SOLVED Low Tide distorting heavily

[nickquack]

Hello, thought Id try and see if anyone has similar issues before i take apart my board and check my soldering

I can hear modulation with rate and depth maxed, but i cant get rid of the distortion. the Mn3207 chip is legit, tried it out in another chorus pedal i have and its silent.

Any possible issue that might cause it? I'm using a J201 in place of the 2sk transistor

 

[Diynot]

Needs to be biased with the internal trimmers

 

[nickquack]

Yeap have tried tuning it using steps provided by others, but it still distorts through the entire sweep of the bbd bias

 

[Robert]

Is it still distorted if you turn the Mix control all the way down?

 

[nickquack]

Is it still distorted if you turn the Mix control all the way down?

Nope, the mix control works ok!

 

[nickquack]

here's a picture of my prematurely boxed circuit T.T

 

[Robert]

In that case you can eliminate Q1, Q2, Q4, and Q5 as the problem.



Go back and verify all of your resistor values, it looks like you have a 10K installed for R29.

That should be 2.2K.

 

[Diynot]

Have you messed with the dip switches any? I don’t think they are both supposed to be off.

 

[nickquack]

Have you messed with the dip switches any? I don’t think they are both supposed to be off.

I think theyre for padding/boosting the input, so it would depend on your pickups!

 

[nickquack]

In that case you can eliminate Q1, Q2, Q4, and Q5 as the problem.

View attachment 28671

Go back and verify all of your resistor values, it looks like you have a 10K installed for R29.

That should be 2.2K.

Oh thanks for that spot! haha guess i'll have to take it apart, thanks for the help!

 

[Robert]

If it is indeed 10K you can tack a 2.7K across it from the top to see if it helps your problem.

 

[nickquack]

Fixed! Was a bad J201 in Q4 - the distorting started to come in throughout the sweep of the knob.