Erik S
Well-known member
This one gave me some trouble, but now that it’s working right it sounds incredible. This may end up going to a friend, but if it does I’ll be building another one for sure.
It powered up and made sounds right away, but they were not good sounds. Very quiet in low gain mode with the gain knob working backwards, and louder in high gain mode, but very weird sputtery gated thing.
I tried some different ICs, and transistors with no change, and I considered posting a cry for help, but I knew I would be asked to check all my component values and solder joints, so I pulled it back apart and did that. Turns out I had a 68k in for a 68r. Got to use my fancy new Engineer sucker, got it swapped, and now she’s good to go.
I considered shelling out for some genuine oc71s, but some helpful poster here said any Ge pnp in the right gain range ought to work okay. I went with these from smallbear - https://smallbear-electronics.mybigcommerce.com/pnp-germanium-rangemaster-raw-stock/
The first couple pedals I built, I didn’t have a great time with the 3pdt wiring, then I discovered switch boards, and I’ve been doing that since. Wasn’t an option on the high gain switch here so I opted to wire both directly. It wasn’t as bad as I remembered. I may not give up my boards completely, but I’ll be doing some more direct wiring for sure.
It powered up and made sounds right away, but they were not good sounds. Very quiet in low gain mode with the gain knob working backwards, and louder in high gain mode, but very weird sputtery gated thing.
I tried some different ICs, and transistors with no change, and I considered posting a cry for help, but I knew I would be asked to check all my component values and solder joints, so I pulled it back apart and did that. Turns out I had a 68k in for a 68r. Got to use my fancy new Engineer sucker, got it swapped, and now she’s good to go.
I considered shelling out for some genuine oc71s, but some helpful poster here said any Ge pnp in the right gain range ought to work okay. I went with these from smallbear - https://smallbear-electronics.mybigcommerce.com/pnp-germanium-rangemaster-raw-stock/
The first couple pedals I built, I didn’t have a great time with the 3pdt wiring, then I discovered switch boards, and I’ve been doing that since. Wasn’t an option on the high gain switch here so I opted to wire both directly. It wasn’t as bad as I remembered. I may not give up my boards completely, but I’ll be doing some more direct wiring for sure.
