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overdrive/fuzz quest

#545
johnk_10 said:
41Clones-1000.jpg
Click to expand...

john, can you be my dad?
 
#549
i've been tweaking my green russian/supercollider hybrid to get it to sound more to my liking. i changed a few of the gain (emitter) resistors on the transistors so i could make it more transparent, and am now running 4 germanium 1N34's (2 each in series) in the first clipping stage and one green and one blue clear led's in the second clipping stage (for slightly asymmetrical clipping). i'm generally not really all that crazy about big muffs for bass (they're just too 'buzzy/fuzzy' for me) but this one really sounds great now. there's tons of low end and it sounds more like an amp being pushed into clipping more than it ever did before.
 
#551
another varation on Craig Anderton's tube sound fuzz is the way huge red llama. i first made mine stock, then since i used sockets for them, i changed the coupling caps and the high cut filter caps for use with a bass. rather than adding an additional boost switch for even higher gain/distortion settings, i replaced the 1 meg (linear) pot with a 5 meg one. now it can go from clean to extremely dirty throughout the gain pot's entire range.

here's a pic of it:

RedLlama-01.jpg
 
#552
johnk_10 said:
another varation on Craig Anderton's tube sound fuzz is the way huge red llama. i first made mine stock, then since i used sockets for them, i changed the coupling caps and the high cut filter caps for use with a bass. rather than adding an additional boost switch for even higher gain/distortion settings, i replaced the 1 meg (linear) pot with a 5 meg one. now it can go from clean to extremely dirty throughout the gain pot's entire range.

here's a pic of it:
Click to expand...

I've been using a one stock lately built from a GGG kit. What values did you switch to?
 
#556
that's really hard to say. of the ones that i've built, i like the Wampler Ecstasy, the Wampler Black '65, the modded OKKO diablo and my custom Duality the best. but the modded green russian/supercollider, the Fulltone mosfet Bassdrive and the WIIO hangs in there with them too. just different 'flavors'.

of the factory made ones, the Holy Fire and the Greedtone are hard to beat.

for a mild overdrive that sounds like a tube amp running at the edge of breakup, i think that the fairfield barbershop is the best one.
 
#557
here's another one that i built that i really like (after modding it), an MI audio 'Crunchbox'. it's really designed to be a heavy fuzz pedal, but after the mods, it now can do a clean boost, light to moderate overdrive and very heavy fuzz/distortion.

the mods include an 18V charge pump so i can run it at either 9 or 18V (at 18V is smoother, more dynamic w/more headroom). a three way clipping circuit (select between green leds, mosfets, or silicon diodes) and modified the coupling caps so it has NO low end loss, and remove the mid hump.

here's a pic of it:

bass-crunchbox-01.jpg



and the internals:

bass-crunchbox-02.jpg
 
#558
johnk_10 said:
i have no noticeable low end loss at all with the bassdrive. it was the fizzy decay in the 'flat mids' and 'vintage' settings that bugged me. after trying a few more transistors in it, 2N3904's (with a much lower hfe of 180-200 than a BC549's 550-620) helped the fizz issue a ton. i also replaced the JRC4558D with a TI4562 and that, with the 2N3904's has got rid of 90% of it. i tried JRC4562's (the DAM Ezekiel chip) but IMO, the TI's worked better in my BD. i'm pretty happy with it now. i think i might add a switch with the mosfet clipping stage to it later, like the earlier bass drives had.
Click to expand...

John, if you wouldn't mind, for the only-capable-enough-to-be-dangerous builders like me, could you give me an idea of which items in the Bassdrive (in addition to these fantastic suggestions) that I could "socket" in a build to tweak or try different values?

Any comments about this that you could give would make me a happy guy, if you can spare some time to talk about it.
 
#559
Phantasm said:
John, if you wouldn't mind, for the only-capable-enough-to-be-dangerous builders like me, could you give me an idea of which items in the Bassdrive (in addition to these fantastic suggestions) that I could "socket" in a build to tweak or try different values?

Any comments about this that you could give would make me a happy guy, if you can spare some time to talk about it.
Click to expand...

IMO, the fulltone bassdrive doesn't need any mods, so i'd just socket the chip and the transistors. i'm running a SC1815 for the first tranny (input) and an AC187 (germanium) for the the second one (output), since i heard that the early ones used a ge tranny for the output. you can also use BC549's or 2N5088's for both positions if you want to experiment.
 

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