Aion Aperture (Ampeg Scrambler)

[Big Monk]

Aliens would have had this thing working by now!

 

[Harry Klippton]

send it to me, I'll get it up and running.

Did Chris just say he's an alien?

 

[Big Monk]

send it to me, I'll get it up and running.

I'm gonna run the audio probe this week. I'll get it. I just have not had the chance. Had to winterize the house and clean the garage this weekend.

 

[Big Monk]

Don't let me down Derek, I believe in you! Also I'm just gonna leave this here :View attachment 18340

I made an Audio Probe specifically for this troubleshoot. I shall overcome and rip some Cactus riffs soon.

 

[Big Monk]

Alright you Freak Bitches.

After all you mark ass tricks, scalliwags, skig-skags and stank ass hoes have persecuted me on this one, and since my Tearjerker Redo, Paragon Mini Mods and Hybrid Fuzz Face conversion is complete, I am attacking this troubleshoot with the full weight of my ancestors.

I am even going to use the breakout board.

I refuse to lose.

I'll likely sell it when it's done...

 

[Harry Klippton]

 

[Big Monk]

View attachment 19752

Nuclear Holocaust it may be, but before that bitch goes in the trash, I'll play some disgustingly fuzzy riffs with it.

 

[fig]

So far, it's been an epic tale sir. Anticipating another exciting chapter!

 

[Big Monk]

So, we got it working today! The collector resistor for Q2 was 4.7M instead of 4.7k. Once I replaced that, voltages came in line for Q2 and the pedal was working.

I then immediately set about breaking it down, swapping in the correct 1 uf film caps, hardwiring the volume switch to always on, and putting the input cap on a switch. I wanted to install the breakout board as well and rerun all to I/O wires.

Here’s where we stand now:



Enclosure is a donor from my Muffin before I rehoused it. Should have a chance on Sunday to finish wiring.

I really like this pedal and it will be a rehouse candidate in the new year.

 

[Big Monk]

Alright all you skeezers, skig-scags and scalliwags.

They said it couldn’t be done. They said it shouldn’t be done. I never thought it would be done.

Here is the 2nd iteration, backwards breakout board and all, finally functional and cleaned up:



If she turns out to be a keeper, she’ll get a proper enclosure with scrambler inspired graphics and proper knobs.

 

[Harry Klippton]

You know what we're waiting for

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

Somebody get this man some socks, pronto!

 

[Big Monk]

You know what we're waiting for

And you shall receiveth thy glory my son.

 

[fig]

Lay it on me man.

 

[Big Monk]

No clips yet but I played a little today. There is quite a bit of gating with everything maxed which makes sense because 60% of the transistor collectors are biased almost to 90% of the power rail.

Very cool tones though. It goes from slightly dirty drive with the blend and texture down, to traditional fuzz sounds to Stooges mayhem with everything up.

I think I am going to play with this circuit on the breadboard and come up with my own board for it. I’d like to have an external octave control and tweak some of the values to customize the amount of gating.

I’m going to rip som Stooges riffs in white socks this week and post them up here.

 

[Big Monk]

Welp, for some reason it’s. It working through the Big amp. I was playing it through the Marshall MS2 and it sounded fine. Plugged into the Valve Junior and it’s a gated mess.

I’ll have to go back and double check some stuff. Voltages are on point so I’ll go over the component values.

May be time to admit defeat.

Or try the Eggsploder...

 

[fig]

I haven't read every post in the thread, but did you measure those fancy diodes first? Could they be choking your signal?

 

[Big Monk]

I haven't read every post in the thread, but did you measure those fancy diodes first? Could they be choking your signal?

In what way?

I did measure them when I sorted them and filed them in my binder. Is the thought that too high a Vf could be the culprit?

 

[Big Monk]

Could it be that the marshall is battery powered and the valve Jr. Isn't? Perhaps the power of the valve Jr. And the power of the scrambler combined is too much for the power grid to handle. Remember the Northeast blackout of 2003? Derek, with great power comes great responsibility.

Great guess and I like where your head is at but the Marshall runs off an adapter.

 

[Coda]

Could it be a head-room thing? Not enough headroom with the Valve Jr. to let the fuzz completely open up?…like you got Dikembe Mutumbo in the back of a VW Beetle…