Questions OC2 / Ocelot (sound example)

[Jacco32]

Dear fellow enthusiasts,

I built an Ocelot on a breadboard. I like to build on a breadboard first before soldering. What a fantastic pedal! Everything works as it should be. DIRECT, OC1 and OC2 all work. I'm going to use it for bass so I removed the OC2 potentiometer by replacing it with a 100K resistor between 3 and 1. I also removed the DIRECT potentiometer by connecting 1 and 2 and adding a 100K resistor between 3 and 1. It will be a single-knob pedal.

(1) See audio clip. I hear a disturbing noise in the background. It's a kind of crackling sound. This sound is only heard when the strings vibrate. By muting all strings the sound disappears. By turning off both pickups on the bass, the sound disappears. The tone knob on the bass has no influence. I used a Faraday cage to rule out that it came from outside, that is not the case. I also replaced all the ICs. No effect. Anyone?

(2) Because I don't use DIRECT and OC2. Are there options to make the circuit smaller? If so, can someone indicate what the circuit will look like or which circuit parts or components I can leave out?

Thanks for your thoughts!
Jac.

 

[Jacco32]

Anyone? Is there anyone with an Ocelot who can test whether the same background noise is perceived?
Jac.

 

[PJS]

I don't hear that on mine. What notes are you using? Sounds very low. I had an original Boss one back in the day and my ocelot sounds as close as I can remember without being able to A/B with an original. It won't respond well much below a B or C on a standard tuned 4 string bass, and only on the octave down, not 2 down. As you have said, you need to turn off the 2nd octave completely on bass. I think from memory there are a few parts you can leave out to remove the 2 octave down, but not many. I just built mine as designed and turn it down. That way you get the added versatility down the track if you ever need it.

 

[Jacco32]

Thanks PJS. The distorted sound is present on every note. As long as the string vibrates you hear the crackling/noisy sound. With all strings muted the unwanted sound disappears and the Ocelot is dead quiet.

Still no luck. Anyone?
Jac.

 

[Rygn]

Thanks PJS. The distorted sound is present on every note. As long as the string vibrates you hear the crackling/noisy sound. With all strings muted the unwanted sound disappears and the Ocelot is dead quiet.

Still no luck. Anyone?
Jac.

I have the same issue. Distortion as long as the pedal is on and strings are moving.

I think I've narrowed it down to on-board issues and not off-board wiring, switches, etc. But I have no idea how to troubleshoot from here.

 

[PJS]

Are you getting distortion through the clean, or only the octaves?

 

[heymrbassman]

Mine does the same thing. Just getting around to troubleshooting it and wondered if anyone else had the same issue. I’ll let you know if I find something that works.

 

[Beda]

Hi,
has anyone solved this problem? I'm exactly the same way.

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

I actually have a pseudo fix (Jerry rig perhaps?) for this but it's kind of stupid. My first ocelot had that same faint distortion. I tried a few things to remedy it swapping chips, moving wires, etc. but the issue remained. Finally I slapped an ehx mole/hogsfoot on the output. It's overkill but it's an effective wet blanket for those crispy toans. It made mine useable, though like the one described above it was a one knob ocelot so I didn't have to worry about what the mole would do to the dry signal.

I feel like you could do similar with a low pass filter like the Frequency Interchange or a vong lpf with less change to the dry signal but I've not tried that. More recently a friend gave me his 90's oc2 so I've been using that instead for the last year or so. Compared side by side I can definitely hear the difference but within a live context it's pretty close.