a nice sounding 386 based overdriver.
i know...NICE SOUNDING ?
well...imho ymmv
My favorite part... the expression on your face from 4:33 to 4:44 :icon_lol: :icon_lol: :icon_lol:
Oh, ho hum... just another day at the office.
Sounds great bro! Well done.
lol...you're the second person to say the exact same thing...lol. i guess i better watch it to see, lol...
glad ya approve. it's NOTHING inside.
literally...
got an input jack connected to the in of the 386 in parallel with a 10k pot with an .022 cap wired like the tone control of a guitar
a 1k linear wired as a gain pot (pins 1 and 2 connected) between pins 1 and 8
a diode clipper with assymetric 1n34a's...2 on one side, one on the other
a 100k output pot going to the switch/output.
putting that tone control at the front of the circuit completely changed the character of the effect.
your videos have a nice "laid back " style .
the pedal sounds great , after hearing so many negative comments about lm386 and the poor "release" , the sustain was fine .
i do miss the dog though .... you should bring the dog back sometime for a cameo .
maybe for a delay demo , rig up a lil mic or something . pitch shifter / octave down would be awesome . WOOOOOFFFF !!!!
bella the wonder dog always steals the show...lol
900 lbs of rottweiler in an 8 pound dachshund!!
i like the echo idea...lol. i'll broach it to her next time she's stealing my lunch!! lol
yah, this thing sustains fine. and the tone control first fixes the fizzy fade out i think people bitch about.
it's a nice little box!
maybe you two could cover " seamus " , or perhaps something off animals , do i smell a homebrew vocoder somewhere down the line ?
if you could only train her to deal with a talk box tube , but that may permanently void the warranty .
that is good to know though , i have a few layouts that use th 386 so thanks for the tip .
very cool....hey, no matter how simple, you're supposed to include a schematic!
there's a couple spots in the vid when you turn up the distortion high, it actually sounds likes it's phasing?
one of the big complaints with the 386 is that it fizzes out on the decay...I did get that with a high % of the few I built with the 386, but on almost all occasions, that problem was solved with an electro (usually 47uF-100uF) across the rails
thanx for the vid
i was in the kitchen,
seamus is the dog outside....
yah, that would be hip...maybe i can have her bark at the neighbors (HA! try and stop her!!) thru the vocorder in my old boss se50, with my guitar thru every filth box i have and a couple wahs and echos for noise mojo...and i can add it to the next version of "day after day"...lol....
she's a hoot. loveable little critter, hyper protective, and way too stupid to realize she's the size of a size 10 sock.
the pre-filter thing on the 386 is indeed a cool trick..it seems to smooth out the decay, maybe add a little compression it didn't have before. it sounds completely different, the original is basically forest whiteside's (transistors and beer, i think it is) dead easy dirt.
add volume control and gain pot, use ge diodes to make it clip. i mean, without the tone control, it was STILL kinda fizzy sounding. as soon as added a tone control at the end tho, it had plenty of output, but sounded muddy and nasal in a bad, stuffy way. but it sounded great with the guitar's tone knob rolled down. so i just picked an arbitrary value of pot and guessed at the cap...tried a couple pots, 10 k seemed good, so went with that. the location of the pot made the difference...you lose a little gain going in, but you gain a bit of what seems like compression...it's a PHASEY compression, too. really subtle, but there...and the rest of the circuit has enough gain to make up for the little lost on the input. gets it into a very "tubey" sound i didn't expect when the gain was down low, and when cranked like this long almost filter swept fuzz.
i am a HACK,. all capitals...so at best it's a happy accident...but it may be handy!
i'll up a vero and a schem if i can figure it out later.
peace
tried from 1 meg to 1k for the gain pot, too...1 k gave the best sweep.
i have an se-50 as well , i used to run the gr50 thru it .
there was a custom bank of patches programmed by scott summers (boss guitar division honcho) for the se50 . some really good patches , it had a "cooler" reverse gate setting on it .
thats a nice lil unit . would liked to get my hands on the 70 though , it had reverse delay .
how about the stepped phasers in that sucker :icon_lol: , i used those on "do not eat the brown beans" a psychedelic cowboy instrumental that didn't work very well . 4 tracks may have been enough for the beatles but ....
i would like to hear that...godda link?
schematic:
(http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt137/pinkjimiphoton/StiffHippyIIOverdriverSchematic.png)
vero
(http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt137/pinkjimiphoton/stiffhippyII.gif)
Thanks for this! I was sort-of planning to try the original, but this made up my mind. Nice playing, as well! Larry
thanks larry!
it's a simple build, but it sounds really good i think!
here's a pcb layout too...should be fine, never tried a pcb before tho, so please let me know if it's good!!
