The "Figgy Overdrive"

MichaelW

Well-known member
Named in honor of our resident "Timmy" @fig, who has inspired me to build cleaner, build better, build more neatly, and think through my builds before committing.

And interestingly enough, once I started incorporating those habits into my build process I have had very few issues with pedals not firing up the first time I plug them in. Go figure.......

This is the last (I think) of my planned low gain overdrive builds.

I've built the Mach 1, Seashore, Cephus (Cornish CC-1), Perelandra Deluxe (BB-Preamp) and now have added the Tommy (Timmy) to the list.

I actually had them all out side by side last night messing around and can dial them all to sound pretty close. But each has its own thing going on.
This was later in the evening and I was running them all through my desktop rig through my monitors at low volume.

The plan today is crank them in front of an amp and comparing the line out to the monitors vs my 1x12 cab with a V30 in it.

I've owned the MXR Mini pedal version of the Timmy before and it never did much for me. I think this build sounds better, more 3-D than the MXR Timmy.
I understand that MXR/Cochrane use an LF353 for the opamp whereas the PedalPCB bom called for an LM1458, so maybe that's the difference? :unsure:

The knob layout is a little different so I went with a two tone knob scheme so I could quickly remember where the vol and gain knobs are.
Also, I've never met an internal switch that I didn't want to expose:) I decided to put the Asym/Sym on a toggle, but it really wasn't worth the effort.
(Or I did something wrong, the SPDT mini slide "should" translate into an SPDT on-on mini toggle right?) Anyway, I'm not sure I'm hearing much difference if at all.

The "gain range" toggle is interesting, there's actually quite a bit of gain on tap in the higher gain setting. I was tempted to mess around with the values of R3/R12 but managed to avoid going down that rabbit hole and decided to build it stock first. I like it in the "low gain" setting better.

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So a guy I know at this point collected all the Timmy versions, the Tim and some clones. Apparently Paul Cochrane changed op amps around a bit between versions, LM/MC1458, JRC4559D, JRC4559DD (in the Tim), interesting that for the MXR one he went with the LF353. All 3 versions supposedly sound different but according to him for the worse from V1 to V3.

Anyhow, have fun with all your low gain drives!
 
Now that's a clean and neat build! :love:

Thank you for such a wonderful compliment and homage Michael, though I'm only emulating the mastery I've seen in these pages.
 
Beautifully clean! FWIW I've tried a few different opamps in the Timmy and they don't really sound much different. I generally use a TL072 because I have them. The different sounds in various versions will be down to other component changes.
 
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