I built this lil fella and it works, just it's a little weak and the octave isn't all that strong. It's not a terrible sound, but volumewise it is slightly above unity when fully on.
I had a play around, you get a slightly more pronounced octave if you use some tp88 NPNs instead of the 3904.
Also, cos I had one lying around, I chained a SHO circuit Veri in front of the circuit and that helped with volume.
If you put the SHO after the circuit, the octave starts to break up and the sound turns into a subtle ring mod.
Which was pretty cool. Not really to my taste, but was a fun way to kill a few hours on a Saturday.
Cheers! Thanks for verifying! Yeah, even the product description says that it is not a great pedal on its own, it is intended to be stacked with other dirtboxes. One thing to try out to get a more pronounced octave would be to try a matched set of transistors for Q2 and Q3? Not sure if it works but it is worth a shot.
Hey there Fuzzhead :)
ReplyDeleteI built this lil fella and it works, just it's a little weak and the octave isn't all that strong. It's not a terrible sound, but volumewise it is slightly above unity when fully on.
I had a play around, you get a slightly more pronounced octave if you use some tp88 NPNs instead of the 3904.
Also, cos I had one lying around, I chained a SHO circuit Veri in front of the circuit and that helped with volume.
If you put the SHO after the circuit, the octave starts to break up and the sound turns into a subtle ring mod.
Which was pretty cool. Not really to my taste, but was a fun way to kill a few hours on a Saturday.
Cheers :)
Cheers!
DeleteThanks for verifying! Yeah, even the product description says that it is not a great pedal on its own, it is intended to be stacked with other dirtboxes.
One thing to try out to get a more pronounced octave would be to try a matched set of transistors for Q2 and Q3? Not sure if it works but it is worth a shot.
I'll try to match a couple of 3904's see what happens :)
ReplyDeleteI did throw it behind a DAM Meathead (dark version) and it gave out some pretty nice sounding octaves.
Reminded me a bit of the EQD tentacle.
May be worth popping in an enclosure.
:)
Cool. I think you meant matching two 2N3906?;-)
DeleteGAH, that's what you get for posting gibberish late at night before going to bed!!
ReplyDelete