Breadboarded a circuit that I like: two-knob germanium Electra

ragamuffin

ragamuffin

Well-known member
The past weak or so I've been watching/reading up on breadboarding and the Electra distortion circuit. Yesterday I breadboard the basic version (my first breadboard pedal) and then a modded version taking cues from JHS's "Shrieking Eel" Electra variant that he built on his youtube channel streams.

I got some NPN germanium transistors (2N1306 from Small Bear) and really like what they do in this circuit, they give it a gritty overdrive character even without the diodes, so I built the circuit around that! The one that I used tested at around 180hFE on my cheapo TC1 tester.

I didn't feel that I needed the "Body" control of the Shrieking Eel, which basically pans between a larger and smaller input cap, so I bypassed that and replaced it with a basic input cap and experimented with values, ending up with a .01uF cap.

I used a 50K trim pot to dial in the right resistance on R1 to get 4.5 volts which I decided was where I liked it, and replaced it with a resistor.

I played around with output cap value, but ended up with it back at .047uF cap like the Eel.

For the diodes I almost preferred it without them, but found a combination that I liked of "high voltage forward germanium diodes" from Small Bear in series with 1N4148s.

Anyways, it sounds really good! Nice gritty/low-gain-fuzz-ish overdrive tones! I think once I build it I'm going to install it in my jazzmaster in place of the Fuzz Face that is currently in there, since I also recently built a Sunflower/Sunface for my pedalboard.

I created a stripboard layout for it in DIYLC layout creator: I'd appreciate it if anyone would look over it for any errors/issues!

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BuddytheReow said:
Base needs some dc voltage to turn the transistor on and open the channel between collector and emitter. Take a look at a lpb-1 or muff stage to see what I mean.
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Oh I see. I watched a video where they said that when using a germanium transistor in this circuit that that resistor was not necessary due to the leakage, does that sound reasonable or no? I originally had a 1M between the base and collector, but liked the sound better when I took it out.
 
ragamuffin said:
I'd appreciate it if anyone would look over it for any errors/issues!
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I'm surprised BtR and nobody else has mentioned how shoving pots in your breadboard will quickly wear out those points in the breadboard.

Some people use bits of vero and pin-headers for dedicated breadboarding-pots, others use solder-lug pots with wires attached at the pot and pins at the other end of the wire...

There are multiple other ways of adapting your pots to your breadboard, but just jamming pots directly into the breadboard will compromise your breadboard sooner than later.

I use female to male jumper-wires, that way I can swap pot values easily and don't have to dedicate any pots to being strictly for breadboarding.


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Feral Feline said:
I'm surprised BtR and nobody else has mentioned how shoving pots in your breadboard will quickly wear out those points in the breadboard.

Some people use bits of vero and pin-headers for dedicated breadboarding-pots, others use solder-lug pots with wires attached at the pot and pins at the other end of the wire...

There are multiple other ways of adapting your pots to your breadboard, but just jamming pots directly into the breadboard will compromise your breadboard sooner than later.

I use female to male jumper-wires, that way I can swap pot values easily and don't have to dedicate any pots to being strictly for breadboarding.


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Thanks, I'll try to get some of those!
 
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