Is it just me or are the Cornish designs all a bit crap?

[HamishR]

I like Dave Gilmour sounds as much as the next guy so I've always been interested in how a thousand dollar overdrive or fuzz might help me get closer to that. So I've tried a few Cornish designs from here and elsewhere and every time beed very disappointed. I'm realistic enough to know that I won't become Dave Gilmour by using a Cornish pedal but man, I can get so much closer by using pretty much anything else!

I just built a Germanium II Distortion. I had a strange problem with it which is very unusual with a PedalPCB pcb. I got no voltage on the board anywhere. There was no continuity between the 9V in and the 1N5817 diode. So I had to bridge that with a wire. So now the pedal works but it's dark and I need to run tone on full to get a usable sound. If gain is anywhere below nearly full it sounds muddy and crap. With gain pretty much maxed and tone on full it sounds ok but nothing spectacular.

Things most of my other pedals sound spectacular. I've built a lot of pedals, whether from here or Aion or on vero. I know how to use PCB and didn't overwork the 9V connection or anything. But every Cornish pedal I've built has been extremely ho-hum.

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[andare]

IMO unless you have someone else's entire rig, chasing tones is useless. Not to mention recorded and live tones go through studio equipment/PA and sound technicians. One pedal is only one piece of the puzzle.

 

[jjjimi84]

That is why i dont go to thegearpage, playing and sounding like gilmour is an art form. You can get tonal there with a few run of the mill boxes but it will take a helluva a long time to get close to his vibrato and bending technique.

The few cornish pedals I have built were alright but nothing to light my hair on fire over.

 

[Big Monk]

I’ve learned recently that no matter the pedigree or tradition associated with a circuit, if it doesn’t make you want to play it, you should move on.

My resolution for the new year is to massively shrink my pedalboard and to concentrate on the devices that inspire me to play. I’ve got some builds I’m really looking forward to and a number of them will replace existing units in my Arsenal right now.

Those replaced devices will get sold.

 

[HamishR]

You fellas are all right of course. Thing is I wasn't really chasing a particular tone - just a decent one. I am usually unimpressed with pedals but like to build and find the ones that really work. I guess the "problem" is that recently I have been having a good run. I've found a few pedals which have been fantastic - the Pro-10 Blue for example. GREAT overdrive. Dark Esbat boost? Incredible. So to build something which sounds quite so bad is quite a come down. I mean the Cornish pedals I have built are not simply uninspiring, they're awful! Every one of them has sounded clogged up, congested, dark, overly compressed and plain unusable.

But I have decided to see this as a good thing. Cornish pedals are ridiculously expensive, and if I really liked them I might be tempted to buy one. Now I know that I would be crazy to buy one and have saved myself a potential fortune. So I'm chalking this up as a win!

 

[benny_profane]

An important thing to note with the G2 or N2 is that the Ge diodes need to be very low leakage or you'll drastically reduce the gain (discussion here). I found the stock tone shaping to be pretty awful with the G2 and ended up doing some of the mods floating around to brighten things up. I actually like the SS-3 quite a lot. It's basically a modified 250, but the mods are nice additions.

Always be a bit skeptical of hyperbolic praise for high-dollar gear. People often hype stuff up to justify purchases or get positive reinforcement.

 

[Big Monk]

Always be a bit skeptical of hyperbolic praise for high-dollar gear. People often hype stuff up to justify purchases or get positive reinforcement.

Also, always remember that much of that high dollar, high profile stuff is designed specifically for certain high level players and their rig. That does not always translate to us Joe Schmoes cleanly.

 

[HamishR]

So why do they sell them to us? That had occurred to me too. If it's unlikely to work in an ordinary rig they should say so. From now on if I want a fuzz I'll stick with Skeddy designs.

 

[Big Monk]

So why do they sell them to us? That had occurred to me too. If it's unlikely to work in an ordinary rig they should say so. From now on if I want a fuzz I'll stick with Skeddy designs.

I’m very excited about the modified Lunar Module circuit I’m working on.

