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Dr. J Soloman?

isher1992

isher1992

Nov 27, 2008
1,209
200
Little Rock, Arkansas
#1
Just curious if anyone here has had any experience with one of these. I have an OKKO Basstard, but sometimes the tone knob on it drives me crazy (as well as the amount of headroom with a passive instrument) and I never have any dry signal blended back in, so looking into other overdrives out of curiosity--mainly ones with just drive and volume.

I know it's made by Joyo, but for cheap Chinese stuff, they seem to get some love around here. Not a lot of good videos really sitting down and taking time to show what it can do.
 
#3
Well, I got it and pulled off the back plate. Looks like unlike most Joyo stuff, the components are through-hole, and it's a dual op-amp design. My guess would be a Tube Screamer variant with the tone control removed for a switch, but I'll pull it apart when I get home.

Maybe some low end loss people have mentioned can be addressed.
 
#4
Pretty sure at this point it's a Tube Screamer variant, but it seems to have some improvements.

Looks like it has asymmetrical clipping with two 1n4148 diodes, and a third one I can't see the number on. Opamp is a JRC4580. All the caps are Polyester film, no mylar. Resistors look like they may be 3% metal film.

At $85 new, it may be more worth buying a Tube Screamer clone kit and bypassing the tone stack, but if that's not your thing, this looks like a pretty solid buy. I haven't pulled it up and tried it out yet, been looking at the electronics.
 
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#5
Okay, wow, this thing has a few issues out of the box:

1) Both potentiometers are linear taper. This isn't as much of an issue on the gain as much as it is the Level. For the first 75% or so of travel, there's no real distinct change in volume then it suddenly comes full on. Makes it impossible to set at unity. I'm gonna have to change that. I think the pot values were 500K. If you have one, change it to an Audio/Log taper, and if you want to, change the gain as well. It's not as big of an issue with it, more taste.

2) I haven't figured out the switching yet, but the Bright setting really cuts out the low. Normal is pretty good, but Warm should be more like "Dark as night" because there's little treble at all. I'm guessing the switches are probably between some sort of passive high pass and low pass filter with Normal being full sound.

3) It's definitely asymmetrical clipping, but it's pretty extreme. It makes it sound a little odd when blended with a clean signal. I would probably change the single 1N4148 with a 1N4001 and then use two 1N5818's for the other side. That'd keep forward voltage on both sides around 1.1V, but it would still be asymmetrical. Change clipping diodes to taste.
 
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#8
isher1992 said:
Pretty sure at this point it's a Tube Screamer variant, but it seems to have some improvements.

Looks like it has asymmetrical clipping with two 1n4148 diodes, and a third one I can't see the number on. Opamp is a JRC4580. All the caps are Polyester film, no mylar. Resistors look like they may be 3% metal film.

At $85 new, it may be more worth buying a Tube Screamer clone kit and bypassing the tone stack, but if that's not your thing, this looks like a pretty solid buy. I haven't pulled it up and tried it out yet, been looking at the electronics.
Click to expand...
It’s been a while, but thanks for posting this - are you sure it isn’t a Muff-style fuzz?
 

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