PPCB Patron

[pricklyrobot]

A while back my buddy said his old DS-1 had died on him. I almost offered to try and troubleshoot it for him, then decided it’d be way more fun to just build something

Patron looked like the closest thing in the PPCB catalog, so that’s what I got.
Pretty straightforward build. No major hassles other than slightly miscalculating my inside box space. But random 9mm pot to the rescue!

I’ve never owned a DS-1 myself, so I’ve got no strong frame of reference. Sounds like a decent distortion though. All the controls seem to have a good usable range.
The “Crunch” switch being the possible exception. Its effect on the sound seems to run the gamut from “extremely subtle” to “totally imperceptible”

Usually for fuzzes and distortions I do some kind of raptor. But I thought this called for something orange. Enter the Altamira Oriole! Resident of far south Texas. They build these very large hanging nests, that look no less impressive for resembling giant straw scrotums.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Altamira_Oriole

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

I have a production pedal from Monoprice that is nearly identical to the Patron. I can confirm that the CRUNCH switch does very little. We get so much clipping from the BJT 1st stage and the opamp 2nd stage that anything the diode clippers do is overshadowed. There's a slight change in sustain and that's about it.

If you want it to be more like a DS-1, then jumper D1 & R15.

You can read about my DS-1 mods here.

 

[pricklyrobot]

You can read about my DS-1 mods here.

Your “CB Voice Mod” sounds like a better use of a toggle.
Just wonder if it could reasonably be referred to as “Crunch”, to save me etching a new enclosure

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Call it what you like, it's your pedal.