- Build Rating
I’ve been talking this circuit up in a few threads now, and realized I never wrote a build report for it. I think I was waiting to redo the enclosure artwork, but that probably won’t happen anytime soon if at all.
I got hooked up with some transistors that matched the measurements in the build doc. Shoutout to my dude who can fully represent all of his dimensional existence in an illustration, @Stickman393 . I would thank you in person, but I’m not the one that can travel by envelope. I used 3904s for Q1 and Q4.
Anyway… the build was straightforward, and the notes for the three bias settings made it easy as pie. As has been my M.O. for a while now, if the PCB can physically fit into a 1590B, then that is what I’ll use. When I use a 125B these days, it feels like parking a car in an airplane hangar.
As mentioned earlier, I’m not that happy with the artwork. I like how the pinstripes turned out, and the name of the pedal, but the control labels take away from it IMO.
On to the sound. This thing rules. The BASS has a huge effect on the amount of distorted signal. There’s a ton of clean range on the pedal just from turning the bass down. The BUFFER switch is a great addition. While I do like the direct connection with the buffer off, overall I prefer the sound of the buffer on.
There’s some sort of magic that happens when this is pushing a hard clipper. I had a ‘78 style DS-1 in front of this, with its gain at noon. It’s been a while since I got this excited about a drive tone. Grungy, articulate and tight, yet full… so good.
I like this enough that I want to add it to my stripped-down pedal builds. Basically removing the controls I don’t ever change or use. In this case, I would remove the TREBLE entirely, make the BUFFER always on, and remove the BIAS switch and set the bias to a single setting. That turns it into a 3-knob: LEVEL, GAIN, BASS. The thing is, I don’t know if I would be better off getting this result from a a different starting point rather than subtracting from this one.
Ok, I’m done rambling. Try this, it rips.
I got hooked up with some transistors that matched the measurements in the build doc. Shoutout to my dude who can fully represent all of his dimensional existence in an illustration, @Stickman393 . I would thank you in person, but I’m not the one that can travel by envelope. I used 3904s for Q1 and Q4.
Anyway… the build was straightforward, and the notes for the three bias settings made it easy as pie. As has been my M.O. for a while now, if the PCB can physically fit into a 1590B, then that is what I’ll use. When I use a 125B these days, it feels like parking a car in an airplane hangar.
As mentioned earlier, I’m not that happy with the artwork. I like how the pinstripes turned out, and the name of the pedal, but the control labels take away from it IMO.
On to the sound. This thing rules. The BASS has a huge effect on the amount of distorted signal. There’s a ton of clean range on the pedal just from turning the bass down. The BUFFER switch is a great addition. While I do like the direct connection with the buffer off, overall I prefer the sound of the buffer on.
There’s some sort of magic that happens when this is pushing a hard clipper. I had a ‘78 style DS-1 in front of this, with its gain at noon. It’s been a while since I got this excited about a drive tone. Grungy, articulate and tight, yet full… so good.
I like this enough that I want to add it to my stripped-down pedal builds. Basically removing the controls I don’t ever change or use. In this case, I would remove the TREBLE entirely, make the BUFFER always on, and remove the BIAS switch and set the bias to a single setting. That turns it into a 3-knob: LEVEL, GAIN, BASS. The thing is, I don’t know if I would be better off getting this result from a a different starting point rather than subtracting from this one.
Ok, I’m done rambling. Try this, it rips.
