SOLVED Pauper lower volume in OD and Distortion modes

[caiofilipini]

Hi all,

Here I am again. This time, I just finished building the Pauper. It sounds glorious in boost mode, but when I engage the OD (toggle up) or Distortion (toggle down) modes, the volume drops significantly as you can hear in this clip (you can even see the volume drop well represented in the SoundCloud waveform):

https://soundcloud.com/white-mockingbird%2Fpauper-gain-stages-volume

1 - Pauper off
2 - Pauper on, boost mode
3 - Pauper on, OD mode
4 - Pauper on, Distortion mode
5 - Pauper on, back to boost mode

Settings were all the same on all three modes: Volume ~2 o'clock, Gain ~3 o'clock, Tone just shy of 12 o'clock.

I can hear the difference in the clipping and the gain bump in the other two modes, but is this drop in volume expected and I just need to compensate with the volume knob?

I'm attaching a couple of pictures from the build.

Thanks!

 

[benny_profane]

Any time you introduce clipping diodes in a circuit, the signal is, of course, clipped. This clipping effectively shaves off part of the waveform—creating both distortion and compression of the signal. Since this compression reduces the magnitude of the wave (the peaks are leveled off into a square), there is less volume.

 

[caiofilipini]

Any time you introduce clipping diodes in a circuit, the signal is, of course, clipped. This clipping effectively shaves off part of the waveform—creating both distortion and compression of the signal. Since this compression reduces the magnitude of the wave (the peaks are leveled off into a square), there is less volume.

Right, that all makes sense and I actually thought about it that way, but in the demos I've seen of the original Prince of Tone, it doesn't seem to have that big of a difference, if at all. Does it have some sort of mechanism to make up for the lost volume? Is the Pauper supposed to do that as well and maybe I screwed it up somehow?

 

[benny_profane]

I would imagine that there’s either production adjustments on the videos or the knob positions change. The mechanism to make up for lost volume is the volume knob. From my perspective, your build is performing properly.

Since the signal magnitude is altered by changing the clipping diodes in the circuit, there’s no way to normalize the volume across all the modes without manual adjustment.

 

[caiofilipini]

Okay, I guess there's nothing really wrong with my build, in that case. Thanks for clarifying, @benny_profane!