Chuck D. Bones Bass Klon (AionFX Refractor)

[Hetari Gotoh]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

It took a while but I finally got to building the Bass Klon Feral Feline suggested in my first build report. I didn't have a Kliché Mini so I tried the recipe on a Refractor board.



No particular problem fitting the new values on it, except for C3 and C7 that required some vaseline. For C9 I used a tantalum bomb because 10uF.
The magic diodes are BAT41 because bass. When a biped plays bass there is freedom from the constraints of traditionalism. Keeping the same set of strings for years, having poor personal hygiene and a strong gut microbiome provides all the magic needed.
The charge pump is a 7660SCPAZ in place of the listed TC1044SCPA, as suggested by music6000 to avoid the Squealing Klon Syndrome.

This is the mod list, along with Chuck's notes from the original article:



Satisfaction has been achieved. The pedal seems to work really well as a bass overdrive. It's particularly pleasing at moderate gain levels and doesn't turn my amp into my grandpa's portable transistor radio like many others do. It wants me to play with a pick. The fact that it can be powered with a battery means I can test it thoroughly and carry it around like my grandpa's portable transistor radio.

My gratitude goes to Chuck D. Bones and those who pointed me at this remarkable hair generator.

 

[Feral Feline]

Great!

Love the knock-kneed Centauride-in-a-skirt anime-ish graphic, and really good call on the BAT41 (no Ge-Temperature drift) as well as swapping to the superior 7660 charge-pump.

I've got a bunch of Refractors to build up, so thanks for the ref-des for that looming project.

 

[OrganMeat]

Very cool. I also built a Bass Klon recently. I haven't heard about using BAT41 instead of Germanium diodes here. Why is that beneficial?

 

[Feral Feline]

Very cool. I also built a Bass Klon recently. I haven't heard about using BAT41 instead of Germanium diodes here. Why is that beneficial?

Very similar forward voltage to Ge. The "knee" is a bit different, silicon (BAT41) will have a sharper knee (*turn on) to Ge's gradual transition (soft knee) — whether you can hear the difference, I don't know. \

Some people have great taste-buds and can tell what flower the bees were feeding on to produce the honey being tasted.


Anyway, it's beneficial because silicon is temperature stable, so you can play an outdoor festival on a hot stage where a Ge-based circuit might just puke and say "not today, sunny".

 

[Hetari Gotoh]

I remember reading in some other thread that the forward voltage of germanium diodes rises with temperature, resulting in less clipping and some say "duller tone", but the effect is not that dramatic in real world applications. And that on the other hand, Germanium transistors in your pedal will definitely ruin your day by puking and calling you Sunny.

Which reminds me of that song by Shawn Colvin. The one that goes like

Sunny came home to her favorite room
Sunny sat down at the workbench
She opened her fuzz and a box of germs
Sunny came up with transistors

They say, "Temp goes up, I don't know why
The leakage's going wild
We raise our gain and fuck up all the bias
Into the fuzz"

That said, all my germanium diodes seem to have a 250-300mV forward voltage, whereas these BAT41 are way closer to the standard value of a 1N34A in addition to being more stable.

Damn, now I will spend the rest of the day playing that song in my head...

 

[zeropluszero]

Fucking pissing myself that I picked that without having to look it up, then tried to sing it to my wife, then had to play it on Spotify while I sung your lyrics over the top.
Thanks for that. Great work.