overdrive/fuzz quest

[johnk_10]

John...do you have any clips of your MXR blowtorch? Post them up to your site?

sorry, no clips of the BT yet, but i'll add one soon with the rest of my manufacturered overdrive pedals.

 

[johnk_10]

just finished mounting the dirty bomb in an enclosure. i mounted the 'subs' control externally and added a 3 way bright/flat/dark switch to it too.

i'm really digging this one.....................

the internals:

 

[Low Sound Love]

My head is spinning from so much bass od/distortion soundclips in one place. Great job!

http://soundcloud.com/johnk_10/triplewreck

I have been searching for good soundclips of the triple wreck on bass for a while, and they were here all along. Thanks, I'm totally sold now!

 

[scubaduba]

I'm on my second Barbershop and this one is going back too. Seems these pedals don't play well with basses having active electronics. Activating the foot switch delivers pops so loud it once shut my amp down ( due to overload protection). Tried two brand new barbershops. Same problem. Volume knob was scratchy in both as well. Sigh...

 

[johnk_10]

hmmmm. i haven't tried my barbershop with an active bass yet, but i will later tonight.

BTW, i just finished building a Dr. Boogie (modded for bass) and an EMMA ReezaFRatzitz (also modded for bass). both of them sound pretty darn good. the Dr. Boogie is really a super high gain pedal but can also be used as and overdrive. The Reeza is a CMOS type of distortion, but i added a mid and bass control to it and it can go from an overdrive to a heavy fuzz. i hope to have some sound clips of both of them tomorrow.

 

[johnk_10]

i built a few more but haven't mounted them in enlsoures yet.
1. Ampeg Scrambler
2. Nick Greer Sucker Punch (slightly modded)
3. Krank Distortus Maximus (modded for bass)
4. Clark/Barber Gainster (also modded for bass)

next up is the openhaus tone czar.

 

[johnk_10]

here's a pic of the Dr. Boogie. i modded the voicing of it for use with a bass, and changed the freqs of the tone stack. with its bass, mids,treble, presence, gain and volume controls it's capable of a very wide range of overdrive and super sustaining heavy fuzz tones.

gut shot:

 

[karter2000]

i built a few more but haven't mounted them in enlsoures yet.
1. Ampeg Scrambler
2. Nick Greer Sucker Punch (slightly modded)
3. Krank Distortus Maximus (modded for bass)
4. Clark/Barber Gainster (also modded for bass)

next up is the openhaus tone czar.

Cool, I've been meaning to try an LM386-based overdrive. What were the mods done on the Sucker Punch and Krank? (If you don't mind me asking)

 

[johnk_10]

i really dig the sound of 386 based distortions, but on most of them, they do usually have a note decay issue (i.e. a fizzy fadeout). i seemed to have tamed (if not removed it) on my Sonic Titan and the Sucker Punch, but i'm still working on removing all of it on my Krank pedal.

i've also found that the LM386N-1 has more mids than the LM386N-3 which is more scooped sounding.

 

[johnk_10]

BTW, the LM386N-1 is a 1/2 watt power amp and the N-3 is a 1 watt. i also ordered a few N-4's, some JRC386's that i'm going to try in them. i can also note that, surprisingly, the NTE823 (also 1W) sounds as good or better than any of the 386's that i've tried so far.

...............after reading about the Zeibek submarine in another thread, i also built one of them today. it's a nice clean boost as is, but i ended up adding an LPB-1 (voiced for bass and with germanium clipping) in front of it (kinda like the Fuzzrocious BDPG) and it's a great clean boost and OD pedal now.

 

[karter2000]

i built a few more but haven't mounted them in enlsoures yet.
1. Ampeg Scrambler
2. Nick Greer Sucker Punch (slightly modded)
3. Krank Distortus Maximus (modded for bass)
4. Clark/Barber Gainster (also modded for bass)

next up is the openhaus tone czar.

Of all the lm386 distortions you've built, which one would you say holds the most low end?

 

[johnk_10]

Of all the lm386 distortions you've built, which one would you say holds the most low end?

it's hard to say since all of them do.

 

[karter2000]

Thanks John, just curious which one to build first!

 

[johnk_10]

out of all of them, the sucker punch probably sounds the best stock.

the dam sonic titan is pretty good too.

i modded the heck out of the krank dmax to get it where i like it, but i actually love it now.

 

[johnk_10]

a few more builds................................

yesterday, i made a few more vero pedal circuits and tested them.
i made a Submarine (using Albert Kreuzer's schematic), a Madbean Fatpants, an EH LPB-1, and a couple of bazz fuss's (which i hated, so they're going in the 'on hold' bin) and an ROG flipster.

IMO, the Submarine is pretty cool. it doesn't have any dirt, but does 'enhance' the clean tone. The Fatpants sounds good too (also basically a clean boost capable of adding thickness). The LPB-1 is also just a clean boost.

with four J201's my flipster had way too much gain so i'm running BF245A's in Q1 and Q4 (all 4 transistors biased at 4.5V) and i think that it's perfect now. i tried some 2N5457's but they didn't have enough gain and lost some of the pedal's charm. i also have some MPF102's but i haven't tried them in it yet, i'm really digging the flipster the way that i have it set up right now.

 

[johnk_10]

finally got these two boxed up and completed, so here's some pics of them:

Flipster:

Distortus Maximus:

BTW, i tried 5 different types of 386 amplifier chips in the distortus maximus and my favorite is the TI LM386N-4.

 

[johnk_10]

here's a pic of the ReezaFratzitz. i modded it for bass and added an 18V charge pump for more headroom and dynamics. IMO, it's a really nice sounding CMOS based overdrive/distortion pedal for bass.

 

[Duke21]

John, do you use or know anything about the Fender Blender? We are discussing about it at the Virtual Portafex club thread.

 

[johnk_10]

i know a little about it, and i plan to build one later this week.

i also just got all the parts to build an openhaus tone czar so that i'll have that one built soon too.

 

[judas jedermann]

@John: What do you think about Flipster?