MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
A while back @Robert was kind enough to send me a Chauffer Drive board which I built out. Build report here.
It's a really great low gain drive, but kind of a big footprint.
When the "Mid Driver" (Courier) was released it caught my interest and I got around to building it out today.
So some of my musings about it, it sounds great but it seems like whoever designed this circuit took the long way round to get to the sound.
"Over-engineered" is the word @Robert used. It's got the same 5 4558's as the Chauffer, charge pump, transistors, some really goofy clipping arrangements with multiple value Zeners and a single 4148 thrown in for good measure hahaha.
Also still the same big footprint.
Having said all that, I really like how it sounds. As the name suggests it's got more of a mid hump and in many ways sits in the same pocket as a TS or a Klon.
Yet it doesn't sound quite like either. Kind of has its own thing going on for a mid-hump type overdrive.
It's got a lot more output and a lot more gain than the Chauffeur. And it's got enough "grunt" to be able to boost an amp which the Chauffer didn't really have.
It kind of picks up where the Chauffer leaves off for a more aggressive mid focused overdrive and sounds pretty good with both single coils and hum buckers.
I'm still playing around discovering what it can do but I recorded a demo clip comparing the two drives with some knob tweaking.
The Chauffeur has a 3 way toggle for brightness levels which the Courier does away with. But the Hi and Lo cut on the Courier seems to have more range than the Chauffeur so I don't really miss the toggle.
I used a ginoowine Hammond enclosure that I got a while ago. You'd think that being a Hammond it would be top notch, but unfortunately I've been pretty disappointed with the powder coating on these. Really poorly done. This is my last one of that batch.
The build itself went smooth aside from putting together all the goofy components. It shares a lot of the same components as the Chauffeur so I still have the oddball 2v5 Zeners that I got for that build. I made just a couple of substitutions. Some of the wonky resistor values I just rounded up to the next closest I had.
I subbed a 2N9306 for the 2N4403 that I didn't have. And I had to teepee one resistor that I didn't have anything close. Otherwise the rest was built to the BOM.
After I had it built, checked voltages at the charge pump, it fired right up..........and.....I had no gain, heh. Gain knob did absolutely nothing.
Turns out that I missed soldering 7 pins of one of the IC sockets. I usually tack all my sockets in with one pin then go back over them and solder the rest of the legs. Somehow I missed one of the 4558 sockets. Once I fixed that it worked perfectly. Just goes to show you....dumbassery is no respecter of persons...
This demo is another "twofer" demo. I had installed my Durbano pickups that I recently received in my Tokai Goldtop.
I got a set of the LIX '59 PAF's (along with some other pickups). These replaced the Porter Anthem Plus that I originally had in the Goldtop.
The Porters were great sounding pickups too but I wanted something a little more vintage wound as opposed to overwound.
The Durbano 59's came in at 7.66k neck and 8.06 bridge. Just about perfect for a vintage set of PAF's.
They definitely have their own character to them, there's just the slightest bit of top end roll off compared to both the Porters and the Wolftone Legends in my PRS.
Slightly warmer, (and I mean slightly) yet still open, organic sounding. They kind of sound like "aged" magnets. (I'm not sure if Fabian Durbano does any degaussing of the magnets or not). They really come alive with some gain though (which I hope will come through in my demo vid).
Absolutely love these pickups and they are just such an incredible bargain. These will easily hang with any of the upda-bungy priced booteek US pickup makers at a fraction of the cost. I'm so glad I rolled the dice with Durbano when I ordered my first set. (Being in Australia there probably would not have been much recourse if they turned out to be dogs hahah). But so far every set I've installed I've absolutely loved.
Anyway, in the demo below, the first part is an excerpt from my Total Recall demo video, using the Gold top with the Porter Anthems in it.
Then it cuts to the today's demo with the Durbano 59's. They both sound really good and honestly I'm having a hard time telling the difference in the playback video. But I can definitely tell when I'm playing them.
If you're looking for some pickups I can highly recommend both Durbano Magnetics in Australia and Wolfetone here in the US.
