Majestic/Cal 45 2-in-1

[HamishR]

Sorry - no PedalPCB content but I hope this is ok - and you could possibly built this with PedalPCB Mammal boards!

Just built myself a dual OD where I can switch between a modified Rockett Majestic and a Caliber 45. The switch on the left is on/off and the switch on the right toggles between the two circuits. I like to use the Majestic for thickening bridge pickups and the Caliber in this case is used for lower gain OD for neck and middle positions - sounds amazing on my 335. But depending on situations I can have two equally dirty but slightly different flavoured ODs. Mods to the Majestic are just using a 250K gain pot and 1N4148s instead of Ge diodes. I actually prefer the 1N4148s in this case and love the combo of 1N4148s and 1N4001s.

 

[Nostradoomus]

Probably the cleanest vero build I’ve seen. Awesome work!

 

[Barry]

Very nice

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Indeed! Very clean build!

 

[HamishR]

Thanks guys. I was reluctant to post an interior shot because the switching made it messy! I could have made it tidier but felt that keeping the wire runs short was probably more important.

And don't worry - I'll put a ground to the input jack. The main thing is it sounds great and I use it every day.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Can you provide a schematic for the Majestic?

 

[dawson]

At the risk of being redundant..
Gee-Whiz!
I rarely see wiring jobs as tight as this, and have yet to see them any tighter- you've got very little room for improvement there!
& really cool LED's- I'm a huge sucker for fancy indicator lights. When I've set up a light show like this, I added a 3rd LED to switch ON/OFF with the bypass switch so that one of the other LED's is always on to indicate which circuit is selected, even when the pedal isn't engaged- just an idea that you've probably thought about already and decided otherwise- not everyone wants their pedal-board to resemble the bridge of Captain Kirk's Enterprise..

Thanks a lot for sharing- the quality of your craftsmanship is a huge inspiration to do better work!

 

[HamishR]

Wow! - thanks!

Hey Chuck, I'll draw one up for you.

 

[HamishR]

For anyone who wants to try a Majestic - and I would very much recommend it - here is the schematic. Apologies if the schematic layout is wrong - I never studied electronics so don't know exactly how to do these things. But everything is correct as far as I know.

The only mods I have done to this circuit is replace the Ge diodes with 1N4148s and the 100K gain pot for a 250K. The 1N4148s don't actually sound very different - maybe a hair brighter but it's not a big difference. I really like the combo of 1N4148s with 1N4001s. Could be just my perception but it sounds a tiny bit less shrill than all 4148s and clearer than using the Ges. As usual, I could be talking outa my bum but this circuit does it for me! FWIW I find this circuit to sound a lot like the Caliber 45 (strange, huh?) but it has a bit more low-mid content. It works incredibly well at the clean to dirt transition thing, and all with bugger-all parts. Fab.

 

[HamishR]

Actually if you like the Majestic or 45 I would very much recommend buying one. They have the best enclosures I have seen, are suitably tiny while still having all sockets along the top edge and seem to be bulletproof. Well built and they sound killer. I know this probably goes against the grain for us builders but they don't come much better IMHO. I wish I could buy enclosures like the Rockett Road series.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

It's basically a Timmy with a few component values altered.
1N4001's switch slower than 1N4148's so that could explain the better sound compared to all 1N4148s.

 

[HamishR]

Yeah I kinda figured it was Timmy based - I believe Brian Wampler started this line off and then the guys at Rockett tweaked and tweaked... The Wampler Ecstasy/Euphoria is similar too. I've had a couple of Timmys though and like the Rocketts a lot better. There's more character/colour and a tighter low end with the Rocketts.

The Greer Lightspeed is very much a simplified Timmy and the Earthquaker Devices Westwood is a Timmy with active EQ. It's probably a good pedal to base your own pedal on.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

The Lightspeed is a Timmy with the Bass control removed and the Treble control moved downstream.

Original designs are few and far between. I recently breadboarded a Keeley Fuzz Head on the strength of an endorsement from Mr Grand Funk, Mark Farner. Nice sounding low-gain dirt box, but a little too bassy for my taste. Easily fixed. Keeley comes up with some unique designs.

 

[HamishR]

The Fuzzhead is an interesting pedal. It's almost really good. But I don't know enough to make it better. Too many other fuzzes I like better anyway.

 

[phi1]

Thanks for sharing the schem, HamishR!

The blue note, animal, 45, and majestic are all extremely similar. Just a note for anyone thinking of build the animal, socket some stuff and experiment!

One thing I quite like and have used many other times from these circuits is that the bass knob doesn’t boost the whole range. At max it goes down to around 340Hz. Makes the knob more useable in my opinion.

 

[Nostradoomus]

The Lightspeed is a Timmy with the Bass control removed and the Treble control moved downstream.

Original designs are few and far between. I recently breadboarded a Keeley Fuzz Head on the strength of an endorsement from Mr Grand Funk, Mark Farner. Nice sounding low-gain dirt box, but a little too bassy for my taste. Easily fixed. Keeley comes up with some unique designs.

what, no Messenger fuzz??

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Good point, that's what was used on my favorite, the GFRR Red album. I'd have to build the Messenger into my guitar for the full Mojo.

 

[Nostradoomus]

It’s such a great album, my wife is a Grand Funk nut! Love it!

 

[ntuncer]

Hello, lately I am interested in J rockett pedals especially Caliber 45. I found the schematic below which unused op-amp is not terminated correctly. Could someone has a correct schematic please? After searching, I found different ways to terminate an unused op-amp and I really appreciate if someone enlighten me about it.

Here is what I found as a simpler way to do it but above on the majestic schematic, 2 extra voltage divider resistors are used instead of applying VREF voltage to the pin 5 directly.

 

[HamishR]

That schematic is accurate. Pins 5,6 & 7 are not connected at all in the original. If I build one now under Chuck's guidance I at least connect pin 5 to VREF.