Paragon with MA858 and 1S1588

[zachlovescoffee]

As the title says! I just got this boxed up and tested tonight. All clipping is turned off as I don't like too much distortion. It has original MA858 and 1S1588 diodes. Sounds perfect to my ears!

The noodling is unforgivable but you know how it be! The enclosure it's in now is temporary. I still want to design some custom art work.

Video on YouTube

 

[Barry]

Wait a minute, you paid for fairy dust and unicorn horn diodes and turned the clipping switches off? So, you're not using the diodes, why not just leave them out?

 

[zachlovescoffee]

Wait a minute, you paid for fairy dust and unicorn horn diodes and turned the clipping switches off? So, you're not using the diodes, why not just leave them out?

Good point. I’ll play around with them and see if I can coax a sound out that I like and record another video.

 

[JetFixxxer]

Nice.

I have to finish mine... just deciding if I want high gain or not.

 

[jeffwhitfield]

I offset mine so that one channel uses one set and the other to the opposite set. I also set one to low gain and the other to high.

However, I read on another post about using C250k pots for the drives. If you do that and keep the gain resistors at 1k you get a more usable range. Best of both worlds basically. Probably will update mine for that.

 

[zachlovescoffee]

Hey Jeff! Thanks for the suggestion. When you say 'offset mine ... one channel uses one set and the other channel opposite set...' what do you mean?

I have the same MA 858 diodes on both side. Right now all of the dips are off but I was considering using soft clipping on both sides. Looking at the schematic, I basically just have the same circuit and components on each channel (accounting for some variation in tolerances).

 

[Big Monk]

I believe I used the "high gain" resistors on both sides of my mini. It's not a high gain pedal, hence the quotes, so it seemed like the most versatile option.

 

[Barry]

I used the C250K pots because as @Chuck D. Bones splain'd it to me, it gives the high gain and low range as well. It's my favorite of the 1/2 dozen or so Paragon's I've built, left the resistors stock and it was a mini so no charge pump, which I also learned I prefer

 

[Barry]

I used the C250K pots because as @Chuck D. Bones splain'd it to me, it gives the high gain and low range as well. It's my favorite of the 1/2 dozen or so Paragon's I've built, left the resistors stock and it was a mini so no charge pump, which I also learned I prefer

I also use 1n4148's and Bat282's for the diodes

 

[zachlovescoffee]

I also use 1n4148's and Bat282's for the diodes

So just replace the gain pots with C250k and flip on the clipping diodes and you get a range from boost through OD to distortion?

 

[Barry]

So just replace the gain pots with C250k and flip on the clipping diodes and you get a range from boost through OD to distortion?

You get what you have now, plus the higher gain range, the switches put the diodes into the circuit they will have more grit at higher gain and sound like they do now at the lower end, if your not really a distortion fan you probably should leave as is

 

[zachlovescoffee]

You get what you have now, plus the higher gain range, the switches put the diodes into the circuit they will have more grit at higher gain and sound like they do now at the lower end, if your not really a distortion fan you probably should leave as is

Yeah I don’t like distortion — it’s not my thing. I like boost and OD. Just to send the tubes into overdrive, edging into distortion only rarely

 

[zachlovescoffee]

I used the C250K pots because as @Chuck D. Bones splain'd it to me, it gives the high gain and low range as well. It's my favorite of the 1/2 dozen or so Paragon's I've built, left the resistors stock and it was a mini so no charge pump, which I also learned I prefer

Does the regular sized paragon have a charge pump to take a 9v to 18v on the board? I wasn't aware. I thought I had read some stuff that this was a mod that was possible to give it more clean head room?

 

[Big Monk]

Does the regular sized paragon have a charge pump to take a 9v to 18v on the board? I wasn't aware. I thought I had read some stuff that this was a mod that was possible to give it more clean head room?

Yes. You have a charge pump in your pedal.

 

[phi1]

Actually, it looks like the charge pump IC is in backwards compared to the build doc, so it’s probably not running at 18v. Haven’t looked at the datasheet to try to see what it would do backwards like that…

 

[Big Monk]

Yeah. Looks like your IC is backwards.