SOLVED Aphrodite Overdrive... Anyone built yet?

[Locrian99]

Good evening all,

I built a strip board layout of the aphrodite that followed the schematic from the PCB. It's working great other than two things. One I feel it sounds a little fizzy, not terrible by any means but theres a little fizz in there I'm hoping this goes away after being boxed. The 2nd thing is when the gain pot is maxed it feedsback, depending on the location of the drive pot it can get pretty bad. Drive pot fully CCW its still annoying and unusable at max gain setting. I thought this might go away after boxing, but another person where I got the layout is reporting the same issue and says his is still doing it after boxing. I'm curious if anyone has built the PCB yet and if they are encountering this same issue. I doubt both he and I made the same error, I haven't traced out the schematic vs. the layout yet. Likely will, but figured I might save myself some time if the issue is the same with the PCB version. The one change I did make from both the schematic and layout is I used a 1044 max and changed c101 to a 10u. But all my voltages appear to be spot on to me.

Thanks!

 

[sopapo]

I think it’s the wiring. And I don’t really see a great way to improve it with that layout. Stuff crosses all over the place in my enclosure. Maybe if I had it in a 1590b or 125bb I could get it better.

Took it out of the enclosure, made the cut tou recommended. Got my tayda order in today with a couple values I ran a few series resistors and a series cap to achieve so I swapped those out. It was sounding pretty good, that sizzle/fizz/fuzzy sound seemed fine. I still couldn’t max out the savage pot with the gain turned up. But the thing that was really annoying was solved. Got it back in the enclosure all the wires going, quite the challenge actually. And it sounded worse than when I took it out…. I may give this circuit a shot on pcb down the line but I’m done with this vero, hopefully I can find a 5 pot build to use this enclosure for down the line. Only thing I can see possibly making it worse is the wires but 5 pots in there and it’s going to be impossible to seperate that stuff well without making the box huge. Anyways

Sorry to hear that¡¡¡ When you say that it was sounding worse than before, you are talking about noise? or tone? if its tone its weird, you are using the same values...The funny thing is that I bit the bullet and I am building this vero too¡¡¡ I like very much the tone on the demos. I want to see if I like it tonewise and if positive, I will order a pcb. I think that the noise performance of the pcb will be better..

 

[sopapo]

Good evening all,

I built a strip board layout of the aphrodite that followed the schematic from the PCB. It's working great other than two things. One I feel it sounds a little fizzy, not terrible by any means but theres a little fizz in there I'm hoping this goes away after being boxed. The 2nd thing is when the gain pot is maxed it feedsback, depending on the location of the drive pot it can get pretty bad. Drive pot fully CCW its still annoying and unusable at max gain setting. I thought this might go away after boxing, but another person where I got the layout is reporting the same issue and says his is still doing it after boxing. I'm curious if anyone has built the PCB yet and if they are encountering this same issue. I doubt both he and I made the same error, I haven't traced out the schematic vs. the layout yet. Likely will, but figured I might save myself some time if the issue is the same with the PCB version. The one change I did make from both the schematic and layout is I used a 1044 max and changed c101 to a 10u. But all my voltages appear to be spot on to me.

Thanks!

Have you look at the schematic? I think I saw several mistakes in the vero layout, the -v don t have the 100uf filter and other things..

 

[Locrian99]

Sorry to hear that¡¡¡ When you say that it was sounding worse than before, you are talking about noise? or tone? if its tone its weird, you are using the same values...The funny thing is that I bit the bullet and I am building this vero too¡¡¡ I like very much the tone on the demos. I want to see if I like it tonewise and if positive, I will order a pcb. I think that the noise performance of the pcb will be better..

Tone is great. It sounds like hard clipping but extreme too much. It’s been kind of annoying because I can’t seem to figure out if it’s right or not. But it just didn’t seem right. Then I took it out and did added the cut. And it sounds awesome, just the right amount of that hard clipping which I described as fizz, bad descriptive word but when it’s excessive that’s what it kind of sounded like. Put it back and it was even worse the bad sounding clipping. I ordered some push back shielded wiring to try for the input and output. I’ve been playing this on my test bench outside of the box for days and really like it, with out the excessive fizz fuzz clipping whatever you want to call it. It’s like you hear the regular signal, but there’s also this just fizz that sustains and takes over the signal when it’s in the box. Curious if you get the feedback when your savage pot is maxed. Let me know. There’s a post on dirtbox saying to wire a 1k in series. In the comments where the schem is posted there’s some banter about how odd the savage pot is.

To clarify I don’t think anything I did after taking it out made it any better. So my original issue was cpa vs scpa charge pump high pitch whine, feedback when gain pot maxed fixed by changing diodes, the whole time it also had the excess clipping which did seem a little better after changing the diodes but was still there. The struggle has been real with this one. Lol. Haven’t completely abandoned a project yet thought this was going to be it but I have found I like it too much sounding correctly outside of the box, so on to the shielded wire.



