Original DOD 250 Grey Spec layout,and layouts with mods and transfer images

[deadastronaut]

nice to hear a sample of it adrian......more gainy than i thought it would be...

i'd still like to hear some malmsteen riff/licks with it though!....to see/hear its full potential...

anyone?...steve?...

rob.

[Renegadrian]

The samples were recorded without an amp, signal went guitar (strat) -->pedal -->Zoom pedalboard for a touch of reverb -->input of the Creative soundcard and recorded with Audacity on a Kubuntu machine.
You hear 4 sounds because that pedal had the diode switch too, so 2 switches=4 sounds.
As for the diodes, you can clearly hear how the red LEDs add volume and "air" to the sound - my fav. mod to all pedals is to have the clipping choice!!!

[Renegadrian]

Well, I gave it away now...Do you want some original 308 samples?! 

[deadastronaut]

yeah that'd be good..cheers.rob


edit:

@steve.great..look forward to them ....rob.

[Steve Mavronis]

i'd still like to hear some malmsteen riff/licks with it though!....to see/hear its full potential... anyone?...steve?...

I'll trying recording a couple Malmsteen licks soon with my '79 straight 250 gray spec clone. I'm practicing some stuff so the playing isn't too bad or distracting. Working on excerpts from Majestic Blue and some other Yngwie tunes plus some rhythm riffs. Deciding if I should mic my lowly MG4 (new series) Marshall solid state amp (the pedal really does make it sound more tube-like) or directly into my PC using my Line6 Toneport GX interface and Riffworks or Gearbox software. I have Audacity too. Was hoping to get something from Dean Cascione using the twin copy I gave him (he volunteered a donation of $50 to cover parts cost plus shipping) of my clone 250 pedal and his Voodoo tube amp, but nothing yet.

[Brymus]

The samples were recorded without an amp, signal went guitar (strat) -->pedal -->Zoom pedalboard for a touch of reverb -->input of the Creative soundcard and recorded with Audacity on a Kubuntu machine.
You hear 4 sounds because that pedal had the diode switch too, so 2 switches=4 sounds.
As for the diodes, you can clearly hear how the red LEDs add volume and "air" to the sound - my fav. mod to all pedals is to have the clipping choice!!!

Hey thats awesome,thanks for sharing !!!
Especially since I posted layouts with clipping options ,its especially nice to have some clips of it in action.

I agree I like the LED clips better too 
What I really liked was the blind comparison,I had no idea the sound change was from clipping changes....

I couldnt even do any Malmstien licks (not that I would want to post at least) ,so if you guys can ,then super !!

Steve I think which ever sounds better to you,or what shows the pedals sound the best is what you should use.
It will probably color the input of the MG series amp some,but not everyone has a tube amp so this could be good as a reference for its non tube use.
IMO the pedals sound as used by Malmstien is also due to the tube amp breaking up under the high level of voltage swing from the pedal.
RG has written articles about this (Rangmaster article,applies here too) and how it effects the triode when being subjected to such a high level of voltage swing on the amps input.

[Steve Mavronis]

Yeah nothing would be better than to use an overdrive on a tube amp but a gray spec 250 definitely sounds better than a YJM308 on my solid state. Very surprising to me. BTW, the new MG4 series amps that came out last year are worlds apart from the old MG amps. I know because I had one of the older series too! Just watch the Rob Chappers video demo of the new MG15FX which convinced me to try one again. It's supposed to be using analog circuitry instead of digital for the tube amp emulation. I guess the extra effects are the only digital part. My other solid state is a Roland Cube 20X and the new MG series 4 sounds better than the Cube (it also sounds better than my old MG)  which I don't use any more. Me saying that won't change the minds of MG skeptics. Back to topic, I don't know why Yngwie choose to alter the YJM308 specs slightly from true gray spec giving it a higher treble output. I guess it sounds good on the amps he uses though.

[Joe Hart]

Back to topic, I don't know why Yngwie choose to alter the YJM308 specs slightly from true gray spec giving it a higher treble output. I guess it sounds good on the amps he uses though.

