The bad battery sound
 

Hey folks,

First post on tb.

I've got a Squier VM Jaguar SS with an SPB-3 and a 9J-L1. VV with the STC-2C-BO Seymour tone circuit.

I noticed when the battery gets low with this setup, there's this incredible glitchy distortion. I'd love to have that undervolted chaos on tap.

Can anyone recommend an approach for this... I'm thinking a toggle switch that brings a resistor in and out of the circuit, but I'm wondering if anyone has gone for a similar thing and can recommend where to begin my experiments.

-taconium

a power supply with adjustable output voltage?

That makes enough sense.

So basically something like... add a power jack that bypasses the battery and find a matching variable output adapter?

Perfect! Thanks for the tip.

I would contact Seymour Duncan they are really nice and helpful folks and would be glad to offer some assistance I agree with you it will have to be something done internally.

I get that sound with my EMG PJ's when the battery's about dead and it's badass.

Thanks guys, do I really need one more knob on my bass.....yea, maybe I do.

If we are starving the pre amp for voltage, what is suffering? There would have to be a give and take.

The voltage drops low, and then you run out of headroom. So then the preamp starts clipping.

Nothing's getting damaged when you starve a small circuit like this, it's just that certain elements will operate in unstable states as they drop below their proper operating voltage. For a lot more information look up "circuit bent". Fun stuff!

Edit to add that digital circuits can react spectacularly to this sort of treatment too. You'll get a different version of glitchy distortion which is fun to play with. The trick in a digital system is to starve small parts of the circuit without killing all output.

Honestly, you can get that sound in a pedal already, so I doubt I'd put any effort into bottling this dead battery thing.

Use an LM317T, or similar.