Randall RRED...PLEASE!

[Caldo71]

Hi PedalPCB Admins! Firstly let me say that having just now discovered your site/forum and about to embark on my first build, I am thoroughly BLOWN AWAY by the comprehensive breadth and scope of your overdrive/distortion offerings.

So here’s the pitch: I think a biggie you’re missing, and a massively underappreciated/undernoticed gem of the heavy metal crunch world is the Randall RRED pedal—itself based on the amazing jfet distortion circuit from the Randall RG80/100 solid state amps as made famous by the tones on the first two Pantera albums, and if you didn’t know, also on Dokken’s “Tooth and Nail”. To my ears it’s the PERFECT metal distortion: crazy-tight, yet rich and huge. Beautiful string-to-string separation, airy top end. Compressed but not sterile.

I own a couple of these in case one dies, and I live in abject fear of Randall discontinuing these painfully under-promoted stompboxes. I really need this circuit immortalized.

So HOW ABOUT IT?!?!

 

[Nostradoomus]

2nd this, didn’t know about these at all til now. The RGOD would be sweet too. Probably too big though. Can you take a picture of the circuit board of the RRED Caldo?

 

[Caldo71]

I’ll TRY in a bit...mine’s a little (lot?) f#%ed up-looking visually cuz I kind of deconstructed it a bit with some awkward wire leads to get it into a 1RU rack enclosure. I’ll try and de-rack it and get a clear pic with the wires out of the way soon.

 

[Robert]

I remember these, haven't seen them in a while.

I'll have to get my hands on one.

If you can post a pic so I have an idea what to expect that'd be great, but don't destroy yours in the process, I'll most likely still need to get one either way.

 

[Caldo71]

In the meantime, here’s one of several threads related to recreating the Randall RG100 preamp sound, which I am WAY too newb to make heads or tails of...

Vandal - a 2-channel preamp inspired by the Randall RG100ES

I've been playing with the schematics of the Randall RG80/100 series for some time now, and I noticed both green and red channels have very few differences. After some time spent with the layout, I managed to fit both in a single stompbox thanks to the

www.freestompboxes.org

...and then as-per the link shared near the end of that thread, here’s a guy in AZ who seems to have worked out the kinks and is selling his own stompbox version, handbuilt and perhaps thus justifiably for about twice the cost of a rred...

LPD Pedals Eighty 7 Preamp | Reverb

The LPD Eighty 7 Preamp was designed to deliver the great guitar sounds of the 80's. The aim of this design was to capture the modified Plexi and JCM800 tones and feel that Los Angeles recording studios were tracking in the 80's.A full Bass, Mid, and Treble tone stack allows complete control over...

reverb.com

...but then his discontinued earlier version DOES have a photo of the populated PCB...

LPD Eighty 7 FET Preamp Prototype Randall Rg100ES | Reverb

The LPD Eighty 7 Preamp is a faithful reproduction of the 80's Randall RG100ES amplifier. Operating at 24 volts from a 9 volt supply, for high headroom and dynamic response, this pedal can go from edge of break-up tones to over the top high gain distortion. There are two switchable modes. Red and...

reverb.com

 

[Caldo71]

I remember these, haven't seen them in a while.

I'll have to get my hands on one.

If you can post a pic so I have an idea what to expect that'd be great, but don't destroy yours in the process, I'll most likely still need to get one either way.

LOL @PedalPCB it’s pretty “destroyed” already but in a kind of do-no-harm fashion: I ACTUALLY destroyed one of these pedals attempting to desolder the jacks and 3PTD to get it ready to remount in a rack enclosure. So on the second one I actually just made 1/4” TS “jumpers” to get me to the back-of-enclosure jacks, snipped the control pots off and soldered wire “extenders” from their stumps to the front panel, and snipped off the top of the 3PDT with a dremel...then adding nine more extenders. Literally ANYTHING to keep my dumb ass from once again burning out traces via desoldering or scratching the epoxy off the pcb and exposing copper.

It looks like utter unprofessional shit and you’ll laugh when you see my photos eventually...but it worked.

 

[music6000]

Randall RRED Mockup, Hopefully it will all fit in a 1590BB :

 

[music6000]

I’ll TRY in a bit...mine’s a little (lot?) f#%ed up-looking visually cuz I kind of deconstructed it a bit with some awkward wire leads to get it into a 1RU rack enclosure. I’ll try and de-rack it and get a clear pic with the wires out of the way soon.

Any Pictures of the Circuit?

 

[Caldo71]

Any Pictures of the Circuit?

Yes finally and thanks for waiting. The pics below are of the one I damaged and am not using, but I kinda soldered it all back together purely so you guys can see how it looks without all my crazy extendo wires all over it.

I tried to get in there and get pics of the cap and resistor values where I could as well...

@PedalPCB pinging you here to make sure you see this!

 

[Nostradoomus]

I’m sure @PedalPCB could cram that into a 125B

 

[Robert]

Yeah that's not too bad at all. Okay, I'll see if I can snag one on Reverb.

 

[Caldo71]

Yeah that's not too bad at all. Okay, I'll see if I can snag one on Reverb.

SO. AWESOME. If I see any steals come up I’ll heads-up you.

 

[Robert]

 

[Caldo71]

View attachment 8897

I have literally no idea how long new PCBs that people request take to “germinate”, but I was just checkin’ back in to see if this was stil something you’re planning to, or already working on!

 

[Robert]

Yep, it's happening. The pedal is traced, the layout is about 90% done.

 

[Caldo71]

Yep, it's happening. The pedal is traced, the layout is about 90% done.

Damn, that is AWESOME!

 

[Robert]

 

[uranium_jones]

IC1? Awesome, I have a drawer full of those!

 

[Robert]

IC1? Awesome, I have a drawer full of those!

LT1054 and four 2N5484's.

 

[music6000]

Something like this then :