I’ve gone through the schematic. The -v has the filter it’s just up by the op amp after -v goes through the link. Everything looked right to me added a pull down resistor was the only change I really saw as I recall. I don’t know how much it matters that the cap is up off pin 4 of the tl072 or not as opposed to being next to the 7662.

 

[sopapo]

Tone is great. It sounds like hard clipping but extreme too much. It’s been kind of annoying because I can’t seem to figure out if it’s right or not. But it just didn’t seem right. Then I took it out and did added the cut. And it sounds awesome, just the right amount of that hard clipping which I described as fizz, bad descriptive word but when it’s excessive that’s what it kind of sounded like. Put it back and it was even worse the bad sounding clipping. I ordered some push back shielded wiring to try for the input and output. I’ve been playing this on my test bench outside of the box for days and really like it, with out the excessive fizz fuzz clipping whatever you want to call it. It’s like you hear the regular signal, but there’s also this just fizz that sustains and takes over the signal when it’s in the box. Curious if you get the feedback when your savage pot is maxed. Let me know. There’s a post on dirtbox saying to wire a 1k in series. In the comments where the schem is posted there’s some banter about how odd the savage pot is.

To clarify I don’t think anything I did after taking it out made it any better. So my original issue was cpa vs scpa charge pump high pitch whine, feedback when gain pot maxed fixed by changing diodes, the whole time it also had the excess clipping which did seem a little better after changing the diodes but was still there. The struggle has been real with this one. Lol. Haven’t completely abandoned a project yet thought this was going to be it but I have found I like it too much sounding correctly outside of the box, so on to the shielded wire.



I’ve gone through the schematic. The -v has the filter it’s just up by the op amp after -v goes through the link. Everything looked right to me added a pull down resistor was the only change I really saw as I recall. I don’t know how much it matters that the cap is up off pin 4 of the tl072 or not as opposed to being next to the 7662.

There is a mistake on the 7660, between the pin 5 and 8 there is a 100n CAP, It has to be between pin 5 and ground, its the CAP that is parallel to the 100uf CAP (yes, you are right its far away in the tl072 negative input)
Also i would remove the 2m2 resistor in the input , its mangling the input impedance, its not a terrible thing, but its álter the input impedance and add thermic noise..

 

[sopapo]

There is a mistake on the 7660, between the pin 5 and 8 there is a 100n CAP, It has to be between pin 5 and ground, its the CAP that is parallel to the 100uf CAP (yes, you are right its far away in the tl072 negative input)
Also i would remove the 2m2 resistor in the input , its mangling the input impedance, its not a terrible thing, but its álter the input impedance and add thermic noise..

When I put the wires to try It I Will report to you my finds

 

[Locrian99]

There is a mistake on the 7660, between the pin 5 and 8 there is a 100n CAP, It has to be between pin 5 and ground, its the CAP that is parallel to the 100uf CAP (yes, you are right its far away in the tl072 negative input)
Also i would remove the 2m2 resistor in the input , its mangling the input impedance, its not a terrible thing, but its álter the input impedance and add thermic noise..

I see what you are saying yes that should be going to ground not the -v. Easy fix too just 1 row off. Thank you.

 

[Locrian99]

Seems like there’s a fair amount of issues over there. Built 4 layouts from there now and 2 of them I e had to make changes to get them to work correctly. But it’s cool they are free and it forces me to learn

 

[Locrian99]

Finished up my blues driver clone and got to work in this guy…again. Pulled the 2m2 resistor and moved that 100nf so it’s going to ground. Noodled away for 20 minutes twisting knobs, etc. still have the can’t max gain pot and savage pot at same time without the screech, annoying but I can accept that I guess. The annoying whatever it is is gone, box it back up. Turn the volume pot all the way down so I don’t accidentally wake up the whole house. Shoot took my guitar inside. Go from garage to living room grab guitar, back to garage. Plug in, put then output cord back in amp. Hit the switch led lights up nothing. Wtf. This was just working fine. Take the back off the enclosure inspect everything check for any loose pot wires. Make sure nothing is getting grounded some how. Put it baxk together. Nothing. Pull it back open. Pull it out so it’s kind of half out of the enclosure so I make sure nothing is grounded out. Nothing. Remember I turned the volume off (there’s no knov on it at this point). Voila it works. Box it back up. Works awesome the fizz is gone with it boxed and I’m a happy camper. Let me know if you get the squeal with the savage pot and gain maxed. I’m not adding the 1k resistor because then I could never max the savage pot right now I just can’t max the savage and gain at same time but I can get pretty close. Thank you for seeing that 100n thing not sure why I missed that…

 

[sopapo]

