a sorta different tone control... advice in implementation sought

[pinkjimiphoton]

i'm still refining my monkey balls pedal, up to mkIII so far but mkIV is likely forthcoming if i can figure out how to implement this.

while dicking around with the original circuit, i was having a hum/interference/noise issue, and found that inserting a 2.2n cap as a bypass between collectors in a fuzz that i could nuke off most of the noise in the circuit. it also changed the tone considerably...
i tried different cap values, from 22p to 4.7n and found that around 470p was what i felt was the optimal point to leave it at.

but... i noticed the smaller the cap, the less noise and hi frequencies were cancelled (duh) and the bigger, the more... to the point that you could control the pedal's tone with this cap.

obviously, an adjustable cap that big is impractical, if they even make them (no, i didn't check) and besides, if it's gonna be adjustable,  may as well add a pot to it.

and therein lies the problem i am facing. i COULD make r5 in the schematic snip a 10 or 20k pot, which i'm imagining would have more effect on gain and volume than tone...

so i was thinking... i know ya can "fake" a variable cap by putting a small cap on one side of a pot and a large one on the other with their free ends tied together and "sweep" between them using the wiper as an input...

but is there a "rule of thumb" for the value of the pot?

i don't want to add too much resistance i wouldn't think... the tone is pretty much my personal nirvana at this point (to the point the guys in the band are yelling at me to not share the circuit with the world this time which i haven't decided if i wanna do or not... if i do it will be in the members only forum so it doesn't get lifted by some nefarious cat like the suzy q did)... so i don't wanna change the tone at all.

what i'd LIKE to do is use a 22p cap on one side, and a 4.7 on the other... that should allow a good enough range of treble reduction if for some reason someone wanted it... but the pot size is what is kinda messing me up...  i'm thinking around 50k should be adequate but frankly i've never seen a tone control implemented this way (it runs between the c of q1 and the top of a semi-bypassed LED clipper in the b/c feedback look of q2) so am wondering what the hell i lummoxed across THIS time.

the other idea is simpler... just a small cap... say, 1k-10k (i wanna try and stick with standard values wherever possible) as a variable resistor between the cap  and the c of q2. wired kinda like a tone control in a guitar. that would be lossy for sure but would likely work.
the other way, with just the cap loses very little volume in comparison.

i gotta build this last idea up before committing it to veroboard, as the prototype that i'm using live is so hacked... shit on the rails side added, barely barely BARELY fits in a 1590b

but i figured i'd ask the fam what they think.

stupid pedal trick will be coming of mkIII soon.  whether there will be a mkIV is gonna depend on what happens with this little snippet of circuit

thanks for the advice. if ya REALLY need the whole schem, i can of course upload it. just leery these days if i come up with anything new or unusual. i'm not a commercial builder still and prefer my work be at least credited. (thanks tone report weekly, lol)

shoot, i gotta upload the pic snip later, as it appears photobucket is down again.

edit: screw photobucket, i got tinypic workin' (still photobucket, really)

[GGBB]

I would try a different way. C4 is already coming off Q1 collector - you can take your tone cap off the other end of C4 - series caps rule gives you basically the same thing. Now it's at R5 - replace R5 with a 5k pot and a 3k3 in series, and put the tone cap between the pot wiper and Q2 collector. Not sure what this will be like in comparison, but it should do the same kind of thing and be a lot neater. Probably have to re-find the ideal cap value. Might want to play with the pot and resistor order as well.

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks for the idea gord,
its one of the things i was considering trying. but seems to me i may be better off to leave it as it is, and just vary the c5 cap by making faking a variable resistor. originally, r5 was another cap and i think if i change that, it's gonna affect the volume and tone more. ideally i think the pot deal should work well... effectively, if it doesn't load the signal down too much.
i sent kipper the full schem, he's having a play with his bb and i am gonna try and get to it too and see what i can come up with. the cool thing about adding the tone control in this fashion is that you don't lose much output, and it give a sorta "boosted" clean bleed thru that is really cool! i dunno how to describe it. i definitely need to breadboard the whole mess before doing another vero for it. the original one is really like... over hacked i dunno how much more i can monkey with it

[GGBB]

I think what you are effectively doing is adding negative feedback, but back through C4 and R5 rather than directly like C9 does. Negative feedback decreases output, but of course in this case for high end only because of the cap. It shouldn't matter how you deliver that feedback, as long as you get the bandwidth and level you want in order to produce the sound you like. So back through only R5 and not C4 or part of R5 should do the same thing, but of course values might need to be different. I say shouldn't matter how - but I don't know for sure - if it sounds right it is right.

