Recent content by DigitalZombie

That sounds like heaven. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Hot tip: if someone starts bringing up religion or politics, start talking about your favorite Tube Screamer variant and how the diodes effect the soft clipping. Works every time.

What'd you change and do you like it?

And I'm back. 1v on Q2c seems to wrestle the most sustain out of it, even with single coils. The combined resistance of the pot and a 1k is about 5.9k, a single resistor value I don't have on hand, or course. Going to sort through my transistors and try different values.

Thanks, Coda. I popped in some 2N2222A's for Q1-2 that are measuring around 200 on my tester and it's already sounding better, but not quite there yet. Even with the fuzz setting maxed it seems too fizz out a little earlier than I prefer. I'm getting a little over 2.7 on Q2c as well, but I'm...

I laid this out on the breadboard to try it out, as I like to do if the circuit is simple enough. I'm having the same issue another user was with barely any sound unless you strike hard. I'm using all the correct value parts, and I even had some BC549B's lying around that measure around 315-320...

Just to follow up, I boxed mine up and I think it sounds excellent. A little noisier than my Russian-spec muff clone at higher gain settings, but not unusable. The EQ control on this is amazing. There are so many sound options I don't think I'll ever need another OD/distortion.

Interesting. I have mine all wired up but haven't given it the sound test yet. Just checked voltages with C102 & 103 the "right" way and sure enough I'm getting -7v and 14.6v. Does your at least sound good? My breadboard build was all splatty and had horrible oscillation with the gain at noon...

Finally got around to this one after having the PCB since last July. I try to breadboard everything first to see if there's any mods I'd like to do before involving any solder. I couldn't get it to work properly, dealing with terrible misbiasing issues. Right away I could see where I was...

🤦 I was probably making margaritas at the same time I was assembling the board. Works now - good sounding compressor.

Is this a scientific phrase I'm not familiar with? But no, while I understand it's kind of a go-to problem area I can guarantee the pots aren't touching the board. Besides, the area where the signal dies isn't near the pots as it is.

I get next to nothing at the output unless I turn the Ratio to minimum. When I start to turn it up it abruptly cuts off to (almost) dead and I have to turn the level up all the way to hear anything at all. I started probing and the signal dies at the anode of D2. I checked continuity and...

Figured it out! The 220k bias resistor had a bad solder joint, so it wasn't connecting to ground. Confirmed when I pulled the 220 off my breadboard it's octave city. I would recommend this as a mod - maybe put it on a toggle, or even a 2nd footswitch to disconnect it from ground.

OK, so the octave definitely starts at Q3c. Q3 is somehow way mis-biased. I tried rebuilding on my breadboard which is usually how I can quickly identify a problem, and with the After control turned all the way down (full resistance) the voltages come out within spec if I try to calculate based...

If possible would you mind posting photos of your unpopulated board so I can see the traces? It would make it easier for me to audio probe the circuit.

This was before I realized the magic of cleaning the flux off the board after population, so please reserve that advice. As I mentioned I doubled-checked the printed value of every resistor against the build doc...