 

[music6000]

I like Dave Gilmour sounds as much as the next guy so I've always been interested in how a thousand dollar overdrive or fuzz might help me get closer to that. So I've tried a few Cornish designs from here and elsewhere and every time beed very disappointed. I'm realistic enough to know that I won't become Dave Gilmour by using a Cornish pedal but man, I can get so much closer by using pretty much anything else!

I just built a Germanium II Distortion. I had a strange problem with it which is very unusual with a PedalPCB pcb. I got no voltage on the board anywhere. There was no continuity between the 9V in and the 1N5817 diode. So I had to bridge that with a wire. So now the pedal works but it's dark and I need to run tone on full to get a usable sound. If gain is anywhere below nearly full it sounds muddy and crap. With gain pretty much maxed and tone on full it sounds ok but nothing spectacular.

Things most of my other pedals sound spectacular. I've built a lot of pedals, whether from here or Aion or on vero. I know how to use PCB and didn't overwork the 9V connection or anything. But every Cornish pedal I've built has been extremely ho-hum.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Here is another Members report
Really interesting and unique take on Big Muff circuit. Doesn’t sound anything like a BM though, more it’s own kind of smooth and compressed distortion pedal. A word of warning: it sounds terrible and overly squashed and bassy if you build it as is in the build docs, BUT if you use a 100R for R21 and 18k for R23( instead of 680R and 15k respectively) It works great and sounds very similar to videos of the G2( the changes are same values as the Kitrae schematic on bigmuffpage.com). I highly recommend using sockets for the diodes( 8 pin opamp socket worked great) and trying different ones as they really affect the overall character of the pedal. Right now I’m liking 1N270’s best, but have a few more on the way to try.

 

[finebyfine]

Here is another Members report
Really interesting and unique take on Big Muff circuit. Doesn’t sound anything like a BM though, more it’s own kind of smooth and compressed distortion pedal. A word of warning: it sounds terrible and overly squashed and bassy if you build it as is in the build docs, BUT if you use a 100R for R21 and 18k for R23( instead of 680R and 15k respectively) It works great and sounds very similar to videos of the G2( the changes are same values as the Kitrae schematic on bigmuffpage.com). I highly recommend using sockets for the diodes( 8 pin opamp socket worked great) and trying different ones as they really affect the overall character of the pedal. Right now I’m liking 1N270’s best, but have a few more on the way to try.

Might try this. Read the title and immediately thought of the G2. Whatever praise I might have sang in my build report months ago has faded as I’ve built more pedals and more Cornish stuff. SS2 was forgettable, which I think is even worse than being bad.

 

[tcpoint]

Exactly. Cornish is overrated. I like the SS3 and the OC-1. But, I've found lots of compressors and distortion boxes that I like more. Gilmour has used the HM-2 and still gets his signature sound. That tells me that he doesn't need Cornish for his sound. Actually, I really like the ST-2 but there's other pedals I have that can get the same tones from.

 

[finebyfine]

Exactly. Cornish is overrated. I like the SS3 and the OC-1. But, I've found lots of compressors and distortion boxes that I like more. Gilmour has used the HM-2 and still gets his signature sound. That tells me that he doesn't need Cornish for his sound. Actually, I really like the ST-2 but there's other pedals I have that can get the same tones from.

For the money as a bedroom player, a strat on the neck pup with a ram's head muff through a warm clean channel with reverb and delay got me "holy shit!" close to gilmour tone. 30 seconds later I remembered I could practice hours a day for the rest of my life and not be anywhere near as good as him. There are so many times where I think "it's in the fingers" is a cruel over simplification for a pro's tone, but hard to argue with it for DG.

 

[ntuncer]

Hello, I have just finished my Cornish G-2 Aion build (same schematic as Germanium II) today. After 3 hours trouble shooting to find the gain and volume problem finally I achieved to have a decent sound but still couldn't figure out if it is normal to have around 3'oclock both for volume and sustain to have enough gain and volume.

