Aldrin/Lunar: Please talk me through the 'Range' control...

[mdc]

Hi all

I built a stripboard version of the lunar deluxe earlier this week it sounds quite nice. My understanding is that it's designed to be a silicon fuzzface-ish circuit with an extra gainstage in front, which makes it close to a classic tonebender MKII circuit. The 'range' control is an interesting feature, and I'm kind of curious if it can be ported out into other tone-bender-y designs to give a little more control over gain staging and also buffer-friendliness. The lunar comes up a lot as an option for fuzz pedals that play well in buffered loops, as you can dial back the 'range' control to compensate for the buffered signal that it's seeing at input.

It seems like a novel approach to gain staging in a fuzz circuit inasmuch as I haven't really seen it adopted in other pedals, and I'm curious if anyone here has tried using it in other circuits as an input stage. Eg, as an extra stage before a 3-trainsistor TBMKII or something like that.

In any case, it's a cool pedal and given that it has 5-knobs and a spider web of ground connections I would heartily suggest getting a PCB version if you're going to DIY as it's going to be a mess to stuff in a box.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Yeah, the Lunar Module is kinda like a Tone Bender Mk II, but much more refined.

Take a look at some of my builds in Build Reports, Modifications and Chucks Boneyard. In one of my posts in the Mods forum, I describe how to build a Screw Driver or a Hybrid Fuzz Driver on an Aldrin board. The Lunar Module, Screw Driver and Hybrid Fuzz Driver are all variations on a theme. Marc Ahlfs (Mr. Skreddy) is a clever designer and what he did to make a Fuzz Face work so well is nothing short of genius. If you break it down, the LM is a booster driving a Fuzz Face. The FF was altered with some extra feedback paths to smooth out the distortion. One of the things Marc did to create the different versions of that circuit was to vary the frequency response of the RANGE control. The other important control Marc added to the FF was the TIGHTNESS control. It adjusts how hard the lower frequencies hit the FF's input. I have applied some of Skreddy's circuit features to my own mods and designs, with good success.

To make a long story even longer, yes, you can easily add a booster front end to many different pedals to goose the gain and add more control over gain and freq response. You could try a Rangemaster-type booster, or a SHO, even an opamp booster is fair game. Experiment!

BTW, the Screw Driver is a personal favorite. Not quite as hot as a Lunar Module. Very versatile and it has the bonus of a germanium transistor right where it can do the most good.

 

[mdc]

The 5-eyed spaghetti god thanks you!