Electra Distortion Mods?

[hobodork]

Hi, new here. Sorry if this question gets asked a lot, I really did search for relevant stuff. Anyways..

I recently built the Electra Distortion effect, featured here:

http://www.geocities.com/j4_student/electra.gif

It turned out about as good as I expected my first effect to, IE, it's better than my Crate distortion, but only marginally so. (Actually it almost sounds exactly the same, makes me wonder about Crate)

So I'm looking for any simple modifications I can do that will make it sound better. Basically anything I can do without scrapping the whole thing and starting over. I'm not an electronic genius by any means but I can read a schematic and I'm starting to gain a little bit of knowledge about how the various components effect the sound.

I'm looking for a harsher sound. This effect is pretty mellow compared to what I would want. I'm looking for something more "metallic" or maybe even "buzzsaw". Does that make sense?

I understand that the diodes are what is making the distortion by clipping the signal. I'm using the 1N4001's. I haven't seen any reccomendations as far as that goes other than increasing the number of diodes to "mellow" the sound. The opposite of what I want to do.

I'm thinking of reducing the value of the input cap so as to cut off some of the bass going into the clipper. Would that have much effect on the final outcome of the sound?

Should I just scrap this design and start over with something else? And if so, what? If you've ever heard Green Day's very first album, 1,000 hours, (last four songs on 1,039/Smoothed out Slappy) that's the sort of sound I'm looking for. Buzzsaw. But as of right now I'm loking for anything that sounds better than my Crate amp distortion. God that sound sucks.

Thanks in advance and thanks to the webmaster for producing such a cool page. Rock on.

-sean

[Stevo]

try In914 diodes...... smoother try In34 germanium....basically i would keep it and look for another dist. to build....silicon fuzz face would be a nice unit to try..really there are tons to try but the FF is a good starter :lol:

[TheBigMan]

That's actually a modded version of the Electra Distortion.  If you read the text on this schematic it explains why germanium diodes play such a large part in the sound.  Having built it with 1N34As I'd agree, although I keep meaning to try some LEDs as well.

[hobodork]

I just replaced the 1N4001 diodes with 5MM leds.Sounds better, but still nowhere near what I'm looking for.

Thanks for the suggestions. There's a lot of FuzzFace type schematics out there. Can you reccomend a simple easy to find parts (radio shack) one?

thanks again.

[trjones1]

My second build after the Electra was a regular old Fuzz Face from the schematic on Justin Philpot's site (what ever happened to him?)  This schematic from General Guitar Gadgets is the same one:

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/fuzzface_sc_nn.gif

This is negative ground and you can use 2N3904 transistors which are stocked at any Radio Shack.  As I remember I got all the parts I needed at Radio Shack (though that was 2 years ago and their part selection is always shrinking).  

Don't be afraid to order from Mouser.com.  There is no minimum order and the cost of shipping is more than made up by the low prices of the parts.  A resistor that costs $.20 at Radio shack will cost $.05 through Mouser.  They will have just about any value component as well.  For example enter this into the search box on the website: "1/4w carbon film resistor 8.2k" and you will get a selection of 8.2k resistors, any of which will work fine.  Or enter "22uf electrolytic capacitor" and choose one rated between 16 and 50 volts.  Using Mouser made building a lot more convenient and cheaper than trying to search through the bins at Radio Shack or the local electronics shop.