Who has built a FET City Drive?

H

HamishR

Well-known member
I just built a FET City Drive today - it sounds great! But I want to hear other folks experience of this pedal - I can't find much.

Mine is quite noisy unless gain is low - Has anyone else experienced this or am I just shit at building PCBs? It also doesn't do low gain - would using 2N7000 MOSFETs instead of BS170s? I'm also thinking that making R16 slightly larger might help reduce the dirt a little.
 
This is sad. It seems this pedal is unloved and has been left to wither and die from inattention and lack of love, a victim of a heartless society which takes overdrive for granted.
 
HamishR said:
I just built a FET City Drive today - it sounds great! But I want to hear other folks experience of this pedal - I can't find much.

Mine is quite noisy unless gain is low - Has anyone else experienced this or am I just shit at building PCBs? It also doesn't do low gain - would using 2N7000 MOSFETs instead of BS170s? I'm also thinking that making R16 slightly larger might help reduce the dirt a little.
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@HamishR

Did you read the review for the board?

"Sounds great! 3-band EQ works like charm! Only problem encountered was that R16 kept the signal clipped throughout the gain spectrum. Quick fix was to replace it with 100nF film cap in series with a 1k resistor. Nevertheless this pedal added some versatility in my tone from sweet low gain OD to tight high gain crunch."

Maybe look at R16 and see if that's what's keeping it from getting to low gain?

I didn't know about this pedal but after looking at the schematic, it looks interesting. Going in my Wish List:)
 
R16 is between a pair of hard clipping LEDs and a couple of gain stages. I could try just removing it altogether for a start because there are already clipping diodes in the feedback loop of the IC... So removing R16 would remove the hard clipping diodes. I would imagine that making R16 bigger could help too.

And I just remembered that used a BC550C (I think) in place of the MPSA18. That might have made a difference too.
 
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