MichaelW
Well-known member
Update:
Yes, another update, well, as I've been telling @steviejr92 offline, I've done a complete 180 on this pedal and have fallen in love it it all over again. Somehow it makes me feel like a kid again, which I'm sure has less to do with "toanz" and more to do with nostalgia. Brings me back to the days when I didn't know I couldn't play any Jeff Beck and went for it anyways (we covered a couple of tunes from Blow By Blow and Wired in my band)
Still feeling the sting of shame of my own stupidity of my initial reaction to this pedal, I decided I liked it enough to experiment a bit more with the diodes.....so basically I went diode diving today pretty deep down the rabbit hole.
I think I probably tried 10 different kinds of Ge diodes and 10 different type of Si diodes.
One very interesting discovery I made is that Bat46 diodes sound an awful lot like Ge Diodes. The Vf on the ST Micro 46's I have in my stash are all in the mid 300's. When I used that combination of Bat46 on the Si side of the clipping toggle it was (almost) indistinguihsable from the Ge side. Nice little nugget of info to tuck away for me to forget hahaha.
On the Ge side, I have to admit I am still quite enamored with the Mullards/Phillips NOS diodes that I recently got from SmallBear. So much so that I ordered some more while they're still quite cheap. I see these (OA9 and OA10) going for a LOT more where they can be found (eBay). Anyway, I started out with the 1N192's I had in there which sounded pretty good already. They measured in low 400's on my CCT. I decided to go the both directions on the Vf scale, I tried a set of 1N34A's that measured in the 900's
. I have yet to find a good use for these high Vf Ge's but they actually sounded pretty good, but as expected a lot less saturation and later breakup.
Then I went the other direction with a pair of Amperex OF129's that measure in the low 200's on my CCT. They behaved as expected as well. After trying a bunch in between I finally landed on the Phillips OA9's. This is the 3rd pedal I've put them in recently. I just absolutely love how they sound, a unique sound to them. I think this pair clocked in right around ~320. Which is a bit on the high side for these diodes from what I've tested so far.
On the Si side, the venerable 4148's really held their own against a bunch of challengers. I went through all the BAT series, as well as some oddballs like the 1SS133's which sounded pretty unique and cool.
But after a bunch of different diodes all across the Vf spectrum I landed at using a pair of ginoooowine 1S1588's that I got from Retroampolis. I recently gave a couple to Chuck D. Bones and he gave them the thumbs down, they're out of spec, or "almost" out of spec. This is the first time I've used these (I've used the fake ones I had all this time in a lot of pedals hahahaha). I think they tested around ~630 on my tester and they're the ones that stayed.
After all that diode tasting I committed and soldered them in.
So in the end I have a totally bastardized DOD+ (Or Distortion250, or 250+, or whatever....)
All other components are built to Gray Box spec, the diodes are a somewhat flight of fancy to what sounded good to me.
But I am digging it. I pretty much have the vol and gain dimed in the Ge setting. This pedal could definitely benefit from having another gain stage or an "Afterblaster" board or something like that. But no way all that can fit in my MXR Orange 1590B. I think I may just run a clean boost after it. I was also messing with boosting it with the Powersound Boost I just built. It can add some cool gnarlyness to all that saturation on the Ge setting. Very happy with how this turned out and surprised that it's still a relevant sounding pedal.
Hmmm, just noticed I wrote "OA10" on the lid. That should be "OA9" Gonna need to change that.
Yes, another update, well, as I've been telling @steviejr92 offline, I've done a complete 180 on this pedal and have fallen in love it it all over again. Somehow it makes me feel like a kid again, which I'm sure has less to do with "toanz" and more to do with nostalgia. Brings me back to the days when I didn't know I couldn't play any Jeff Beck and went for it anyways (we covered a couple of tunes from Blow By Blow and Wired in my band)
Still feeling the sting of shame of my own stupidity of my initial reaction to this pedal, I decided I liked it enough to experiment a bit more with the diodes.....so basically I went diode diving today pretty deep down the rabbit hole.
I think I probably tried 10 different kinds of Ge diodes and 10 different type of Si diodes.
One very interesting discovery I made is that Bat46 diodes sound an awful lot like Ge Diodes. The Vf on the ST Micro 46's I have in my stash are all in the mid 300's. When I used that combination of Bat46 on the Si side of the clipping toggle it was (almost) indistinguihsable from the Ge side. Nice little nugget of info to tuck away for me to forget hahaha.
On the Ge side, I have to admit I am still quite enamored with the Mullards/Phillips NOS diodes that I recently got from SmallBear. So much so that I ordered some more while they're still quite cheap. I see these (OA9 and OA10) going for a LOT more where they can be found (eBay). Anyway, I started out with the 1N192's I had in there which sounded pretty good already. They measured in low 400's on my CCT. I decided to go the both directions on the Vf scale, I tried a set of 1N34A's that measured in the 900's
. I have yet to find a good use for these high Vf Ge's but they actually sounded pretty good, but as expected a lot less saturation and later breakup.Then I went the other direction with a pair of Amperex OF129's that measure in the low 200's on my CCT. They behaved as expected as well. After trying a bunch in between I finally landed on the Phillips OA9's. This is the 3rd pedal I've put them in recently. I just absolutely love how they sound, a unique sound to them. I think this pair clocked in right around ~320. Which is a bit on the high side for these diodes from what I've tested so far.
On the Si side, the venerable 4148's really held their own against a bunch of challengers. I went through all the BAT series, as well as some oddballs like the 1SS133's which sounded pretty unique and cool.
But after a bunch of different diodes all across the Vf spectrum I landed at using a pair of ginoooowine 1S1588's that I got from Retroampolis. I recently gave a couple to Chuck D. Bones and he gave them the thumbs down, they're out of spec, or "almost" out of spec. This is the first time I've used these (I've used the fake ones I had all this time in a lot of pedals hahahaha). I think they tested around ~630 on my tester and they're the ones that stayed.
After all that diode tasting I committed and soldered them in.
So in the end I have a totally bastardized DOD+ (Or Distortion250, or 250+, or whatever....)
All other components are built to Gray Box spec, the diodes are a somewhat flight of fancy to what sounded good to me.
But I am digging it. I pretty much have the vol and gain dimed in the Ge setting. This pedal could definitely benefit from having another gain stage or an "Afterblaster" board or something like that. But no way all that can fit in my MXR Orange 1590B. I think I may just run a clean boost after it. I was also messing with boosting it with the Powersound Boost I just built. It can add some cool gnarlyness to all that saturation on the Ge setting. Very happy with how this turned out and surprised that it's still a relevant sounding pedal.
Hmmm, just noticed I wrote "OA10" on the lid. That should be "OA9" Gonna need to change that.
