End All Red seems very timid

Kroars

Kroars

Well-known member
Built a couple of these, all controls seem to work fine; although both just sound like they’re not quite what they could be. Unity volume is closer to 2:30-3:00 on both, seems very timid and in major need of some oomph. Now, I will say I got my mmbf5484’s from eBay and these are the first two builds I’ve used them on. Both pedals were easy to dial in to the recommended Q1 12.84v, Q2 9.94, Q3&4 22.05/22.75 (thanks Caldo71!).

These are the SMD’s I got:

Pardon Our Interruption...

www.ebay.com

Appreciate any suggestions.
 

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BuddytheReow said:
I would recommend swapping those 5484's with something from, say, Mouser. You could also try a booster in front of it? Just spitballing here.
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I’ve got hundreds of smd 5457’s, 201’s and others from reputable sources, just had a real hard time finding any 5484’s. Would the fact that they biased to the recommended voltage easily point to the SMD’s being good? Curious if anyone else has built one, I’d imagine unity volume would be around noon at most -being a high gain pedal and all.
 
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Well is it supposed to sound really huge and aggressive?

In my experience these JFET amp emulators usually do a rather organic sound, but not facemelting metal. Looking at how this has 3 gain stages plus a charge pump for more headroom, I wouldn't expect aggressive metal distortion if that's what you're after.
 
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jesuscrisp said:
Well is it supposed to sound really huge and aggressive?

In my experience these JFET amp emulators usually do a rather organic sound, but not facemelting metal. Looking at how this has 3 gain stages plus a charge pump for more headroom, I wouldn't expect aggressive metal distortion if that's what you're after.
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Right, I get that and admittedly I don’t have experience with the original other than YT demos. I wasn’t expecting the Revv G3. The End All actually has a decent amount of distortion -it just seems subdued. Like I mentioned, I was hoping someone who has built this could confirm where approximately unity volume is. If it’s closer to 10-11:00 normally, then I’m off. Thanks for the help!
 
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This circuit is not going to be loud. It has a hard clipper that limited the signal to maybe 1.3V p-p. The FMV tone stack will eat 10 to 20dB, leaving you with not much signal. The last stage (Q4) is a unity-gain buffer, so no gain recovery after the tone stack. If you want loud, then follow it with a booster or mod the circuit so Q4 provides gain.

If you want to know if the 5484's you bought are any good, then measure and report the voltages on the source pin of each JFET. Bear in mind that 5484's have a large spec range for Vp & Idss. That means some parts will work better than others.

I think there should be a resistor in series with C8 to limit the diode current. But what do I know.
 
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