something like AMZ's Mini Booster in front of the Dr Boogey so you can set it's distortion very low should eliminate your noise troubles and let you use it as a preamp type circuit, rather than a distortion pedal.
As is, my rig produces almost no noise beyond grounding buzz and even that is pretty insignificant levels.

[oldrocker]

When it comes to which pedal is better I would take into consideration how the Boogeyman sound clips were made.  I'm not saying that the Boogeyman isn't better since I've never heard one.  There's is always going to be a got to have sound clip of  a pedal that makes you say to yourself “That's it!  That's the tone I've been searching for.”  But I can't tell how many times after bread boarding a pedal I realized it didn't sound as good and my rig wasn't right for it.  I'm only saying don't scrap a pedal for another because as I have learned every distortion is slightly or drastically different.  As your taste change or even musical styles change you may say dang I wish I still had that pedal it would've been perfect.  Don't  set the Dr. B aside just yet.  On that note is there an available schem for the Boogeyman?

[Harry Manback]

OK there is a chance this might be a really stupid question, but

can anybody verify the dimensions of Bucksear's PCB for the Boogeyman? the one that can be found here:

http://www.4thlevelmedia.com/stompboxes.html

i've opened it with several drawing applications and it's current dimensions are 11.11 x 5.40 cm? Is that correct?

thanks in advance

[Bucksears]

Sorry, meant to reply to your e-mail - just been busy.

Going by Photoshop, the dimensions of the PCB are:
2.8"(w) x 1.36" (h)
or
7.11cm (w) x 3.45cm (h)

[Harry Manback]

Sorry, meant to reply to your e-mail - just been busy.

Going by Photoshop, the dimensions of the PCB are:
2.8"(w) x 1.36" (h)
or
7.11cm (w) x 3.45cm (h)

no worries Buck, thanks a million  

[Harry Manback]

ok one more question:

Can anybody please verify the way pots are connected to the PCB? Is the parts layout image showing the back side of the pots?

I connected all of them as if it was the back side and the Master Volume pot would mute when turned fully clock-wise so i switched the wires on lugs 1 and 3 and it seems to work now. The other pots (Gain and Pre-Vol.) seem to work normally as is, though the tonestack (Mid, Bass, Treble) isn't very responsive.

thanks in advance

[boogietube]

There's an improved layout (forum suggestions that have been implemented) here in a PDF...

http://gaussmarkov.net/wordpress/circuits/dr-boogey/

[Harry Manback]

There's an improved layout (forum suggestions that have been implemented) here in a PDF...

http://gaussmarkov.net/wordpress/circuits/dr-boogey/

that's the Dr.Boogey, i'm building the Boogeyman 

http://www.4thlevelmedia.com/BoogeymanPCB.bmp
http://www.4thlevelmedia.com/BoogeymanPartsLayout.jpg

[slideman82]

Oh, did I mentioned my SS amp has a Dr Boogey and a Boogeyman as dirty and clean (really crunchy when cranked!) as preamps, with 24V supply? It has defeated some tube amps in tone therms... even a JCM600. Although Dr channel is a bit noise, that's why I was interested on remove that noise at high gain.

Dr Boogey sound awsome with 9V, you should try different transistor combination, and worked better for me without tonestack.

[Harry Manback]

Oh, did I mentioned my SS amp has a Dr Boogey and a Boogeyman as dirty and clean (really crunchy when cranked!) as preamps, with 24V supply? It has defeated some tube amps in tone therms... even a JCM600. Although Dr channel is a bit noise, that's why I was interested on remove that noise at high gain.

Dr Boogey sound awsome with 9V, you should try different transistor combination, and worked better for me without tonestack.

oh so you've successfully built a Boogeyman then  
any comment on the orientation of the pot lugs on this image?
http://www.4thlevelmedia.com/BoogeymanPartsLayout.jpg

from left to right is it 1-2-3 or 3-2-1?

[slideman82]

It's 3 2 1! But I made my own PCB, and placed pots directly to it. It's my amp's preamp!

I made it using one schematic around there, the same configuration as a MKI preamp, switcheable first stage, then Fender style 3 (stages).