[pinkjimiphoton]

i had to rewire my bud's les paul last nite, so never got to it... will have a play today with it and see what happens

[pinkjimiphoton]

hahaha, i am a bloody @#$%in idiot

i see what i did. i reinvented....hah... if ya can call it that... the PRESENCE control. just like in an amp, you can use feedback to "voice" your circuits. sometimes. at least thats what i did.

so in the interests of what the @#$%, here ya go. no sense hiding it lol its nothing even new i don't believe. that said,
IT WORKS FUGGIN GREAT.
a tone control without all the volume loss. seriously. after messing with this, the only way to fly if ya don't wanna have to mess with a lot of crap to get your gain back.

anywhos, this is a kinda neat hybrid pedal with a stupid amount of tones. it is an octave overdrive. you can get octave up sounds on your treble pickup pretty much everywhere if ya have the phat control down all the way and the lardaciousness pegged. (actually, lardaciousness would be counterclockwise really... cranked up its toothy).  think of it as a tone control. cuz thats what it does. one side is a very slight amount of treble reduction. the other side gives a nice nasal woman tone... well.. a little smoother than nasal all the way down. one pot, two caps. easy breezy.

phat sweeps between a treble booster (literally, its a @#$%in FAL treble booster front end) and full range boost. the more you turn it up, the phatter it gets. turned up, the octave aspect disappears until you hold and sustain a note. then it will bloom usually really nicely, and usually harmonically. right about 1:00 is the shiznit for me.

monkey is a bias control. i chose to use it strictly as a variable resistor and not tie the input pin to the wiper as it
A: sounds different
and
B: doesn't let ya quite get the gated starved thing when the pot is turned all the way down. with that pin open, you can get a slightly more gated tone than if it was tied to the wiper. you can sweep from gated to sweet to a nice level of fuzzy dirt with it.

balls, obviously, is balls. crank that shit right the @#$% up. about 1/2 way is earbleed. beware.
it cleans up just like a fuzzface, but retains a bit of dirt... almost sounds like one of them boss accoustic simulator pedals if ya have the right combo of pickups and volume dialed in on your guitar.
literally every number on the volume knob will sound different. you can go from accousticish to clean to overdriven to crunch to distortion to fuzz to octave right from your guitar. the octave thing is most prevalent in solid state amps.

due to the nature of the treble booster ge front end, it "chimes" like a vox, too. ya get intermodulation distortion like a vox, too. in a good way. very trippy.

has a highish impedance front end and a lower arse end, so should play well with other pedals. i like it before as well as after fuzz... different animals.

i am exploiting the compression aspect of led's... they clip late but hard, and since i don't actually drive them into conduction, i can use the clipper to "compress" the sound a bit. in conjunction with the 47p cap between the red led's, it gives me a noise gate that cancels out a substantial amound of the noise and crud this circuit was making. it still has a bit of hiss to it, but to mis-quote mike mathews, hey, if it does what ya wanna and makes some noise.....<shruggs>....

you can use any old ge and si q combo you like. i been on the mpsa06 kick just cuz i gotta huge bag of 'em.
i intentionally did not check the gain of the ge q. i just grabbed the first one i saw, and soldered it in there (this grew out of hacking on an earlier design)... i've built a few of these, same deal. the circuit doesn't really seem to care which transistor goes in q1 as long as the orientation is right and its an npn.

but if asked, i'd say shoot for 50-120hfE for q1 and around 200 for q2.  that should be fine. higher gain transistors will work too but the bias point may need to be adjusted somewhat, and i'd do it by adding an emitter resistor to q2. start around 47r and work your way up. the smaller the resistance, the more gain. for normal q's around 400-500hfE i'd try around a 220-560r range. that will chill the gain down some, but not @#$% with the tone in a bad way like biasing via the c (which i think may affect the audio more) seems to do in some cases.


sustains like i dunno what. you can sustain notes or chords til your fingers fall off.

yeah yeah, you read this going, ""damn, pink's an asshole that types too much shit"" and you'd be right.

try this shit on your breadboard and see what ya think.

i present to you the lardacious phat monkey balls octave overdrive fuzz

what a @#$%in mouthful..






stupid pedal trick will come sooner or later.. peace