- First iteration with selected OA1182s (4 of them around vf around 0.34v ) 680R for R21 and 15k for R23 -> Both volume and sustain are dimed, less than unity gain volume barely distortion
- Second iteration 100R for R21 and 18k3 for R23 (15k+3k3 cause don't have 18k) with OA1182s -> Same results less than unity gain volume barely distortion
- Final iteration 100R for R21 and 18k3 for R23 (15k+3k3 cause don't have 18k) with Russian D9K diodes (vfs around 0.44-0.48v) -> Finally a decent sound but I need to use volume and gain around 3 o'clock with strat low output pickups. I cannot say it has a high gain sound.

As @benny_profane said I think my problem is leakage issue on Ge diodes. Could someone tell me if it is normal or not use volume and sustain knobs like this? Am I doing something wrong?

Cheers!

 

[benny_profane]

As @benny_profane said I think my problem is leakage issue on Ge diodes. Could someone tell me if it is normal or not use volume and sustain knobs like this? Am I doing something wrong?

That doesn't seem right. Have you reviewed the thread I linked above? That will help you determine the leakages of the Ge diodes. Unfortunately, the Vf figure for the diodes won't tell you anything about the leakage, so you'll have to do a bit more measuring to sort out what's going on there.

 

[jubal81]

1182s I got were all very leaky.
At this point, finding enough non-leaky Ge diodes will take a lot of time and money, ordering tons of different diodes and testing them all. The solution is a BAT54s diode with a series 68R resistor. I've A/B tested this and it works and sounds identical to low-leakage Ge in this circuit. Here's a little adapter PCB I shared you can order from OSH. Each one of these replaces a pair of Ge diodes.

As for Cornish designs in general, I've done the G2 and SS2. G2 (when done right) is quite good and SS2 holds its own against other ODs. The thing is, they're not worth 4X what you'd pay for other effects of the same performance level. Cool thing is we have the luxury of access to TONS of excellent designs on PedalPCB.

 

[music6000]

Hello, I have just finished my Cornish G-2 (Germanium II) today. After 3 hours trouble shooting to find the gain and volume problem finally I achieved to have a decent sound but still couldn't figure out if it is normal to have around 3'oclock both for volume and sustain to have enough gain and volume.

- First iteration with selected OA1182s (4 of them around vf around 0.34v ) 680R for R21 and 15k for R23 -> Both volume and sustain are dimed, less than unity gain volume barely distortion
- Second iteration 100R for R21 and 18k3 for R23 (15k+3k3 cause don't have 18k) with OA1182s -> Same results less than unity gain volume barely distortion
- Final iteration 100R for R21 and 18k3 for R23 (15k+3k3 cause don't have 18k) with Russian D9K diodes (vfs around 0.44-0.48v) -> Finally a decent sound but I need to use volume and gain around 3 o'clock with strat low output pickups. I cannot say it has a high gain sound.

As @benny_profane said I think my problem is leakage issue on Ge diodes. Could someone tell me if it is normal or not use volume and sustain knobs like this? Am I doing something wrong?

Cheers!

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[ntuncer]

@music6000 I think all the resistors ok.

 

[ntuncer]

That doesn't seem right. Have you reviewed the thread I linked above? That will help you determine the leakages of the Ge diodes. Unfortunately, the Vf figure for the diodes won't tell you anything about the leakage, so you'll have to do a bit more measuring to sort out what's going on there.

I just recognized the thread after doing all the work I did. So couldn't check the leakages. But in any case I don't have big quantity of those diodes to test.

@jubal81 it would be a nice solution but for me it could be in a long term to deal with. I am a bit scared to solder SMD parts which I have never done before.

As I have already BAT41 diodes (Unfortunately I don't have any BAT46), I will try to replaced the first stage with them to see how it goes today. I hope it works fine as a GE-SI mixed combination solution.

 

[ntuncer]

Finally replaced the first stage diodes with BAT41. Now I have enough output, darker sound with fuzz like distortion. I just socket the first stage diodes to try different ones. Between BAT41 and BAT46 what could be the differences? Will sound be improved with BAT46s? Any ideas?

Cheers!