"May I?" distortion pedal based upon ROG MayQueen

[alex frias]

I know it's not that it's no a BianMay-in-a-box but I like it very much:



A very poor played vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yATuip8Wc4

[petemoore]

  I think it sounds great ! Thanks for sharing and the video !

[mnordbye]

The "May I?" sounds cool!

[alex frias]

Thanks for the kind words, but it needs some after thought to be in better condition. Now it's not boxed properly, but even with it in mind it shows a noise floor resemblin a very noisy hi gain amp, more like stactic, a kind of pink noise...

[GtrmanMoe]

Dude, that sounds awesome!!  And your playing was very impressive, too.

[orangetones]

What guitar/pickups were used for this?

[irnmadn88]

I like it!

And x2 on the gear combo...

[alex frias]

A Parker P-30 (chinese strato type of...) with Gold Lace Sensors (played close to an old PC monitor...) then to the "May I?" and to a ZOOM G2 generic clean guitar amp modeling with a bit of digital reverb. An ART table top Tube MP pre amp and to the PC audio card. No acoustic feedback as the audio was captured using only headphones. In a normal loud amp situation the sustains is close to "forever". I would like to use some Mr May pickup wiring (with pickups in series, not prallel, out or in phase) to experiment how it would sound as the pedal is very "input" sensitive. At the end of the vid I repeat a phrase changing the pickups with the five way switch.

I made some mistakes, so here is a correction # 1:

[alex frias]

This nice guy (Guero) made a cool layout for any interested:

http://www.handmades.com.br/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=26&func=view&id=53413&catid=16&limit=20&limitstart=80

There you'll find a link to a complete to download a pdf doc with everything, Tonepad style.

[Caferacernoc]

Considering that isn't even going into a real amp it sounds really really good. Nice playing too. Great job.

[frank_p]

Really nice sounding and good soundclip.  Look like there had been a lot of fine tuning.  Would really like to know the steps you've been trough in your effect conception process.  Seems to be a great deal of differences between the ROG design and yours.  Well, if you have time to explain a bit...
Say thanks to your friends on the other forum !

Frank-Hugo

[vortex]

Hey, That sounds excellent. Nice work Alex!

I can't find any info on BC246. Are there any suitable subs for the JFETS? 2N7000, J201?
Cheers

[alex frias]

Well, I tested even ideas I would usually discard... But my aim was to find out where and how the AC30 with a TrebleBooster could sound so cool.

In may opinion nothing beats the Stephan Moller AC30sim, but it's a different approach.

I really appreciated these two projects on ROG: MayQueen and English Channel. I used to compare them with various original tube AC30 versions schematics.
I decided MayQueen addressed very well the nature of distorted sound I was looking for. I found the way it generates the most part of it was better than the way the English Channel did, eventhough EC tried to transfer the valve circuit directly to the FET world. The combination of BJT and FET with that 220K feedback resistor (FF anyone?) gave the quality I was looking for, closer to a cranked amp. If you see the AC30 original circuits, you'll see the heart of their distortion, the second stage.

The use of a FuzzCentral RangerBlaster was just because I love it, really, it's way better than Treble or Top Boosters in my opinion, so I tested both and the Ranger won.

Something still was lacking, I then thought about testing the AC30 original tone stack. This stuff as I wrote before, was the stage I didn't believe that could be useful in any way. But it did, and did it well. After that I put a Fetzer 30 as a recovery stage and to keep in the VOX territory... Then I tested the "CUT" and found it a very necessary part of the stream. It's that, a simple task than others we face with more weird projects.

In relation to the FET's, I found this combo very interesting. Regarding the lack of info about BC246: the BC246 is a type mismatch as the correct code is BC264!
I didn't test J201, because the few I have are soldered in other projects PCB's. If people interested in build this project could tell us about other FET impressions. 2N7000 and BS170 are not JFET's, they are MOSFET's, but nothing prevents you to test them and tell us if they work and how it sounds with them.

[frank_p]

Hey, may I thank you for the explanations ? It put some light on your circuit.  You should put the all the material in the gallery.
Great !

F-H
   

[alex frias]

Laughs, please!

I don't know how to do it!

[Ice-9]

Hey, Well done Alex that really has a very natural sound. I bet it responds really well to the guitar volume control and keeps the real guitar sound.

One question though, is it just that its unboxed that is causing the crackle or could it be the recoding of the sound.

[alex frias]

OK, but what do you mean with crakle?

I played very close to a PC monitor screen, a very strong electromagnectic field, without a proper shielded box.

The only thing I believe is not the result of this very exposed-to-adversity situation is the pink noise floor.
It seems to belong to the higain nature and treble amount involved...but still not complketely sure.

In another forum some people suggested to put those trimpots on the other side of the FET's (sources, not on the drains) and this could help with the noisy floor.

[Ice-9]

Hey Alex , when i played the you tube clip it sounds great , apart from the cracle,  not sure why it has a crackle on it (on my playback) a bit  like a digital distortion on a  recording when you hit the headroom level. I hope you know what i mean. probs only on my download as its not been metioned on other replies.

The sound is very good on the effect would you mind if i do a pcb to put as well.

[alex frias]

I will be very happy with it. I'm here to share it with others and if lucky enough improve it with the opinions and suggestions..

The kind of thing you mention I dont't recognise on my PC box reproduction. Obviously there are several artifacts added to the sound by codecs and stuff, but as all we are so used to utoob stuff we can distinguish better nowadays. but a so crackling sound, I don't think could be part of the original recording.

[Ice-9]

I have to agree Alex the sound problem has to be with my codec. I really can hear the guitar part perfect, the codec distortion my ear can seperate no problem , i really like the effect sound. Thanks for sharing and i will have a go at a pcb for the 1590 MXR case size.

By the way, stick a phaser before the "i may" and you will get Brian May