Baby Blue OD with bass pot

H

HamishR

Well-known member
See this why I love building my own... I really like the BJF designed Baby Blue Overdrive but it sounded a bit thin with my Strat. So Chuck suggested how I could add a bass pot. This circuit is kind of fuzz-meets-overdrive. It's not a particularly twangy or "transparent" OD (Sorry for the TGP cliché) but it's a lot of fun to play. It really shines with a Les Paul and a Marshall, but I have found other uses than just that.

The 1µF and 4µ7 caps are indicated as tantalum but I think they were electrolytic in the original.

Baby Blue OD 4K.png

If you can't find 2N5952 you could probably make it with 2N5457s, and Tayda have those readily available in through-hole form. They're branded Central and I have had great results with them. They have the opposite pin-out though, so if you use 2N5457s turn them 180 degrees from how they're indicated above.
 
In what sense? To be honest I've built a few of these just chucking in whatever 2N5952s I've had and they've all worked beautifully. I think Chuck has had less than stellar results with transistors which didn't bias as well. And often with these BJF designs 2N5457s work just as well as long as you watch the pinout. I haven't tried them in this circuit though.
 
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FWIW I measured the drains of the transistors in this circuit on two versions I made. On both Q1 was under 4V - around the 3.6-3.7 mark. Q2 & Q3 in both were between 4 and 4.6V.

So I tried getting the voltages all up to around 4.5VDC to see if it made any difference. Tonally very little change. But in feel the higher voltages just tightened things up slightly. The lower voltages give it a bit more sag. I like both! But the way I like this pedal is as a kinda fuzzy, loose overdrive; kinda like an old amp being pushed too hard. The lower voltage possibly does this better but I could use either. It does fuzzy, mid-forward and loose well but still has decent definition if you turn the treble up.
 
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