Once more - TS and Clipping Diodes

[Oliver]

Hi out there,

did anybody of you tried some 1N4004 (a pair) as Clipping Diodes for a Tubescreamer?

By the way - what are the originals inside a TS (9 oder 808) or a Fulldrive?

Yesterday Evening i build a TS Circuit with some other Specs:
- no Buffers at all (wanted to try how it taste = not bad, works better with GuitarVol now)
- Feedbackloop contains now a pair of 1N4004 Diodes and a 100p Cap
- the Resistor and Cap from Feedbackloop to Vr is a 4K7 Resistor and a 1uF Cap
- as the .22uF Cap from Pin5 to Ground i took an 0.1uF Cap
- the 1K Resistor in the SignalLine just before the LevelPot is left away.
- I took an 1M Gainpot  

With Drive at the Bottom it sounds just warm/clean.
Using a little bit Drive gets a nice Dirty Clean
From about 1/4 Gain up the TS has a very high Sustain! The TS808 doesnt have it like this.
And this one doesnt compress as high, as my other one with a pair of 1N914 with one 1N4004 Diode in Serie to one 1N914.
It hase more grit and sounds more rough.
Gain rises till the end of turning it up. My TS808 Spec one climbs only to 1/2 of gain and then begins only to compress more.

I think to boost at higher Gain, the TS808 one is good (to crank an open TubeAmp to Crunch, for Leadsound)
My last one as above produces a warm crunch for himself and works good
for Rocking Rythm and Lead..

Did anyone play around with that TS Circuit and likes to post his experience with it?

bye
Oliver

[Dai H.]

sounds like you are doing just fine. Just do what sounds good. Re: the original diodes in the original TScreamers--they were just common small signal diodes, I believe (1S1588 and MA150). There don't seem to be huge differences w/small signal Si, but you should just try stuff out yourself to be certain. Try different types, different combinations, etc. Have fun.

[Oliver]

Hi,

Yes - i played around with some Types already with my TS808 Clone.
For my Taste the two 1N914 parallel and one 1N4004 in Series with one of the two 1N914 sounds good. Bluesy Smooth.....

But if You search a typical Tubish reacting Circuit, the Most Diode Clippers
are not the right Things.

My experience with an 18Watt Alltube Amp (Hohner from the Sixties)
is, that it is clean to about 2/3 Gain and goes then in a smooth Overdrive.
But if the Gain is turned up more, it suddenly goes into a crunchy Sound.

I only heared such Tone from the VoodooLab Overdrive (the old 2Knob Verion) Thats warm and fat and goes on the Last 1/4 Turn of Gain into a Rocking CrunchSound.

With my last Bild Circuits i found some (for my taste) good to use Overdrive/Distortions...

One of them is the TS808 clone, that i modified with a Levelboost and Switchable from Overdrive Mode over Clean (like CompCut) to Distortion (Hard Clipping)
And just Yesterday i finisched the Enclosure (First Time i did a Labeling)



Its not perfect labled, because i used thothe Letters to judder on from a
Paper.... i have to practice that for better finish.

OK
Play and Rock ON!

Oliver

[nightingale]

i think the jumbled letters look cool~!
kind of give the letters an animated look..

[Transmogrifox]

Yeah, I got my TS circuit sounding very nice:

A TLC272 CMOS opamp makes it very "creamy" (I like this smoother sound"

I am using 1N4007 diodes (don't think there would be an audible difference between any 1N400x diode).

I have two in series for one clipping polarity, then I put one in series with an 810 ohm resistor for the other polarity.  Very interesting symmetry, responds well being driven by my compressor.

I found the 720 Hz 3dB cutt-off was a little "thin" so I lowered it to about 600 Hz with a 10 nF cap in parallel with the 47 nf in there.

This is the sweetest I've ever heard it sound.  I use it almost exclusively for my distortion sound...it will remain that way until I build some more good-sounding boxes.  My other pedals, turbo RAT, American metal, fab tone, death metal pedal just don't measure up to some of these circuits around these parts that I have had on my breadboard... and are presently dismembered for hope of future modding.

Even the SmashDrive is better than most commercial pedals.

[Oliver]

Hi,

its done with my enclosure...
I called it XtraDrive, because its not a Fulldrive2 Clone and
i dont own the Name Fulldrive :-))

bye
And Thanx to Transmogirfox for Your interesting Posting!!

[Transmogrifox]

Nice box. I'm glad it worked out for you...If only I would put in the time and effort to make nice and robust enclosures.  Whenever I finish off my roll  of film, I'll post pics of my compressor and I think you all may get a good laugh out of it.

Did you try any of my mods, or just find them interesting?
take care

[Oliver]

Nice box.

Did you try any of my mods, or just find them interesting?
take care

Hi,

and Thank You!

i didnt try Your Mods Yet, but ist interesting and will be tested soon with another TS Circuit, that i want to build for a double Drive (two TS/Distortions in one Enclosure, to switch between them and use
both together, if needed) Something like the Barber TonePump, but more Versatile.

bye
Oliver

[Peter Snowberg]

That's a great looking box Oliver!

I like the letters not being perfectly straight too as nightingale commented about. If they were all perfectly lined up I think it would loose character.

Take care,
-Peter

[javacody]

I'm not clear on what the xtra switch does? What does the od/dist swith do?

[Oliver]

That's a great looking box Oliver!

I like the letters not being perfectly straight too as nightingale commented about. If they were all perfectly lined up I think it would loose character.

Take care,
-Peter

Hi and Thanx...

I like that Pedal - as it is... the not perfectly lined up Letters are OK,
the "V" of the Volume Label has a fragment of an "O" thats not so good and i dont like, but didnt wanted to risk a scratch if i had tried to remove it.

cu
Oliver

[Oliver]

I'm not clear on what the xtra switch does? What does the od/dist swith do?

Hi,

i build it as follows (its a TS808 with an 1Meg Drivepot):

the xtra Footswitch does two things.
1) adds 150K Resistor into the Feedbackloop for a slighly Gain-Up
2) adds the PotValue (xtra Pot = 500K) between the Pin of the Levelpot, that goes to Vr

So you can switch to more Level for a LeadSound

The OD - Dist. Switch makes following:
in OD Position the TS works as a TS should do ? normally.

in Posisition between OD and Dist (there is no Place for a Label  :? )
The Clipping Diodes are cut out of the Feedback Loop of the OPAmp
together with the 50p Cap. (so it works very similar to the Fulldrive2 "CompCut Switch")

In Dist. Position a 100PCap is added into the Feedbackloop together
with 3 x 1n4004 Diodes (antiparallel) from Signalpath to Ground (placed in front of the Level Pot.

The Distortion is not a superhighgain, but sounds a little bit like the Boss DS-1 Distortion.

I wanted to have an Overdrive and a Distortion Pedal in one Enclosure and
for Solos an extra Levelboost. There it is.
But the Level dont climb any more with xtra Switch on, when the normal Volume is set as max. In that case only the Gain will go up a bit.

so Rock ON !!

Oliver

[Sic]

wow, that box looks badass, you should be very proud =D

[javacody]

Wow Oliver, that sounds like about the most useful Tubescreamer ever. You've got me wanting to build one now. Is there someplace I can find a schem for this?

Thanks for the info, and I agree, it is a very cool looking pedal.