General Tso Oscillating

[DeadAirMD]

I built the General Tso a month ago and it's one of my favorites builds so far. Completely changed my tone and added an incredible sweetness that I was missing, I literally LOVE this pedal.

Yesterday, it started oscillating. I can barely turn up the "Blend" knob without it oscillating. Any ideas on where to start fixing this issue?

 

[reaganry]

same here, working great for a few weeks... now it's clunk clunk clunk and distortion... switched out OPA for a TL072 and no change

 

[mkstewartesq]

This sounds like a shot in the dark, it is – but are your transistors socketed or soldered in place? My Tso works fine - but I built a Madbean Current Lover that works fine for about a month and then started exhibiting very odd audio behavior every once in a while when I activated the footswitch - mainly a warbling, detuned sound. Sometimes turning the switch back off and on would fix it, other times it wouldn’t. My transistors were socketed.

So I finally cracked it open today because I couldn’t think of any good reason why a successful build would suddenly go bad. I tried reseating all the transistors, bending the legs outward a bit more to make sure I got a more secure fit. So far, that seems to have fixed the issue. Remember that these transistors are hanging down in normal operation and I can only assume that, if this was the issue, repeated activation of the footswitch over time may have made them shift a little to come loose. Just a thought.

Mike

 

[Alan W]

I like socketing my transistors too—it lets me consider everything a work in progress, or something like that.

In any case, I tend to do a quick solder wipe on the transistor legs before inserting them—they are harder to insert, but so far they seem to stay connected.

 

[DeadAirMD]

My issue with my General Tso was kinda unique. I had a buffer junction box that was the issue. After I removed the buffer junction box, everything was back to normal. Took absolutely forever to figure out the issue. Had to go through every cable, pedal, guitar, and power connection before I finally found the issue.