Reflections on my GGG TychoBrahe Octavia Build

[cforger]

Hey all,

I just built the TychoBrahe Octavia from www.generalguitargadgets.com the other day, and I thought I'd let you all know how I made out.

I ordered the parts from Mouser, and the perfboard from GGG. I had to source a few parts locally, but it wasn't hard to find stuff.

Originally I built this hoping for a cool octave effect, so I could so some neat Jimmy imitation work (isnt' that the driving reason most of us build stomboxes?)

The project went together in about a day's worth of work. It was my first electronics project in many years, and the most complex. It did work on first go, although my 9v battery is a bit weak.

I didn't have the proper .1uf caps for C1 and C7, so I omitted C7 (as per the instructions) and put a .01uf at C1 - Does anyone know what this may change in terms of sound? I notice that at full volume, I pick up 100.1 Mhz (radio station), but I just have to back it off a notch to get rid of that.

I plugged it in, and let it go. At first, I was a bit disappointed - it was WAY out of control, and I didn't have any octave effect. I then went to this forum and read up on the fact that people usually like to play through the neck pickups, with the tone off, and the Intensity on the box at 0.

I did this, and was able to get the octave effect, but it sounded like a 70's video game. I do have a dual-humbucker setup, so I don't have the scratchy squeal that a single-coil strat would have, but I don't think that would make too much of a difference.

While frigging with this unit, I started to fall in love with it for the creamy powerful distortion! Screw trying to make it do the octave effect, this is a mighty thick fuzz box.

My primary guitar is a dual humbucker, (one of them an overdrive humbucker) so I can really make some thick sounds. I find this box to be excellent for lead guitar work, it fattens it up enough that it could compete with a rhythm section pounding out power chords.

You can do some rhythm work with this, but you’ve gotta play simple power chords (nothing too fast) and it seems to have too much bottom end, so the low-e’s tend to be mushy.

I use the intensity at 0 almost all the time â€" It’s just crazy at full blast â€" unless you want to be able to speak through your pickups â€" Yes, it’s that sensitive. Excellent sustain, and it also tends to make this cool wooowooowoo sound by itself as you hold a note or power chord â€" Must be the imperfect smashing of the waveforms together by the transformer/diode combo that gives it this effect.

I think I may try the Body-mod posted on GGG to see if I can spank this pedal back into some semblance of respectability. I’m also thinking I may be able to clean it up with a compressor and noise suppressor â€" more on that as I have the time.

So my final comments: Great distortion, wimpy octave effect. You can’t play any type of metal more modern than the early 80’s with this, but it’s great for most metal lead work, and can be used for ballsy blues/rock if you tone it down.

I think this pedal will do quite well once I add a few more tweaking switches on to it. I’m going to continue to experiment with it, and see what it can do.

Oh, BTW - I find that this is best used when it's my guitar->Tycho->wah->amp When I do it the other way around, I lose too much wah. The tone deadening of the wah helps tame this beast a bit.

Comments anyone?

[petemoore]

The C1's usually are the input cap.
 Larger values..more bass
 Smaller Values...more bass rolloff/less bass.

[swt]

I remember someone saying that the tycobrahe was a clone of a roger mayer pedal that was took to a repair shop. And a long time after, roger said they didn't know it works with 24 volts. Someone can chime in, but i think the fx is less weird using higher voltages, and it'll also get cleaner.

[cforger]

Ah, that's interesting. I don't suppose it will hurt anything to remove the input caps then would it? I think I may also try and get some variable caps to see what I can tweak from it.

I heard the 24v story as well.. I built my circuit to be 16v tolerant, so I think I may just crank up the voltage from a multi-adapter and see what happens. I do have lower voltage than normal right now, because my 9v is putting out 6.57v - it may be increasing the drive.

[snorky]

That's funny.  I just wired up my first effect - an Octavia also.  My impressions were much the same as yours.  The thing is a little beast.  The pots seem very powerful, and I have to mess a bit to see if I can get more of an octave sound.  I am getting a bunch of RF, but that'll probably go away when I put it in an enclosure, no?

Anyway, I've gotten alot of information from this forum, so thanks Aron!!!

