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DIY tube distortion pedal

InsanityAmps

InsanityAmps

Guest
Jul 9, 2013
194
41
Portland, OR
#1
Hey all, just wanted to share my latest DIY build, and first pedal design...Wolff Drive! I've been wanting to add some grit in certain places with some music projects I'm doing and not really sure which overdrive pedal I should purchase so I decided to make my own. This one is high gain, high voltage(tube runs at 230V) with an active boost/cut eq for tone shaping. And pure tube overdrive, no solid state clippers. Props to Passinwind for telling me about OSH Park for PCB fab. They make very high quality circuit boards at a reasonable cost. Here's what it looks like inside and out:

_20140620_170527.jpg


_20140620_164804.jpg


And a quick demo with my spector euro 5lx:



Let me know what you think!
 
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#4
That sounds awesome! Clean warmth or nutty overdrive, and I love that the distortion maintains a crunchy edge without compressing/farting out. Well done. A lot going on in those guts, props for the custom pcb.
 
#8
Yeah it's mostly balls to the wall distortion. It can do milder drive on the low side of the gain knob but gets gainy fast. I'm working on another tube pcb version that will be a little more tame and will be basically an overdriven phase splitter to get the cranked tube amp overdrive type of sound. The tube does not need to be ventilated. I think the fancy vents and lights you see on most tube pedals are gimmicks. I left this on overnight several times, checked it in the morning and I can still touch the tube with my finger and hold it there.
 
Last edited:
#10
InsanityAmps said:
Yeah it's mostly balls to the wall distortion. It can do milder drive on the low side of the gain knob but gets gainy fast. I'm working on another tube pcb version that will be a little more tame and will be basically an overdriven phase splitter to get the cranked amp overdrive type of sound. The tube does not need to be ventilated. I think the fancy vents and lights you see on most tube pedals are gimmicks. I left this on overnight several times, checked it in the morning and I can still touch the tube with my finger and hold it there.
Click to expand...

Cool (no pun intended).

That is a a really nice pedal you have there for sure.
 
#13
Hmm that's a tough one. If I do decide to sell these then I'd be shooting myself in the foot just giving away my design. I spent a lot of hours working on this thing! This is the second one - the first was hand wired on a proto board to get the circuit dialed in before I started on the pcb layout. The board shown above is the first revision. I have to make some changes to it to fix a few minor issues with the initial layout before it would be ready for a kit or production. I'm also on the fence about the pots I'm using and if I can make it work with a panel mount pot instead. The ones I'm using now are alps rk09 style, soldered directly to the pcb which I chose to avoid having to solder 21 wires from the pots to the board without having a rats nest like the first prototype and also to be able to fit everything in the size enclosure I'm using. And to keep the pcb close to the top surface so the high voltage supply caps will fit under the rear cover. The rk09s don't feel as sturdy as I would like. They are the type you see on a lot of mixers that have a million knobs. It's tight cramming all that in there but I think I can probably make it work with a panel mount pot and different caps. I'll have to build another one to find out!

So to answer your question...maybe but not right now.
 
#17
What kind of power does it require to run the tube at 230v? Will this run off a normal sort of power supply - Trex etc.

And if I were you , if you ever end up selling these, I would incorporate one of those gimmick vents, windows,etc. people love seeing their tubes!

I have some killer NOS 12ax7s that I am sure would sound great in there. Seriously let me know if you ever decide to commercialize
 
#19
The pedal runs on a 12V a.c. power supply. This might be a deal breaker for some but there is no way around that without expensive dc-dc converters to get the high voltage from a low voltage dc supply. The 12V is stepped up for the tube plate supply and also rectified and regulated to get 12 volts dc for the tubefilament and +/- 12 volts for the opamps. With 24 volts available there is a lot of headroom for the eq which is quite powerful.
 
#20
InsanityAmps said:
The pedal runs on a 12V a.c. power supply. This might be a deal breaker for some but there is no way around that without expensive dc-dc converters to get the high voltage from a low voltage dc supply. The 12V is stepped up for the tube plate supply and also rectified and regulated to get 12 volts dc for the tubefilament and +/- 12 volts for the opamps. With 24 volts available there is a lot of headroom for the eq which is quite powerful.
Click to expand...

Finally I would have a use for the 12v AC outlet on the FuelTank Chameleon
 

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