Looking to replacing my Fulltone Soulbender

[Greg]

I'm thinking about selling off my Soulbender and building a Tonebender clone. Would the 3 knob "Boutique Bender" at General Guitar Gadgets get 'er done? While I like the Soulbender, there are things that I'd like to tweak on it but I know that will devalue it so to me, it makes more sense to sell it off and use the money to build a clone. And I'm sure I'll have money left over as well! Guess I'm just looking for recommendations on a DIY replacement. I want something that isn't overly bright. For example, I can't roll enough highs off the Soulbender so I'm looking for something a little smoother I guess.
Thanks
Greg

[phillip]

Well, the Boutique Bender is the Soul Bender, but you'd be able to tweak away without worrying about losing any resale value

Phillip

[Greg]

Thanks Phillip! That's precisely what I wanted to know!

Greg

[MarshallPlexi]

Or you can sell your Tone Bender and have enough money to clone ALL of the Fulltone pedals. I would never do that though. Highly unethical....or perhaps I've said to much.  :wink:

[nelson]

Or you can sell your Tone Bender and have enough money to clone ALL of the Fulltone pedals. I would never do that though. Highly unethical....or perhaps I've said to much.  :wink:

That would be worth its weight in gold goop.

[MarshallPlexi]

Or you can sell your Tone Bender and have enough money to clone ALL of the Fulltone pedals. I would never do that though. Highly unethical....or perhaps I've said to much.  :wink:

That would be worth its weight in gold goop.

Then I'm glad we agree.  :lol:

[mojotron]

I've reverse engineered several pedals, and what I do is to sell the original pedal after I have tweaked mine to the point where I like it better than the original. The original was always very useful when I wanted to a/b and tweak things on my builds.

Also, I found that the GGG fuzz circuits, for instance, do not match the fulltone circuits exactly, and I would have missed that if I had not hung on to the original until mine was better....

[george]

Also, I found that the GGG fuzz circuits, for instance, do not match the fulltone circuits exactly

hey mojotron

care to say exactly how inexactly ...?  

cheers george

[mojotron]

Also, I found that the GGG fuzz circuits, for instance, do not match the fulltone circuits exactly

hey mojotron

care to say exactly how inexactly ...?  

cheers george

Sure, on the '69 (PNP) and '70 (NPN) that I had, R10 is actually a 100kA pot (not 500KA). Also, on the '70 there is a 1k resistor across the lugs on R8 - reduces R8 to a 500kB.

So, what I did to make them "better" IMO:
On the PNP GE:
Q1 - NTE102A - hfe ~70-80
Q2 - NTE102 - hfe ~110 - 120
C3 - .2uF
Nice and quiet with all of the character of those crusty old NKT275's
And, with these changes this is the best dirty boost in the world!! But, this will take a fortune to build...

On the NPN Si:
Q1 - PN2369A
Q1 - 2N5088
R8 - same as the GGG schematic
With C3 @ .2uF this is as good as the Ge version
Oh, ya... I think the '70 uses a 51pF cap from the bc on Q2, but I liked 30pF better.

FullDrive - too numerous to really go into, but if you build a TS9, use a JRC opamp and use a 1n4001 and 1n914 you will get very close. The FM mod is just a 47k resistor and .01uF cap from the output of ICB-b to the drive lug.

The distortion pro is a lot like the overdrive pro, which is RAT-like, but the saturation control is totally different and it has tweaks here and there.. really too many to really list off the top of my head

I'm working on some others...

Hope this helps   Let me know if you need more info...

[RobB]

I've seen the innards of two very expensive 69's.  Both had 500kA for volume and 0.01uf for C3.  In A/B tests my GGG Boutique Fuzz Face did not sound right until I corrected C3 and put in a pair of matched AC128s.  

What sounds "right" is subjective though.  As always, weak to taste.

[mojotron]

I've seen the innards of two very expensive 69's.  Both had 500kA for volume and 0.01uf for C3.  In A/B tests my GGG Boutique Fuzz Face did not sound right until I corrected C3 and put in a pair of matched AC128s.  

What sounds "right" is subjective though.  As always, weak to taste.

I'll have to check my notes, or my box, I think you are right it's was likely a .01uF for C3 originally, but I use a .02uF cap... Sorry, I was writing this from memory..

