BJF Lil Green Wonder - or is it??

H

HamishR

Well-known member
With a lot of help from the patient Chuck I have finally got this pedal where I want it. It started out as just as exercise in "I wonder what this will sound like", morphed into "hey this sounds aright!" and ended up being almost the perfect overdrive for a Gretsch. :)

I got into amp building and then pedal building to get "the sound in my head", which was a big fat twangy, dirty sound; clear and single-coil-like on the bass strings but fat and vocal on the trebles. It was a sound I have always wanted but never got 100% despite trying lots of things. Now, with a Gretsch Duo Jet or 6120 with Filter'trons, my home-made map, some slap-back delay and this pedal I have got closer than ever to my holy grail.

LGWext.jpg

LGWint.jpg

But it does more than that. My Les Paul loves it too. It's not as complex a sound as the G I posted a layout for here. It's actually quite a simple sound and you might notice a TS basis under it. But it has excellent punch, a lot of touch responsiveness and some of the best low string definition I have ever heard in an overdrive pedal. It's all come about almost by accident and I love the sound it has. And it has come a looong way from being a LGW!

Thanks Chuck!!
 
Excellent sir. I gotta start doing those stomp lights. Hey is this the sandpaper black from tayda or something else?
 
Ahhh ok, it does have that automotive texture, I'll do my next build the Caliber 45 in that black, it looks quality. You got me sold on the low parts count for those pedals.
 
I don't really mount the board to anything. The wiring keeps the board in place. Of course the pots beneath the board have condoms on. I find double sided tape doesn't stick to pot condoms very well so I don't use anything. It just stays there.
 
Interesting. I'm planning on building a SHO on vero and was asking myself that question. I'll give that a shot. Thanks!
 
Incredibly cool. Love the black/green aesthetic!
Any chance we could see the schematic? Looked up the TLC272 and seems like it'd be a fun opamp to overdrive.
 
LGW IV schematic.png

If you're familiar with the original you'll see I added a bass pot and we got rid of the Jfet gain stage in front with no change in sound. Chuck told me about that and I love simplicity. I also changed from LEDs to silicon diode clippers because in general I don't care for the sound of LEDs as clipping diodes and in this case I much prefer the silicons. This doesn't really sound like a LGW any more. The LGW is a cool pedal but this is more useful for me.
 
HamishR said:
With a lot of help from the patient Chuck I have finally got this pedal where I want it. It started out as just as exercise in "I wonder what this will sound like", morphed into "hey this sounds aright!" and ended up being almost the perfect overdrive for a Gretsch. :)

I got into amp building and then pedal building to get "the sound in my head", which was a big fat twangy, dirty sound; clear and single-coil-like on the bass strings but fat and vocal on the trebles. It was a sound I have always wanted but never got 100% despite trying lots of things. Now, with a Gretsch Duo Jet or 6120 with Filter'trons, my home-made map, some slap-back delay and this pedal I have got closer than ever to my holy grail.

View attachment 7107

View attachment 7108

But it does more than that. My Les Paul loves it too. It's not as complex a sound as the G I posted a layout for here. It's actually quite a simple sound and you might notice a TS basis under it. But it has excellent punch, a lot of touch responsiveness and some of the best low string definition I have ever heard in an overdrive pedal. It's all come about almost by accident and I love the sound it has. And it has come a looong way from being a LGW!

Thanks Chuck!!
Click to expand...
That looks great. Nice and clean. I’ve only done one vero layout so far and it was kind of a nightmare when it came to the off board wiring. I plan on doing more.
 
That is some extremely tidy vero building.........

I don't think I'll be uploading any of my vero efforts any time soon

That just looks top quality far better than some of the manufactured handmade jobs that use vero, I've seen

I think myself and the boutique builders will need a very high ladder to get anywhere near your level of vero craft

If you look closely you can just make me out! but I had to climb down again damn soldering iron cable was far too short!

big_ladder.jpg
 
If anyone is interested in building this I have discovered that two parts make a huge difference in how it sounds. If you want a crisp, twangy overdrive which suits a Gretsch particularly well, build it as shown above. If you want something fatter and meatier and more ROCK change C5 to 100nF and remove C11. Simple as that. Changing C5 makes a huge difference to the overall sound, and making it 100nF really bumps up the mids. I'm keeping one of each. :)


Oh, and it works fine with a regular old TL072 too.
 
Agreed you have consistently great vero work. Thanks for sharing the design with all the mods, looks great. Just to clarify, removing C11 would increase treble, making it more twangy, right. Or in the version with C5=47n was C11 added to compensate to reduce high end?
 
C11 was put there to reduce treble on the brighter/thinner version. When you use a bigger cap at C5 you don't need it. It amazes me how much difference that cap (C5) makes - but Chuck knew! Apparently using 100nF for C5 brings the bass into mid-hump territory. Kinda.

The fatter version is more like a typical LGW sound, and the thinner version (schematic above) is the twangy clear version. The twangy version is just beautiful with a Gibson when you use the neck or middle setting. With gain down it's a great clean-to-dirty OD with plenty of sparkle and chime. I'm thinking I might build a 2-in-1 pedal with one of each version.
 
Also would be very easy to select these caps with a toggle switch. Your compact layout would have plenty of space in 1590B.
 
"Also would be very easy to select these caps with a toggle switch. Your compact layout would have plenty of space in 1590B."

Yeah I have been thinking about that. The only issue is the treble. When you reduce the value of C5 it seems to get a lot brighter - it probably doesn't, but of course it's all about balance. I guess I could use a DPDT and switch two caps at once... But I'm not one for using toggle switches much. I usually find the setting I like and hardwire that! I'd rather have two pedals. :eek:
 
Haha understandable... I tend to try to build in options since I’m cheap about enclosures and switches haha. Anyway... you could adjust both C5 and C11 on a SPDT toggle. 47n hardwired in for C5. Lug 2 of the switch to ground. One side of the toggle adds another 47n in parallel with C5. The other side adds C11 to ground.
 
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