"problem" with LED clipping on my clipping switch

Started by nightendday, September 08, 2012, 01:14:25 PM

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nightendday

So I built myself a clone of the blak arts pharaoh, and I had no Ge diodes, so I used a triplet of led instead. I have them arranged postive to negative-postive to negative, positive to negative. as you can see in the video. input signal goes in on positive and out on the negative side. Now when I switch between no clippers, and the diodes, I hear no difference, atleast to my ears. Did I goof up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWdwH6wP0Gk&feature=plcp

slacker

Never heard of the pedal, and without a schematic it's hard to say for sure, but the signal's probably not high enough to clip the LEDs. A Ge diode will take about 0.3 volts to make it clip and a LED will take 1.5 or more volts, so three in series will take 4.5 volts or more, that's for each half of the the signal, so the signal would need to be more than 9 volts peak to peak to make them clip. That ain't going to happen in a 9 volt powered stompbox.

nightendday

 :D :D

Can you tell I'm new at this?

Hahaha, how would I hook them up in parallel ?

nightendday


slacker

Yeah that's right except you can remove one of the two that are facing the same way. It could just be that a circuit designed to clip Ge diodes isn't loud enough to clip LEDs. If you've got any, then silicon diodes would be a better bet.

nightendday

OK! got it working correctly, here are my observations.

In their placement in this circuit. (muff)

The diodes made slight differences in attack and eq. I found the LED to have more bite, and high and low content. While the 914 style had more mid range, and a "tighter" sound. So clipping diodes at all was slightly looser sounding, with a more scooped, and more dampened sound to the high range.

slacker