;)
(http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt137/pinkjimiphoton/stiffhippyIIoverdrivepcb.gif)
thanks to rutabagabob for the pcb/perf layout with mounted pots:
(http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt137/pinkjimiphoton/STIFFHIPPYIIPERFORPCB.gif)
I was playing around with my cdod and remembered I hadn't checked out this vid yet. Gonna have to give this a shot... I'm digging on the sound. I'm thinking SWTC may work, as well, but I don't see it being as interactive as the tone control you have here.
BTW... sitting here watching and about died laughing... your eyebrows don't really move a whole lot, just chilled out, hangin out... until at 3:18 "get's a real woody sound" and your eyebrows dropped and did a quick pushup, flexed some muscle, then went right back to being laid back and just hanging out. :icon_lol: I love your videos... Dino's are awesome, as well. I dig listening to his accent as he explains stuff. Keep it up, it's great stuff. It's like watching a live show, 1000x better than the Faux Pro reviews online. If I really want to just stare at a pedal during a review, I'll play the video and hit Google images, lol.
lmao...i just try and do it like i'm goofing on whomever, not a stupid webcam. i don't take life too seriously, figure it's too damn short
to have a stick up your ass. and unlike alot of them videos, i'm not trying to sell something, so i have no agendas. that's why they're stupid pedal tricks.
i tried the swtc and bmtc on the end of the circuit, and they both pretty much neutered it. didn't wanna add any more transistors or chips or anything. that stupid little rip off
of guitar technology at the beginning of the circuit seemed to do the trick, maybe someone more knowledgable can figure it out.
but if ya think about it...if you're gonna lose gain, where better than at the input of the circuit? then, the circuit's amplifying the hell out of whatever signal you give it and putting out 100% of what it's got, rather than putting it out and then subtracting, which is what a normal tone control does.
all i do know is it combats the fizzys well the way i did it, and really didn't seem to affect the over all output of the pedal.
play with it, ymmv...i liked it like this, and out of all the schems i've dug up so far (about 5 gigs and counting) this is i think the only pedal i've seen with this set up.
peace!
With the 50k internal resistor, when you turn the tone all the way down it is cutting the signal at about 145 Hz, if you consider that the .022 and 50k are a parallel RC shunt to ground. With the tone all the way up, you are running series RC at 720 Hz, paralleled with the 50k to ground, so I think it shelves the high end response (I'm at work, no fun sims to play with). That would explain why it still sounds so smooth all ballz out. Seems like when I try a tone, it goes from mud to rocks on a cheesegrater+kids screaming in the background. I think you hit the nail on the head with the pre-tone (preshape).
well, you just explained it!!
nice!!
yah, i get the same with standard tone controls...from useless mud to kids shrieking their fingernails on a blackboard.
and this way, ya STILL get plenty of gain, without the harsh...tell ya what, this circuit as forrest originally posted sounded good, but was very harsh and fizzy and had a crackly fade out.
not anymore...smooth fade, no cracklys...and just enough response to sound good. i may put it on my live board, i really like it.
thanks for the explanation!!
may come in handy for future projects, i wonder why nobody else has used it like that before?
Quote from: pinkjimiphoton on April 05, 2012, 01:02:19 PM
may come in handy for future projects, i wonder why nobody else has used it like that before?
Not sure... probably concerns over impedance, maybe? I've been (forgetfully) interested in exploring the "Tone" section of my Phaser. It uses a similar concept of pre-shaping. On a side note about it, it is always in, so if I pull my phaser out of my chain, I get all sorts of high end nasties I didn't notice before, lol. If it ever breaks, a fundamental part of my sound goes kaput. Here's the thread and schem (http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=92709.0)
thanks, gonna check your phaser out...peace!
wow, dave, that would be a hell of a vero undertaking!!! ;)
looks sweet tho...do you have any clips of it?
