spi
Well-known member
- Build Rating
The offboard assembly wasn't as straightforward as I hoped--the PCB fills up the space of the 1590BB, leaving little wiggle room. The jacks I planned to use wouldn't fit (good thing I had some lumbergs handy). And innie power jacks were too long and only the outie fit.
Once I got everything powered up, there were 2 snafus: the green LED wasn't turning on, and there was static noise on the green channel. Both were easy to fix: the LED issue was poor soldering, and the static was a 2n3904 loose in its socket.
For the input buffer on the green side, I tried both an in-spec j201 and an out-of-spec 2n5457. I had a hard time telling any difference, and kept in the 2n5457 so the j201 can be put to use where specs matter.
Now everything works and got my first impressions:
Blue channel: this is the Bluesbreaker side, and the schematic is very close to the original BB, with an additional op-amp stage to boost the volume. I had high hopes for this because I love my BB and this version gets lots of praise. It fixes the volume issue of the original--but overcorrected. While there's huge volume on tap, it's hard to dial in unity. I need to A/B it against my BB Mk1 clone to confirm, but from memory this one sounds a bit more brittle* and has less gain. Overall it's kind of a standard BB with a lot more volume--not really as exciting as I hoped.
Green channel: this is the ODR-1 side. I've never played one so I was very interested in the Pro-10 for this reason. Overall, I'm impressed with it, and enjoy its character. I can see why it's known for being bassy. However I don't find it bad--in fact it sounded great filling out the sound of a Tele.
I was on the fence building this vs. the standalone-Pro10 Green board. My instinct was right--the Green side alone would've been better for me, since I already have a bluesbreaker, and this version doesn't do much with the circuit (unlike other BB clones that add a lot of tricked out options).
* One more thing regarding the BB: there's two versions of the original BB which differed by 3 components. mk1 and mk2 (not to be confused with the BluesBreaker 2, which was a different pedal altogether). My BB clone is built to mk1 specs, which is supposedly warmer--the Pro10 schematic follows mk2 specs, and maybe that's what I perceive as brittleness compared to what I'm used to.
Once I got everything powered up, there were 2 snafus: the green LED wasn't turning on, and there was static noise on the green channel. Both were easy to fix: the LED issue was poor soldering, and the static was a 2n3904 loose in its socket.
For the input buffer on the green side, I tried both an in-spec j201 and an out-of-spec 2n5457. I had a hard time telling any difference, and kept in the 2n5457 so the j201 can be put to use where specs matter.
Now everything works and got my first impressions:
Blue channel: this is the Bluesbreaker side, and the schematic is very close to the original BB, with an additional op-amp stage to boost the volume. I had high hopes for this because I love my BB and this version gets lots of praise. It fixes the volume issue of the original--but overcorrected. While there's huge volume on tap, it's hard to dial in unity. I need to A/B it against my BB Mk1 clone to confirm, but from memory this one sounds a bit more brittle* and has less gain. Overall it's kind of a standard BB with a lot more volume--not really as exciting as I hoped.
Green channel: this is the ODR-1 side. I've never played one so I was very interested in the Pro-10 for this reason. Overall, I'm impressed with it, and enjoy its character. I can see why it's known for being bassy. However I don't find it bad--in fact it sounded great filling out the sound of a Tele.
I was on the fence building this vs. the standalone-Pro10 Green board. My instinct was right--the Green side alone would've been better for me, since I already have a bluesbreaker, and this version doesn't do much with the circuit (unlike other BB clones that add a lot of tricked out options).
* One more thing regarding the BB: there's two versions of the original BB which differed by 3 components. mk1 and mk2 (not to be confused with the BluesBreaker 2, which was a different pedal altogether). My BB clone is built to mk1 specs, which is supposedly warmer--the Pro10 schematic follows mk2 specs, and maybe that's what I perceive as brittleness compared to what I'm used to.
