SOLVED Tone Vendor MKII Low Volume

BJG

New member
Hey all,
I built a Tone Vendor MKII, and while a little bright, the bigger issue is that the output volume is too low. The volume pot on full gets me just under unity gain.
before I mess with the 470r and 8.2k resistors to get more volume I figured I'd ask if this circuit is naturally quite or if I have some bad transistor/bias values. Would a badly biased Tone Bender change tithe output volume?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Some specs of the build:
  1. Q1:
    1. 8.75V @ collector
    2. HFE: 60
    3. Leak: 32
  2. Q2:
    1. 260 mV @ Collector
    2. HFE: 110
    3. Leak: 109
  3. Q3:
    1. 7.63 V @ collector
    2. HFE: 126
    3. Leak: 70
IMG_2191.jpeg IMG_2193.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Update:
I swapped/replaced all the transistors. Biggest difference is that Q3 has lower gain than before; Q1-3 all range between 48 and 61 hfe now.
Biggest change overall is I socketed R3 and R7 and replaced them with a 1.8K resistor and a 10k trim pot respectively. Pedal has much more output and I can bias it as needed.
Is it pretty? No. Vintage correct? No. But, it works much more to my liking now and I can re-bias if I ever swap transistors.
 

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