- Mark

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[cforger]

Yeah, an enclosure will definately help your RF. Plus your wires are a bit long - Make then as short as possible. You'll see when you put it in the enclosure, you can trim a lot of them way down.

Let me know what types of mods you try with yours.. I will be playing (i.e. changing electronics) with mine again after I finish building my tube amp.

[jimbob]

i wasnt sure what to do with this effect when i first got it going either..I think it should be better called a distortion pedal w octave effect than the other way around..I think its great though, in its own way. Add it to a decent tube amp and let it go--actually a ss amp sounded really good to me with this as well. Try star spangled banner w this effect--hendrix like--sounds cool! I did the body mod and highly recommend it..It calms it down really well but not too much. I do  like this better than my Boss oc-2-many like it--i think its worthless(the oc-2)--though im a big boss fan. But as time goes by i like my effects-handmade ones--better..try the body mod.

[bwanasonic]

Hmm, not sure what the variables are here, but with a fresh battery and the intensity at 0, I get very Jimi-esque octave effects with both single coils and humbuckers. I used 5089s for the NPNs and 5087 for the PNP. I used mouser 42TM011 for the transformer. I hope to put up some clips soon.


Kerry M

[cforger]

Yeah, an enclosure will definately help your RF. Plus your wires are a bit long - Make then as short as possible. You'll see when you put it in the enclosure, you can trim a lot of them way down.

Let me know what types of mods you try with yours.. I will be playing (i.e. changing electronics) with mine again after I finish building my tube amp.

[gdmart]

hello im almost ready to do the off board wiring ,It would be nice to see a close up of this effect,to compare and make sure ive got every thing placed correctly.Ive put a germanium oc75 in the pnp socket and 2 5088 in the other npn spots will this work ? Also on the diodes ,are cathode bands facing the transformer or towards the outside of the board?? thanks

[vdm]

Hey

just a few notes you might like to know,

When you alter the input and output caps, this will change the bass response dramatically - but you cannot remove them completely.

Search for 'coupling caps' here or maybe google, and you should begin to understand how they allow the signal to pass through the circuit.

So decreasing these should remove some of the mushy-ness of the low e string, and i would suggest decreasing by a factor of 10 for a really noticeable difference, but after you do this a few times you should get a handle on how much you need to change it for the desired change.

trent

[STOMPmole]

I haven't built the TychoBrahe, but can say that if you're going for the Hendrix sound (Band of Gypsys/Purple Haze) the RM Octavia is dead-on accurate.

[JohnM]

On my RM Octavia the octave effect dramatically increases when I roll off all the treble with the tone pot.  Even though I find this works best with my single-coil strat neck pickup, this trick still works with a humbucker that has a tone control (like my strat bridge pickup).  Does this do the trick with the Tyco, as well?

[jmusser]

I have to make that one, that's all there is too it. The Tobias sound sample on GGG is awesome! If I could get mine to sound anything like that, I would be pleased. I'm hearing some good things about Gus's Octave Up Sick Box, so I'll probably make that one first because I've never heard a sample of it. The Bobtavia and the Tycho are my favorites today, but I'm real fickle about what effects I like on any given day. I have the Tycho transformer, and the transformer for the Octave Screamer, so I need to get those projects together. Tonight though, it's time to build Tim Escobedo's Punch-in-the-Face fuzz. I have the Dano French Toast, which I guess is supposed to be a lot like the Foxx Tone Machine. It's pretty wicked too, and a real screamer.

[RedHouse]

Just a side-note, the "Octavia" effect is not really an "octave" effect it's more like a ring modulator.

You have to turn down the distortion/fuzz knob a bit to actually hear it or else it just sounds like a hyper-drive-fuzz. When tuned right it actually makes the sound thin.

Personally I think the RM Octavia (uses a transistor and diodes instead of the transformer) sounds better than the Tycobrahe version. (I've built them both) Also I like mine driven by a brett/piggy FuzzFace instead of the PNP/NPN Axis type fuzz but that's just my opinion.

For good examples listen to Hendrix's "Who Knows" on the "Band Of Gypsys" album, right after Buddy miles does his "scat" thing when Jimi comes back in to the song he has his Octavia set up and running right. Also in "Purple Haze" the 1st lead solo used it.

[aron]

One of my most favorite boxes. The Foxx Tone Machine is really cool too!