Everyone's ear hears things differently... I bought a brand new '69 last year and based this on that - I think they all run about $150 (which is an excellent value!!) if anyone paid more than that for a '69 they likely did not have to. Anyway, I measured the volume pot side to side and it was 100k... It may have been a 500k pot with a 125k resistor across the lugs on the enclosure side?? who knows I did not rip it apart more than I needed to, I just measured the pot.

What I ment above about costing a fortune to build a Ge FF is that to build it yourself you'll go through a lot of transistors until you find the ones that sound best to you - and I had some transistors of every kind I found that have been tried... One thing I found was that you have to buy a lot of Ge transistors of the same kind to get one that works so you can test it... it could easyly cost hundreds of dollars to build a Ge FF clone.. In the end I found that an Si FF is a lot more flexible to design around and can sound a lot better if you are targeting a specific FF sound... The AC128s sounded great that I tried, but I wanted lower noise and more range.

I never really intended to build a "better" '69 when I started, but what I found out was that when I built my own from the BF on GGG, once I sorted through a lot of transistors (which took like 3 months of evenings) and tweaked everythning I wanted I never thought that I would use the original one I got, then I made one that sounded just like the original and sold the original on ebay... This was a great project, a lot of fun actually. Once I got to making a Si FF - I was a little disapointed at how easy it was to get a great sound with the right Si transistors - I was thinking at the end - where's the challenge in that?? The DP was definately a challenge - fortunately others helped me out on that one too.

The most impressive thing about Fulltone stuff is the mechanicals - I love the enclosures and how solid they are - definately learned a lot from looking at these pedals...

Well Sorry for rambling on .. we were talking about a Tonebender clone here....

[robotboy]

I've seen the innards of two very expensive 69's.  Both had 500kA for volume and 0.01uf for C3.  In A/B tests my GGG Boutique Fuzz Face did not sound right until I corrected C3 and put in a pair of matched AC128s.  

What sounds "right" is subjective though.  As always, weak to taste.

What I ment above about costing a fortune to build a Ge FF is that to build it yourself you'll go through a lot of transistors until you find the ones that sound best to you - and I had some transistors of every kind I found that have been tried... One thing I found was that you have to buy a lot of Ge transistors of the same kind to get one that works so you can test it... it could easyly cost hundreds of dollars to build a Ge FF clone.. In the end I found that an Si FF is a lot more flexible to design around and can sound a lot better if you are targeting a specific FF sound... The AC128s sounded great that I tried, but I wanted lower noise and more range.

Might be a dumb question, but why not just buy a matched pair of Ge transistors from smallbear?

[mojotron]

Might be a dumb question, but why not just buy a matched pair of Ge transistors from smallbear?

Unlike a lot of Si transistors (except PN2369A) that all sound about the same, all Ge transistors sound different. The transistors I got from Smallbear were all matched, all sounded like what a "Ge FF" sounds like, but they were not great. If one can get a properly matched set of AC128's (which ussually do sound pretty good) that's what I kind of started with as a baseline. That's not to say that Smallbears transistors were not good, but to my ears they weren't what I wanted. The NTE102/NTE102A combo really kicks with the suggested cap changes!! I like this combo way better then the NKT's and AC's.... I do have some AC127 I have not tried, but I do like the NTE's I'm using... BTW A lot of people like the NTE158 transistors - and you could sub those for a NTE102A, but the sound is a little muddy...

In short, I'm just too darn picky!!    I'm sure there are those who would like something totally different....

Well sorry again for rambling on .. we were talking about a Tonebender.... Maybe this is quite related..

[petemoore]

It is easier to get the sound you want by building and tweeking them.
 I have a pot/capacitor for variable high end rolloff...

[mojotron]

It is easier to get the sound you want by building and tweeking them.
 I have a pot/capacitor for variable high end rolloff...

Yep, that's the way to go. Sometimes you have to sim things out on the cap, because the cap value is going to have a lot to do with where the corner freq falls and the pot will roll off the highs above the corner.

I also like to put a 1k pot on the emitter of some of the higher gain transistors (2n5088/7/9...) because some times you can get a more "vintage" sound if you can use degeneration to lower the gain a bit.

[formerMember1]

 8)

[george]

Hope this helps   Let me know if you need more info...

Hey thanks for that!  Is the soulbender a lot different from the GGG boutique bender?

cheers George