Paragon

[Erik S]

This is my second paragon build. The first one was great, but it sold pretty quick and it took me a while to get around to building a replacement.

If you’re considering building one of these, definitely spend some time reading the posts. I’m sure a stock build is fine too, but there’s been a lot of well documented experimentation and well thought out mods. @MichaelW did a series of these and I think probably spurred me to order my first one, @Chuck D. Bones also gave it the business in his usual fashion.

@ckaudioeffects seems like he’s maybe not hanging around here anymore, but his very cool mod document is still up:

Thread 'Paragon PCB Mods'

Feb 4, 2022

Hi all, I have built about 10 or so KOT clones using the Paragon board, and I came up with a handful of mods with the goal of getting closer to the warm KOT sound, as well as adding some versatility with external switches.

The clones I've been building have gotten a decent amount of support and good feedback from the DIY community. I thought I would share my mods here for anyone else who may be interested.

I will post this link for my google drive folder for this project, which has a modified schematic, component layout, parts-list, step-by-step tutorial, tayda...

• ckaudioeffects
• Replies: 5
• Forum: Modifications

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I went with the “warmer tone” capacitor mods suggested by CK, high gain resistor on both sides, and swapped the gain pots from 100k to 250k. I believe the idea there is that you get the high max gain, but more attenuation with the 250k pot for a best of both worlds situation.

I actually forgot about the pot swap until after I had the pedal boxed. I played it for a while with the 100k pots, but I was mostly prefering the gain at 0, so I pulled it back out and swapped the pots. Definitely happier with the wider gain range at 250k.