I would say that "playing loud" has taken a toll on his hearing. That and age can cause the high frequencies to start to diminish. Also, his new Duncan pickups are a little "gainier" and the neck pickup is a bit thinner/trebley. But he's still pretty good, I think.
-Joe Hart

[zombiwoof]

Yeah nothing would be better than to use an overdrive on a tube amp but a gray spec 250 definitely sounds better than a YJM308 on my solid state. Very surprising to me. BTW, the new MG4 series amps that came out last year are worlds apart from the old MG amps. I know because I had one of the older series too! Just watch the Rob Chappers video demo of the new MG15FX which convinced me to try one again. It's supposed to be using analog circuitry instead of digital for the tube amp emulation. I guess the extra effects are the only digital part. My other solid state is a Roland Cube 20X and the new MG series 4 sounds better than the Cube (it also sounds better than my old MG)  which I don't use any more. Me saying that won't change the minds of MG skeptics. Back to topic, I don't know why Yngwie choose to alter the YJM308 specs slightly from true gray spec giving it a higher treble output. I guess it sounds good on the amps he uses though.

The reason the YJM 308 is altered from the gray spec is that DOD was using the 4558 chip instead of the original 741 (and the same board as the Yellow reissue), so they just tried to get it to sound like his old pedal by tuning those components instead of doing a true reissue.  That's why they have the 25pf cap on there to try to make the higher fidelity 4558 sound more like the 741.  As for the input cap difference, that also is probably because the original .01uf value didn't sound right with the 4558 (and didn't sound like his old 250), so they changed it to .001uf.  They actually were using Yngvie's old 250 as a reference point for the sound of the YJM308.   I don't know why they didn't actually try to do a true reissue, in my mind that would have been a better solution, but by doing that they would be admitting that the "reissue" they already had out (yellow 250) wasn't correct.

It turns out the the 308 doesn't actually sound like the gray 250's, but probably it sounds like his at the setting he always uses, and that was good enough for him.

Al

[Steve Mavronis]

I updated my Excel spreadsheet (since I got details from a 1982 Yellow 250 Overdrive) comparing components between various DOD 250 Overdrive versions. Does anyone wish to make corrections or add the missing info to this? The blank values are un-verified right now until we get more info:

[zombiwoof]

This brings up a question.  A guy on Ebay was recently selling a reissue yellow 250 from the 90's that he said was made in the U.S., not China.  Did DOD do a run of the reissues in the U.S. before the Chinese production?.  I know it's possible, but I've never heard of them.  I also know that Digitech did something like this with some pedals like the Bad Monkey, there was an initial run of U.S.-made pedals, then production went to China.  I have a U.S.-made Bad Monkey myself.  So has anyone heard of this American reissue 250 from the 90's?.

Al

[Brymus]

OK then it looks like the only differences are the IC's and pot tapers.
Maybe the input resistors. And the 100r resistor.
I was also under the impression some years had 4.7uf electro and some had 10uf electros ,
any idea what years had the different values? Or is this not true ?

[Steve Mavronis]

Correction notification for anything in error is welcome and I'll update the spreadsheet graphic accordingly.

Here's a schematic graphic I updated for a 1982 Yellow DOD 250 Overdrive that I'll add in this topic while I'm here:

[Steve Mavronis]

A friend over on TGP sent me these nice shots of the 1976 (or 1977) gray DOD 250 he has! The chip says 76 so it is at least that year or later and it's missing the extra cap and no DC jack:

[rhandy gaye]

hi, i haven't followed this thread but i noticed the blue electrolytic in pics above is 6.3v 22uF. 

[Renegadrian]

guess it's 63 and not 6.3 - the pic is not so clear tho'

[Chrisq206]

Could you show me how you wired the input cap switch? I also plan on putting in a diode switch. think they sound great w/ no diodes too.

By the way 308's are only $30 delivered on Amazon. I bought three. I'm going to put the switches in them, give two away to friends for Christmas and keep one.

[Steve Mavronis]

That reminds me I should either buy another cheap YJM308 to to a quick mod with a dual 741 chip and a couple cap change plus add an LED, or just mod the one I already have. I was debating keeping that stock in case it's collectable 10 or 20 years from now.

[Quackzed]

jerry garcia used an mxr dist + for leads/solos for most of his career. ?!? yep. script logo with germanium diodes i believe.
basically a dod od250 with different bias resistors... maybee a few other differences?
just thought that was odd... yngwie/jerry could you find 2 guitarists who are more different...

[roseblood11]

Both pedals sound a bit different. And maybe they have used them in different ways: With Ge-diodes you get more distortion and less output level, so I guess that Garcia used the pedal to produce a lot of distortion itself. Malmsteen seems to use it mainly as a dirty booster. And off course, the rest of their equipment, fingers, playing style etc is different.