Modded Animals Pedals Major Overdrive

H

HamishR

Well-known member
After loving the Diamond Peak and modding it to add a bass pot with Chuck's inestimable help I looked around to find more interesting Skreddy designs - Marc Ahlfs is an incredible designer. And I apologise if I spelled his name wrong!

So when I saw my local music shop had an Animals Pedals Major Overdrive in stock and it wasn't crazy expensive I jumped on it. Animals Pedals are well built in a similar way to current Skreddys. The enclosures are very robust, seemingly made by One Control and the pedal sounds fantastic. At first I was a little underwhelmed as I tested it through a Brown Deluxe style amp, but once I tried it through my little 1x12 Plexi I was smitten. So I (again with Chuck's help) traced the circuit. It's very close to the Diamond Peak but the few parts which are different give it a much more plexi-style sound. So I did as I had done with the Diamond Peak and added a Bass pot which is actually really useful with this pedal. As it has such an old-school plexi sound I called my version the Old Fashioned.

This is what I ended up with:

Old Fashioned schem.png

I may make another with less gain on tap because with a Gibson I seem to play it with Gain on zero or not far above that. It's an amazing sounding overdrive - absolutely world-class and worthy of a Pedal PCB PCB in my humble opinion! Here is my Vero board version:

OldF ext copy.jpg

OldF int copy.jpg
Old Fashioned.png
 
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Forgot to mention: Keen observers may notice the characteristic style of the graphic designer used by @MichaelW. I have long been an admirer of Michael's work and worked out who he uses to design his graphics. Ever since I have used the same guy who doesn't want to be named. But I love how subtle his work is. You barely see it.
 
BTW here is the schematic I drew up for the stock Animals Pedals Major OD. The parts in red are those I can't say for sure are the correct values but when I pay my clone side by side with the original it sounds identical. Chuck was of course invaluable with help. This place would be a lot poorer without him.

I used the part numbers printed on the PCB in this schematic.

Animals Pedals Major OD schem.png
 
@HamishR - did you actually use 2n5172 transistors for Q2 and Q3? If so, did you happen to measure their HFE?

I'm fairly sure that's exactly what Skreddy/Animals used in the COTS Major Overdrive I had. But typically low-gain transistors (<100 HFE) are encouraged in these designs. I have a bunch of 2n5172 that all measured over 250 HFE, some even in the 400s (based on my CCT). They were from AliExpress, so could easily be fakes or manufacturer rejects. I'm pretty sure I briefly tried them in the Diamond Peak and didn't like them.
 
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MattG said:
@HamishR - did you actually use 2n5172 transistors for Q2 and Q3? If so, did you happen to measure their HFE?

I'm fairly sure that's exactly what Skreddy/Animals used in the COTS Major Overdrive I had. But typically low-gain transistors (<100 HFE) are encouraged in these designs. I have a bunch of 2n5172 that all measured over 250 HFE, some even in the 400s (based on my CTT). They were from AliExpress, so could easily be fakes or manufacturer rejects. I'm pretty sure I briefly tried them in the Diamond Peak and didn't like them.
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I used 2n3904's in mine. It sounds killer! Thanks @HamishR and @Chuck D. Bones
 
I did actually use 2N5172 transistors - I think they were from Mouser. Sorry - didn't measure the HFE. Thanks @MichaelW !!

The clone I built sounds just like the original I have.
 
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