MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This one's been on my radar for quite a while, not sure why it's taken me so long to get around to building it but I finally did!
The ODR-1 was a pedal that I didn't really know much about until I started watching Tom Bukovac and Tim Pierce on Youtube. It seems to be a staple for the Nashville studio session cats.
The original ODR-1's were supposed to be a TubeScreamer alternative that was cheap, and cheaply made. But it had a certain charm about it and a sound that works well across a lot of genres,
The designer of the ODR-1 Kai Tachibana revisited his circuit under his own brand "Nordland" and modified the original circuit to make it more versatile, greatly improve the build quality and address the biggest complaint about the ODR-1, which was the bass forward nature of the circuit.
It's got the same Level, Gain and Spectrum controls of the original but adds a bass cut, a mid cut/boost and something called "ODC" which stands for "Overdrive De-Compress", which essentially blends in a second set of clipping LED's that are higher vF than the 914's the ODR-1 uses. I'm not hearing a ton of difference with this control but it could be the LED's I used. I didn't have any 3mm Green Diffused LEDs so I used 5mm ones but I didn't measure them. I should go back and measure the forward voltage and compare them to the 914's I've been using.
It's a busy circuit with lots of components and some oddball components like a pair of 2u2 Film caps. I didn't have any so I subbed electrolytic caps instead.
According the build docs the original ODR-C used e-caps anyway.
I followed my typical knob selections for 6 knob builds where the 3 main controls are one color and the extended eq controls in a different color.
Short of labelling the controls (egads!) it helps me keep track of what's what on the pedal.
The cream knobs are the standard Level, Gain and Tone controls.
Really tough to align and keep all the film caps tidy on such a busy board and so many different makes and sizes of film caps.
Speaking of film caps, a word of warning on the 1uf film caps. The layout won't support the standard sized 1uf caps and you'll need to use the WIMA small footprint ones (or use MLCC).
This next set of pics is specially by request for @eh là bas ma who was curious about my PCB cleaning process and what the back of my boards look like.
I'm afraid it will confirm even more my OCD nature to show this but....hey, I yam what I yam......
I know that a lot of folks will think this is overkill but I just can't stand dirty boards. I actually started cleaning my boards more thoroughly from back when I still doing a lot of troubleshooting and a clean board makes it a lot easier to probe solder joints and also allow me to do a close inspection of my soldering before boxing it up.
So once I get the board populated with everything EXCEPT trimmers (when needed), potentiometers and IC's I'll clean the board. I don't like cleaning flux with any kind of potentiometer or trim pots installed because the diluted flux can get inside the pots and mess up the wipers.
This is what it looks like before cleaning.....yuck.
I used the liquid form of Flux Remover from MG Chemicals and put it in a spray bottle. It's the most economical way that I've found.
I flood the board liberally with flux remover and use a soft bristle brush and scrub off the flux. (Incidentally, I use Kester No Clean solder)
I'll do this twice to get most of the gunk off.
Then I have another spray bottle of 99% IPA and use a separate brush and clean it twice with IPA.
After which I will liberally rinse both sides of the board with the IPA spray bottle.
Continued in next post......
The ODR-1 was a pedal that I didn't really know much about until I started watching Tom Bukovac and Tim Pierce on Youtube. It seems to be a staple for the Nashville studio session cats.
The original ODR-1's were supposed to be a TubeScreamer alternative that was cheap, and cheaply made. But it had a certain charm about it and a sound that works well across a lot of genres,
The designer of the ODR-1 Kai Tachibana revisited his circuit under his own brand "Nordland" and modified the original circuit to make it more versatile, greatly improve the build quality and address the biggest complaint about the ODR-1, which was the bass forward nature of the circuit.
It's got the same Level, Gain and Spectrum controls of the original but adds a bass cut, a mid cut/boost and something called "ODC" which stands for "Overdrive De-Compress", which essentially blends in a second set of clipping LED's that are higher vF than the 914's the ODR-1 uses. I'm not hearing a ton of difference with this control but it could be the LED's I used. I didn't have any 3mm Green Diffused LEDs so I used 5mm ones but I didn't measure them. I should go back and measure the forward voltage and compare them to the 914's I've been using.
It's a busy circuit with lots of components and some oddball components like a pair of 2u2 Film caps. I didn't have any so I subbed electrolytic caps instead.
According the build docs the original ODR-C used e-caps anyway.
I followed my typical knob selections for 6 knob builds where the 3 main controls are one color and the extended eq controls in a different color.
Short of labelling the controls (egads!) it helps me keep track of what's what on the pedal.
The cream knobs are the standard Level, Gain and Tone controls.
Really tough to align and keep all the film caps tidy on such a busy board and so many different makes and sizes of film caps.
Speaking of film caps, a word of warning on the 1uf film caps. The layout won't support the standard sized 1uf caps and you'll need to use the WIMA small footprint ones (or use MLCC).
This next set of pics is specially by request for @eh là bas ma who was curious about my PCB cleaning process and what the back of my boards look like.
I'm afraid it will confirm even more my OCD nature to show this but....hey, I yam what I yam......
I know that a lot of folks will think this is overkill but I just can't stand dirty boards. I actually started cleaning my boards more thoroughly from back when I still doing a lot of troubleshooting and a clean board makes it a lot easier to probe solder joints and also allow me to do a close inspection of my soldering before boxing it up.
So once I get the board populated with everything EXCEPT trimmers (when needed), potentiometers and IC's I'll clean the board. I don't like cleaning flux with any kind of potentiometer or trim pots installed because the diluted flux can get inside the pots and mess up the wipers.
This is what it looks like before cleaning.....yuck.
I used the liquid form of Flux Remover from MG Chemicals and put it in a spray bottle. It's the most economical way that I've found.
I flood the board liberally with flux remover and use a soft bristle brush and scrub off the flux. (Incidentally, I use Kester No Clean solder)
I'll do this twice to get most of the gunk off.
Then I have another spray bottle of 99% IPA and use a separate brush and clean it twice with IPA.
After which I will liberally rinse both sides of the board with the IPA spray bottle.
Continued in next post......
