Phattening things

[Craiz]

Hello all.


So, for various reasons, I have access to only one guitar for quite some time (a few years.) Fortunatly, I get to enjoy my very nice teisco. It's a single coil guitar, and really is the best feeling guitar I own. I love it.  Modding it is out of the question, it's about 40 years old and I'm doing my best to keep it stock.

Now. I play some fairly heavy music, with lots of fuzz (blues-y, garage-y rock, stoner rock, that sort of thing.) Sometimes singles don't give me that 'oomph' that I need to really push a few of my pedals. So, on to boosters! I played a Fat Boost and wasn't particularly impressed. The Ibanez BB-9 is almost exactly what I'm looking for - big bottom end, nice push to what's after it, and not too much break up. However, I always prefer to build rather than buy.

So, what pedals/circuits/etc do you guys recommend that'll give that little bit of humbucker-esque 'oomph' to my single coils, help me push my fuzzes?
Thanks.

[Earthscum]

Check this out: http://www.muzique.com/lab/pickups.htm

IMHO, the transformer performs a little hotter than what I would consider and "average" humbucker, but it definitely is worth considering, IMO.

[Craiz]

Looks interesting, thanks. Seems like it would give more of a high mid spike/treble drop-off rather than a low/low-mid spike and treble drop-off. Could be promising, though.

[Earthscum]

The updated version at the bottom is what I found most useful. I just used a 220k to ground instead of a pot and kept the tone control. I gave it to a buddy to try and haven't seen it since. 

BTW... it wasn't all that great for my bass, as I had originally intended it for... it made it sound like I had ultra thick strings on a guitar, but it DID work just fine with my DeanZ, which is detuned to Db (heavy gauge strings). YMMV, but it really is a simple solution, and no battery required. Also, the guy I lent mine to ran it after his Zen/Wah on his pedalboard to simulate a super long cable to his Boogie (guess who he's a fan of). If it doesn't quite do it for you, there are definitely other places where it can be of great service in your signal chain.

You may try something simple like a booster->BMP tonestack->buffer, which could be implemented with about any dual opamp. This would enable you to play around with Duncan's Tone Stack Calculator to get the response you like. Or, you could stick just about any tone control in there, instead. Check out Duncan's (freeware) and play... it might give you some ideas.

[Craiz]

Hm....could work. I'll give it a shot. I DO have a bunch of tonestack options knocking around on PDF's....Any ideas on a booster that already favors the lows a tad?


And I want the DTSC badly, but....Mac  

[Earthscum]

....Mac  

I'm... sorry. (lol... not as sorry as I would be if you ran Windows... I can't even apologize for that! I'm jaded on Windows, and I used to be a WinGuru! lol).

Have you ever looked into Ubuntu? Excellent OS, in my experience, it runs perfectly fine in dual boot. All sorts of free programs that are all in a repository, not much of a learning curve... just gotta ditch typical "Mac" or "Windows" habits (like shortcuts, although you can customize Ubuntu to look and run nearly identical to your existing Mac OS).

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DualBoot/MacOSX

[aron]

Macintosh? Run VirtualBox. It's free but you need windows.

Check out the Purple Peaker. I love this circuit:

http://www.tonepad.com/project.asp?id=48

[Craiz]

Thanks! But damn...the tonepad layout isn't opening, and the homewrecker schem is modified. Hrm. Anyone happen to have the original saved somewhere?


And VirtualBox looks interesting, thanks. I'll see if I have any old copies of windows lying around somewhere...

[Earthscum]

Macintosh? Run VirtualBox. It's free but you need windows.

Reminded me that is available on Ubuntu (Linux)... then it dawned on me, you CAN run WINE on OSX! DTSC runs great on WINE (although, a previous version I had would throw a fit about closing without saving, but newer version runs smooth).

http://www.davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/wine-mac/

[IvIark]

I'm definitely more a humbucker guy because of the type of music I play too, but I do have a strat that I like to play sometimes for a change, but it's mostly useless for my usual style.  I'd tried loads of effects to fatten things up just to make it a bit more versatile but it was still missing too much and so it didn't work for me.  Then I built a Honey Bee and it may not do the trick for everyone, but for me that pedal is fantastic for fattening up single coils.  The Nature control allows me to dial it in perfectly, so if you haven't used one I'd strongly suggest trying it.

[Craiz]

So I had an idea...why not kill two birds with one stone, and satisfy my need for an OD as well?


What are people's thought on the Colorsound Overdriver as both a nice OD (which I know it is), but also as a fat-boost fuzz-pusher kinda thing?

[artifus]

breadboard is your friend

[Craiz]

Naturally - I just always prefer to research something thoroughly before committing to a specific project. Any decisions I can make without breaking out parts first is a good thing in my book.

[artifus]

where's the fun in that?  

think of the things you'll learn or may discover along the way.

[Craiz]

where's the fun in that?  

think of the things you'll learn or may discover along the way.

Oh, naturally   

But this isn;t me trying out some new idea or summat like that...I'm looking for something rather specific. Usually I never mind exploring some new circuit - but I find I get the best results from that when I'm not trying to accomplish anything in particular.