Paragon Inconsistent Sound

[ssefton]

A year or so ago I built a Paragon for a friend of mine and it came out great. I've now built a second one for myself and I'm having an issue with it. I've built many pedals and this is the strangest issue that I've seen. I usually have pretty good luck with my builds.

The red side seems to be working OK, though it seems quite bright - even with the tone knob at 0%. I did build with the high-gain mod on the right side, I'm thinking that this mod could be the cause for that. Thoughts?

The yellow side is where the strange issue is. When I first engage the yellow side, it sounds great. I can bypass it and the re-engage it and it still sounds great. Now, if I engage the red side and run it into the yellow side and then bypass the red side again, then the yellow side drops quite a bit of gain and has MUCH more bass content. Bypassing the yellow side does not fix the issue, but bypassing the yellow side AND restarting the power brings the yellow side back to normal. None of this impacts the red side.

I did swap the red and yellow ICs and confirmed that the problem remained the same.

Am I right in thinking that I may have a bad capacitor on the yellow side?

 

[ssefton]

Correction: this problem can happen to the yellow side without any use of the red side at all.

 

[ssefton]

That said, it is MUCH more consistently repeatable by kicking on the red side.

Also, I've noticed that restarting the power isn't always effective unless I keep the power off for about 10 seconds. Then when I engage the yellow side again, I get a loud pop and the yellow side is back to normal again.

I tested this with a couple different power supplies and with a fresh 9v battery.

 

[TSReppe]

Sounds a bit similar to an issue I had on a build(brown betty) at least the part where disconnecting the power and reconnecting brings it back. In the end after alot of headscratching it was a joint that needed a reflow even though it looked fine to me.

 

[ssefton]

Sounds a bit similar to an issue I had on a build(brown betty) at least the part where disconnecting the power and reconnecting brings it back. In the end after alot of headscratching it was a joint that needed a reflow even though it looked fine to me.

I took your advice and just touched up my joints and now it works perfectly. Thanks so much for the suggestion!

 

[TSReppe]

I took your advice and just touched up my joints and now it works perfectly. Thanks so much for the suggestion!

Awesome! Glad I could help.