It's a really great low gain drive, but kind of a big footprint.
When the "Mid Driver" (Courier) was released it caught my interest and I got around to building it out today.
So some of my musings about it, it sounds great but it seems like whoever designed this circuit took the long way round to get to the sound.
"Over-engineered" is the word @Robert used. It's got the same 5 4558's as the Chauffer, charge pump, transistors, some really goofy clipping arrangements with multiple value Zeners and a single 4148 thrown in for good measure hahaha.
Also still the same big footprint.
Having said all that, I really like how it sounds. As the name suggests it's got more of a mid hump and in many ways sits in the same pocket as a TS or a Klon.
Yet it doesn't sound quite like either. Kind of has its own thing going on for a mid-hump type overdrive.
It's got a lot more output and a lot more gain than the Chauffeur. And it's got enough "grunt" to be able to boost an amp which the Chauffer didn't really have.
It kind of picks up where the Chauffer leaves off for a more aggressive mid focused overdrive and sounds pretty good with both single coils and hum buckers.
I'm still playing around discovering what it can do but I recorded a demo clip comparing the two drives with some knob tweaking.
The Chauffeur has a 3 way toggle for brightness levels which the Courier does away with. But the Hi and Lo cut on the Courier seems to have more range than the Chauffeur so I don't really miss the toggle.
I used a ginoowine Hammond enclosure that I got a while ago. You'd think that being a Hammond it would be top notch, but unfortunately I've been pretty disappointed with the powder coating on these. Really poorly done. This is my last one of that batch.
The build itself went smooth aside from putting together all the goofy components. It shares a lot of the same components as the Chauffeur so I still have the oddball 2v5 Zeners that I got for that build. I made just a couple of substitutions. Some of the wonky resistor values I just rounded up to the next closest I had.
I subbed a 2N9306 for the 2N4403 that I didn't have. And I had to teepee one resistor that I didn't have anything close. Otherwise the rest was built to the BOM.
After I had it built, checked voltages at the charge pump, it fired right up..........and.....I had no gain, heh. Gain knob did absolutely nothing.
Turns out that I missed soldering 7 pins of one of the IC sockets. I usually tack all my sockets in with one pin then go back over them and solder the rest of the legs. Somehow I missed one of the 4558 sockets. Once I fixed that it worked perfectly. Just goes to show you....dumbassery is no respecter of persons...
This demo is another "twofer" demo. I had installed my Durbano pickups that I recently received in my Tokai Goldtop.
I got a set of the LIX '59 PAF's (along with some other pickups). These replaced the Porter Anthem Plus that I originally had in the Goldtop.
The Porters were great sounding pickups too but I wanted something a little more vintage wound as opposed to overwound.
The Durbano 59's came in at 7.66k neck and 8.06 bridge. Just about perfect for a vintage set of PAF's.
They definitely have their own character to them, there's just the slightest bit of top end roll off compared to both the Porters and the Wolftone Legends in my PRS.
Slightly warmer, (and I mean slightly) yet still open, organic sounding. They kind of sound like "aged" magnets. (I'm not sure if Fabian Durbano does any degaussing of the magnets or not). They really come alive with some gain though (which I hope will come through in my demo vid).
Absolutely love these pickups and they are just such an incredible bargain. These will easily hang with any of the upda-bungy priced booteek US pickup makers at a fraction of the cost. I'm so glad I rolled the dice with Durbano when I ordered my first set. (Being in Australia there probably would not have been much recourse if they turned out to be dogs hahah). But so far every set I've installed I've absolutely loved.
Anyway, in the demo below, the first part is an excerpt from my Total Recall demo video, using the Gold top with the Porter Anthems in it.
Then it cuts to the today's demo with the Durbano 59's. They both sound really good and honestly I'm having a hard time telling the difference in the playback video. But I can definitely tell when I'm playing them.
If you're looking for some pickups I can highly recommend both Durbano Magnetics in Australia and Wolfetone here in the US.
Sounds awesome.