Finished up my blues driver clone and got to work in this guy…again. Pulled the 2m2 resistor and moved that 100nf so it’s going to ground. Noodled away for 20 minutes twisting knobs, etc. still have the can’t max gain pot and savage pot at same time without the screech, annoying but I can accept that I guess. The annoying whatever it is is gone, box it back up. Turn the volume pot all the way down so I don’t accidentally wake up the whole house. Shoot took my guitar inside. Go from garage to living room grab guitar, back to garage. Plug in, put then output cord back in amp. Hit the switch led lights up nothing. Wtf. This was just working fine. Take the back off the enclosure inspect everything check for any loose pot wires. Make sure nothing is getting grounded some how. Put it baxk together. Nothing. Pull it back open. Pull it out so it’s kind of half out of the enclosure so I make sure nothing is grounded out. Nothing. Remember I turned the volume off (there’s no knov on it at this point). Voila it works. Box it back up. Works awesome the fizz is gone with it boxed and I’m a happy camper. Let me know if you get the squeal with the savage pot and gain maxed. I’m not adding the 1k resistor because then I could never max the savage pot right now I just can’t max the savage and gain at same time but I can get pretty close. Thank you for seeing that 100n thing not sure why I missed that…

I am so glad that this have worked!!! Fizz gone?? Wow...I wonder what was happening when this cap were between rails.
Why you dont try the trick of the resistor on the pot??
Before this try to put a buffered Signal on the input of this pedal ( Boss pedal in bypass..etc) to see if the squeal is a impedance thing..

 

[Locrian99]

I am so glad that this have worked!!! Fizz gone?? Wow...I wonder what was happening when this cap were between rails.
Why you dont try the trick of the resistor on the pot??
Before this try to put a buffered Signal on the input of this pedal ( Boss pedal in bypass..etc) to see if the squeal is a impedance thing..

Putting a resistor in series with the pot is just making it so the savage pot can’t be dimed at least how I’m thinking. Right now it’s unusable at full savage and full gain, but I can dime the savage pot at almost max gain. Figure it’s better to have the ability to still dime the savage pot at most settings. I had tried putting my rv-6 in front of it in bypass before and it didn’t change it. That was before the cuts etc and it did seem a little tamer now than it was just it might have just been a volume setting thing.

 

[HeliosPAF]

Putting a resistor in series with the pot is just making it so the savage pot can’t be dimed at least how I’m thinking. Right now it’s unusable at full savage and full gain, but I can dime the savage pot at almost max gain. Figure it’s better to have the ability to still dime the savage pot at most settings. I had tried putting my rv-6 in front of it in bypass before and it didn’t change it. That was before the cuts etc and it did seem a little tamer now than it was just it might have just been a volume setting thing.

Hi Locrian! There is another bug fixed in the vero layout, R3 was marked as 122k and it is 22k. Maybe it will improve somewhat, if you make the change please let me know. I am considering building this

 

[Locrian99]

Hi Locrian! There is another bug fixed in the vero layout, R3 was marked as 122k and it is 22k. Maybe it will improve somewhat, if you make the change please let me know. I am considering building this

I actually built the pcb and cannibalized a lot of the parts from the vero build to do so. That was an interesting build for me my first real there’s something up with this but can’t put my finger in it build. I want to say I caught that 122k error initially as I thought the 122k was weird. But maybe I did 120 there. It’s been too long to remember. It’s been awhile since I’ve messed with the pedal it does several things really well but I found I used mostly the lower gain sounds and I found a few others that I felt did it a bit better.

 

[HeliosPAF]

I actually built the pcb and cannibalized a lot of the parts from the vero build to do so. That was an interesting build for me my first real there’s something up with this but can’t put my finger in it build. I want to say I caught that 122k error initially as I thought the 122k was weird. But maybe I did 120 there. It’s been too long to remember. It’s been awhile since I’ve messed with the pedal it does several things really well but I found I used mostly the lower gain sounds and I found a few others that I felt did it a bit better.

Well i built this one and guess what... Is squealing too but with the gain pot and have a weird farty decay... I was hoping that the bugs found would fix the problem...

 

[szukalski]

Well i built this one and guess what... Is squealing too but with the gain pot and have a weird farty decay... I was hoping that the bugs found would fix the problem...

Grab the PCB. Problem solved. Or breadboard it from the schematic.

 

[Locrian99]

Well i built this one and guess what... Is squealing too but with the gain pot and have a weird farty decay... I was hoping that the bugs found would fix the problem...

I think my pcb does the squeal thing too still with gain and savage both maxed I’d have to check. Wonder if your farty decay was my fizz, that build was pretty much the fork in my vero building. I’ll still do once once in awhile but I’m general I just buy a pcb now unless it’s real small.

 

[Locrian99]

Well I got it out to check. No squeal on the pcb one. I think that’s my blue Steele that does that. Anyways.

As @szukalski suggested buy the pcb that vero isn’t worth the headache.