Silvertone 1484 Pedal Build

gonzo

gonzo

Well-known member
Finished this up this week. This is my slightly tweaked version of an emulation or recreation of the drive gain circuit of a Silvertone 1484. There are a bunch of schematics of these online. Looks like something Run Off Groove would post. I can't figure out where it originated from. It's a fairly accurate depiction of the Silvertone amp circuit. A bunch of companies have taken the idea and ran with it. Recently Jackson audio put out a version and JHS did a Silver Twin Twelve. It goes by Argentum, a board sold on here. However that board only has 3 jfets. Which actually might be all you really need as I had to bias the last jfet to get rid of a bunch of noise. Seems to not really be doing much. All other jfets where biased to 9 volts. I added the resistor to ground on the gain pot as the Argentum does, so the volume doesn't cut at zero. I also changed the resistors coming into the bass pot on legs 1 and 3 (not pictured). The 100k resistor to a 1k and the 68k to a 27k. The bass knob now does something audible.

I compared it to my IRs and amp sims of the original. While it doesn't really sound exactly the same or completely act the same, it is in the ballpark of as to the character of the original amp. Nevertheless, it's a cool sounding drive, which can do clean boost, overdrive, to full on fuzz. It's definitely unique. Forgive my lazy graphics. I just can't be bothered painting them anymore. Just polished an old enclosure and used a marker.

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You built that per the FuzzDog schematic, right? They used a 47Ω source resistor on the last JFET. That seems way too low and pretty much guarantees distortion for any knob setting. I have it breadboarded.
 
Honestly it's been a year and I can't remember. The schematic was floating around a few places. Searching for Silvertone twin twelve popped up a few. I remember looking at the Silvertone 1484 amp schematic and seeing similarities. The last jfet really didn't seems to add a whole lot. The bass knob mods helped the most for me
 
Have you checked out the Viceroy? I describe it in detail here. The PF5102 JFETs are hard to come by these days, but J113 should work well for Q1 and 2N5457 for Q2 & Q3.

IMHO, it does what the 1484 does, only better. A couple of years ago, I was listening to a blues band at a small outdoor venue. The guitarist was playing a Telecaster thru a Silvertone, I forget which model. He was playing clean and it sounded great.
 
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That looks somewhat similar and probably better. I pulled this pedal out today. The volume output could be higher. Had to crank my to seem like unity. The eq knobs could be less subtle. The gain has great range. It's got character. But, like so my dirt type pedals, I don't have a place for it live. Just for recording.
 
That's my recommendation, take it with a grain of salt. I have bought a couple of PPCB boards that once I breadboarded them, decided that I would would never build them. Not every AIAB design is a good one. Maybe only 50% of them. This one is Meh IMO.

Up until yesterday, I didn't have an opinion on this board, so I would not have been much help.
 
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