Angry Charles - or "Perturbed Charles"

H

HamishR

Well-known member
I built a Pedal PCB Angry Charles some time back, and it's a great pedal. But as usual (sensing a theme here??) I wanted a little more grunt from it. With a Strat or a Duo jet a lot of dirt pedals sound like pedals because they seem to artificially cut the lows too soon. Through a stack or at higher volume it's probably not an issue, but I play through a 1x12 combo and maybe it's because my amp has a big sound I notice the low end cut of a lot of pedals? I dunno!

I also play at lower gain levels than most players because I don't need the fizz. I like just enough dirt to give a little compression and bite, but not "endless sustain", etc! So what I wanted to do with the Angry Charles was let some more highs through - at lower gain they're a bit muffled - and get some more natural sounding lows. I also wanted to reduce the sibilance you get with LED clipping diodes.

So I changed C16 to 22µF (!), which helped, but not as much as you might think! So going over what Chuck had said about modifying the Gauss Drive I swapped R12 from 6K8 to 4K7. I swapped C17 from 22nF to 10nF (could go even lower possibly) to restore some highs and replaced the LEDs with a pairs of 1N4148 and 1N4001. If you use this pedal with the gain cranked these mods might not be for you but if you like the gain below noon it makes a world of difference! Well it suits me perfectly. Super stoked about this one.

As I didn't want to damage my PCB I drew up a Vero layout and built it like that. Now I have my mods I might build another on the PCB from here. This is why I like building and I especially have come to really value this forum.

AngryCext.jpg

AngryCint.jpg
 
HamishR said:
I built a Pedal PCB Angry Charles some time back, and it's a great pedal. But as usual (sensing a theme here??) I wanted a little more grunt from it. With a Strat or a Duo jet a lot of dirt pedals sound like pedals because they seem to artificially cut the lows too soon. Through a stack or at higher volume it's probably not an issue, but I play through a 1x12 combo and maybe it's because my amp has a big sound I notice the low end cut of a lot of pedals? I dunno!

I also play at lower gain levels than most players because I don't need the fizz. I like just enough dirt to give a little compression and bite, but not "endless sustain", etc! So what I wanted to do with the Angry Charles was let some more highs through - at lower gain they're a bit muffled - and get some more natural sounding lows. I also wanted to reduce the sibilance you get with LED clipping diodes.

So I changed C16 to 22µF (!), which helped, but not as much as you might think! So going over what Chuck had said about modifying the Gauss Drive I swapped R12 from 6K8 to 4K7. I swapped C17 from 22nF to 10nF (could go even lower possibly) to restore some highs and replaced the LEDs with a pairs of 1N4148 and 1N4001. If you use this pedal with the gain cranked these mods might not be for you but if you like the gain below noon it makes a world of difference! Well it suits me perfectly. Super stoked about this one.

As I didn't want to damage my PCB I drew up a Vero layout and built it like that. Now I have my mods I might build another on the PCB from here. This is why I like building and I especially have come to really value this forum.

View attachment 3851

View attachment 3852
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Instead of 2 LED's, Have you tried this:

4 - 1N4148 Clipping Diodes.jpg
 
I guess I can post the vero layout - I'll take it down if Mr PCB doesn't like it. You can do my mods on the PCB - which is what I'll probably end up doing!

As the layout was only for me really it has some shorthand. I know that where the diodes are it is a 1N4001/1N4148 pair - you can just about make it out in the photo. I have used four 1N4148s on many builds but prefer the combo I used. It always works for me!

Angry Charlie.png
 
DIYLC. I think it's from Russia, so there's a good chance it's emptying my bank account while I'm happily drawing layouts. :) It's easy to use once you know the rules, and there are no tutorials so you kinda just have to work it out yourself. But it's not hard.

I'm a bit nervous because I'm hoping that what I changed was actually correct! The big one for me was changing the 6K8 to Bass 3 to a 4K7. I didn't want to go lower than 4K7 because I was concerned it might start to interfere with the mids control.

Anyway It sounds exactly as I was hoping it might. I'm going to check out VeroRoute now.
 
I think VeroRoute is pretty cool and the designer is open to adding new footprints. First time I used it, I imported a netlist from TinyCad and let it auto-route just to see what it could do. After that, I just enter parts and connections manually to make my layouts. Like all EDA tools, there's a little bit of a learning curve. After an hour or so, you'll be proficient. It exports a BOM too, which is a great way to check that you didn't forget any parts.
 
Had a quick look - looks scary to me! But I would love to one day be able to design my own PCBs. I suspect that's a long way off yet.

BTW does changing a 6K8 to Bass 3 to a 4K7 look right to you for increasing bass in a Angry Charles?
 
I installed a copy of EAGLE, which is what Robert uses to design the boards here. Having trouble getting started. For now, I want to use it to draw schematics, but will do board layouts eventually.

R12, is the one you want to reduce to permit more Bass boost. You can easily go down to 4.7K or even further. It should have very little effect on the mids. Fattening up C11 and C12 won't hurt either.
 
Cool! That's the one I changed. i wondered about C11 & 12 but figured I don't really need to change too much - it's a great sounding pedal already. Ages ago I did try the beginner's trick of using a bigger input cap but it didn't sound as good as my new mods... for now obvious reasons.

I have used DIYLC to draw schematics too. It doesn't have any auto-routing stuff and no PCB either, but I like it because I can use it. I looked at Eagle but then my head exploded. Baby steps...
 

What schematic editor does pedalpcb use?

Hi I was wondering what editor you use to create your schematics. Looks great and clear. Cheers
forum.pedalpcb.com

In this thread pedalpcb said he uses diptrace. I started messing with eagle, then tried diptrace. I personally found diptrace a little easier to get started on (like you said, there’s always a learning curve). The really nice thing is the rullywow library is basically plug and play for most things needed (although I think there’s a madbean library for eagle too).

So far I’ve done a few boards and had them fabbed, and it went pretty well. Couple minor mistakes but easy to work around when building, should be easy to get spot on next time.

I’ve used DIYLC as well for vero, nice and simple.
 
Thanks for sharing your veroboard layout. I think is verified.
Did you get oscillation problem at highest gain and mid setting? The Tagboard layout one has some kind of this issue, and this doesn't make me build that layout. I built some PCBs stuff, but I love use veroboard, too.
If your layout is completely ok could be a good thing.
 
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