overdrive/fuzz quest part 2

[Wud]

What Jared proposes above sounds awesome in my mind.

 

[johnk_10]

yeah, that could be done pretty easily.

 

[jumbodbassman]

best of luck with the doggie. she's a cutie..... JR are great dogs . thanks for the 360+. Will get to it later hopefully.

 

[johnk_10]

as per Jared's idea, I tried the Submarine and the BJFE blueberry together. the first time I ran it with the Sub first, then into the BB, but it sucked. both of them sounded better individually. when Jared PM'd me, he told me that he was talking about going from the BB INTO the sub, so I tried it that way, and it was awesome. the sub brings out a lot of color and punch (as well as more lows, mids and upper harmonics) than running just the BB alone.

 

[Precision345]

with over 50 pages in part one, I figured that it's probably time to start part two.

since the last thread, i've built a few new ones, including the Black Cat OD-1, the D*A*M red Rooster, the Smallsoundbigsound Sparkle Motion, Death by Audio Fuzz War (V1), Paul Nelson's Citrus Graphic (only I omitted the FAC on it since I like it better without it), the Baldwin-Burns Buzzaround (exact clone) and mictester's 'Buzzaround-Alike'.

on all of them, I first built them completely stock and then slightly modded them to make them more to my liking.

to start part 2, i'm posting the only one that's mounted in an enclosure (I should have a few others mounted in a few days). the Black Cat OD-1 (a.k.a. the Freddie Fuzz)

i built it following the schematic exactly, but to be honest, I really didn't care for it at all. it was kinda muddy and the distortion had a fizzy decay on all of the notes. here's what the manufacturer says about it:

" The Black Cat OD-1 is an original design Fred created based on the unique properties of the OP275, a dual operational amplifier chip made by Analog Devices. The OP275 is a high-quality op-amp that gives a distinctive linear output waveform. The Black Cat OD-1 can go from clean, to slightly crunchy, to all-out saturated distortion. It is unique in that it is extremely sensitive to the guitar; it responds to the player's pick attack, and like a good Fuzz Face, it cleans up well when you roll back the volume on the guitar. The Black Cat OD-1 has been used by Scott Henderson, Steve Lukather, Beck, Lyle Workman, Kyle Cook (Matchbox Twenty), and many others."

that sounded pretty impressive to me, and the youtube clips of it sounded pretty darn good, so that's why I built it, but unfortunately, for me, it was a mediocre sounding pedal at best, and I wasn't even going to mount it in an enclosure to complete it.

i've found that this circuit has actually been around quite a while, and some of the schematics used an LM1458 in it so decided to try 20 other dual opamps in it to see if I could solve the fizzy decay issue. some did it less and others did it more. I also first tried running it on 18 volts but that didn't help (it actually made it a little worse).

the chips that I tried were:
OP275 (the specified chip for it)
TL062
TL072
TL082
JRC4558D
JRC4558DD
JRC4580D
JRC4562D
JRC4559D
JRC4559DD
TLC2262
LM2904
OPA2134 (burr-brown)
LF353N
LF358N
LM833N
NE5532
RC4558P
HA1458
LM1458
OPA2604

well, after all of that (a couple of hours), the OPA2604 was the only one that did the trick, and got rid of all of the fizz. now, to give it a little more top end but keep it smooth, I replaced the three small picofarad filter caps with lower values and used silver mica ones. finally, i removed the 430 ohm power limiting resistor and replaced it with a jumper so the pedal got the full 9 volts. after those mods it sounds great, still retains all of the character of the original design, but got rid of everything that I didn't like about it.

so......... here's a pic of the completed pedal:

Are you selling any of these pedals? I am new to this thread

 

[johnk_10]

i'm not really in the pedal building business, so I always recommend buying the originals. some people wanted one of my modded versions, or a pedal that is no longer available so I've built some for them too.

 

[xk49w]

John, have you built a compressor based on a THAT corp. chip?

 

[johnk_10]

John, have you built a compressor based on a THAT corp. chip?

not yet. these are the ones that I've built so far:

 

[johnk_10]

okay, as requested, here's a quick clip of the BJFE BB clone alone, and then with the submarine. if you read the comments on the comment line, you'll get the idea of what you're listening to.

 

[Feral Feline]

Thanks for the soundclip JohnK.

I liked the Blueberry into the Sub on the lower 'berry settings, but my favourite tone was the Blueberry alone at 70% drive. Kicking in the Sub at 70% seemed to kill the presence on the Blueberry.

Please comment, as I'm still trying to train up my ears; I've got a friend who's got a killer set of ears and is quite the tone connoisseur and I'd like to be able to talk tone with him some day.

 

[Silver Blues]

Wow, yeah. Never liked the BBODs stock tone, but it into the Sub is nice.

Also what bass are you using there? The bypass sounds really cool.

 

[johnk_10]

Also what bass are you using there? The bypass sounds really cool.

it's '62 AVRI p bass body with a maple neck.

 

[johnk_10]

just finished building another great sounding OD pedal for bass, the Throbak overdrive/boost:

 

[johnk_10]

another great sounding overdrive for bass, the Maxon OverdrivePro OD820:

internals:

 

[Jared Lash]

Yeah, the Maxon is definitely overlooked. Very nice overdrive.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

I just tried out the MXR m89 at a studio session today, I must admit I'm very impressed. I usually hate all the MXR Fuzz & OD pedals.
Very cool OD.

 

[johnk_10]

I just built and tested a couple more (but i haven't mounted them in their enclosures yet).

the first one is an Earthquaker Devices Crimson Drive. IMO, it's another great sounding pedal.

the other one is a Klon clone. it sounds just like all of the videos that I've heard of the originals and sounds reeeaally good, especially on guitar. for bass i did a couple of mods and really love it for bass now.

here's a pic of the circuitboard:

Klons don't have a true bypass (they have a really nice buffered bypass), but i'm going to add a second footswitch so it'll have a true bypass as well as the buffered one.

 

[Stevorebob]

Received my Barbershop yesterday, and it gives me exactly what I was looking for. A subtle overdrive that softness and thickens my tone without overt distortion or tweaking my high-mid-low balance. It'll be an always-on pedal for me.

Thanks, John, for your reviews, clips and recommendations. Very much appreciated.

 

[johnk_10]

Received my Barbershop yesterday, and it gives me exactly what I was looking for. A subtle overdrive that softness and thickens my tone without overt distortion or tweaking my high-mid-low balance. It'll be an always-on pedal for me.

Thanks, John, for your reviews, clips and recommendations. Very much appreciated.

yep, IMO, the barbershop is an incredibly nice pedal.

 

[johnk_10]

I built this one last week (a Klon clone) and finally got around to mounting it in its enclosure. after a few mods, it makes a really nice bass overdrive. I also added a true bypass on it since on the original, when you switch off the overdrive, it has a buffered bypass (albeit a very nice one ). now I can run it either way.