Brownout Overdrive

[falco_femoralis]

I've been on an "amp in a box" kick lately and just finished up this Brownout Overdrive. The pedal art on the original is AC/DC themed with their font and the lightning bolt, but AC/DC was never known for using a variac, so I'm not sure why Subdecay chose that name. The "Brownout" name also suggests Van Halen, but despite this, I went the AC/DC way because I love them and I used Marshall knobs and painted the pedal in colors reminiscent of the Bonfire box set.



I moved the controls around vs the PCB because I like to make it hard for myself, and I made the LED change color along with the toggle switch setting.

Actually I installed two LEDs

And a double pole switch to control them

I also off boarded one of the pots, and I was super glad when this thing worked when I first fired it up

This is a really interesting pedal. The Pentodes control and the Phaser Inverter switch are supposed to be simulating different kinds of tube amp overdrives (I think?) I wish I understood what was going on. I was not ready to try to understand any of it after blasting my mind building this pedal the past two hours.

When I play thru it, the Pentodes control adds more treble response and a super nice saturation when turned up - you have to turn down the Treble control to adjust for it. The Phase Inverter toggle switch is fairly subtle, but now that I've taken a look at the schematic I can see it seems to be reactive to the Pentodes control, so I'll have to flesh it out a bit more and see if there's a setting where the toggle makes a more substantial difference.

With the Preamp and Pentodes controls dimed, I was getting some superbly awesome feedback, reminiscent of the Let There Be Rock Movie live recording from 1979.

This one is going to be on my board for a while.

 

[pbrommer]

That finish color looks like a nicely aged burst

 

[Erik S]

Nice one! I’m always impressed by your willingness to wrangle control layouts into cooler configurations.

 

[falco_femoralis]

Nice one! I’m always impressed by your willingness to wrangle control layouts into cooler configurations.

I've tried to cut back on it for my sanity's sake but for 5 knob layouts I prefer 3 across the top so the knobs make a V shape

 

[bluedmc777]

Nice! I have one of these in the mail. Kinda worried now though as I didn’t realize it used so many 2N5457s. How does fair to the Plexi Breed, Pussy Melter or Ultisol?

I have “The Second One” built but waiting on one part. I’m very excited to try it it’s a clone of the Colombo Audio The One based on the old JMP-1 preamp. Demos sound great.

 

[HamishR]

I think it's similar in ways to the Plexi Breed - similar thick, ampy sound. Both excellent ODs.

I wish the Variac had the tone knobs reversed and below the other three knobs. I always try to have the Gain top right, Volume top left, Bass lower left and Treble lower right. That helps me with my typical graphics scheme.

Nice build, BTW!

 

[bluedmc777]

I think it's similar in ways to the Plexi Breed - similar thick, ampy sound. Both excellent ODs.

I wish the Variac had the tone knobs reversed and below the other three knobs. I always try to have the Gain top right, Volume top left, Bass lower left and Treble lower right. That helps me with my typical graphics scheme.

Nice build, BTW!

That’s seems to be the most popular layout. Check out the Ultisol distortion if you haven’t already its layout will really throw you off. It’s a great distortion based off the Dawner Prince Red Box.