PinkJimi, what "flavor" of 386 did you use? I built a pedal with a 386 and found that the 386N1 had a fizzy decay. I changed it for a 386N3 and that fixed the decay problem.
Modding the 1k pot to 500 ohm might improve the gain control.
QuotePinkJimi, what "flavor" of 386 did you use? I built a pedal with a 386 and found that the 386N1 had a fizzy decay. I changed it for a 386N3 and that fixed the decay problem.
Good question. I ran into that with my Parallel Universe II build, but the opposite way. Only the N1 would give me the oscilliation required for the P.U. II mojo. The others just would not go into oscillation. I tried all four of them, but only the N1 would work. Maybe that explains the fizzy decay as well. N3 would probably be better here.
no fizzy decay with this...some have, some haven't....just kind of the nature of the box i had thought.
this wasn't as fizzy as some of the other ones i built to begin with, but it's very smooth now with the weird tone control placement.
it could have been any number of different 386's ...i built the pedal a long time ago, just did the modification to it recently.
probably came from radio shack, maybe mouser...hard to tell.. not very knowledgeable about mojo.
500r pot may indeed work better, thanks for the tip. i kinda like how ya hit a point where it turns to fuzz tho. next time i'm at rat shack i'll get a 500r and try it maybe.
peace
I've noticed that almost all the vintage amps everybody drools over have the tone controls right up front, right after the first buffer/gain stage.
I've wondered aloud about it before:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=86035.0
Maybe you ARE working some mojo there, after all.
Awesome sound you got there, Jim, keep it rollin'... :icon_cool:
thanks edvard!
it just seems counterintuitive to put it last...no amps do it that way, you're right. an amp often will have a PRESENCE control, but tone controls are usually right after the first stage (buffer).
tacking it across the output will and does work, but you lose gain. putting it first, who cares? ya probably have enough gain where it doesn't matter.
too much of a newb...i just experiment with things until i have smoke, or sound. ;)
if i got it right, you can be SURE it was an accident!! :icon_mrgreen:
If you bought the 386 at Radio Shack, it's a 386N1. Why it doesn't have a fizzy decay for you is a real mystery. I wonder if that fizziness right at the ends of notes is frequency dependent and your tone control is somehow filtering out the right freqs to prevent the fizz.
Re: tone controls - to really do some tone shaping around a distortion circuit, put an equalizer right before and right after it. An equalizer is essentially a tone control.
After any passive tone control you need some kind of gain recovery to bring the signal level back up. I wonder if the reason for amp makers putting tone controls early in the circuit was because they then had other gain stages between it and the output.
I was playing around and built another CDOD on the breadboard using N-1's from Tayda... they fizz. The CDOD I designed had an RS chip (N-1), but it's nice and smooth, zappy. Tried this circuit last night with the new ones, and yeah... it's fizzy. I am gonna play around with it some more tonight (only got about an hour to screw around last night). As well, I'ma gonna try swapping out chips in my finished CDOD and make sure it isn't just another breadboard bug. I think it's all in the chips, though. This is almost like the PT chips, eh? or some of the 555's. :icon_mad:
Hi,
An interesting device +++ to be tested, at the listening of your video. Surprisingly, the few trials of LM386 overdrive I have made were all deceptive : bad decay, fizz oscillation, sounding like a bad broken amp... (i.e. Grace / BigDaddy LM386 ovd)
So let's see with your circuit - much more convincing, it seems !
A+!
it could be a 386 from jameco, rat shack, allelectronics....beats me. i'll try to look at it, but it's probably NOT mojo.
i mean, as built, it was trebley and crackly. i hacked a gain and a tone control into it. it's the SAME CHIP that sounded like crap before!
:icon_mrgreen:
that said,,,,
yeah, you can put eq pre/post/both but they all will sound different, and contribute to noise and signal loss.
i imagine lossy tone control matters less before a high gain preamp than after it in terms of function.
put a wah before distortion, it's much smoother than a wah after. both are useful, but both are different.
this is probably more like the former i guess.
Finished building mine, used a LM386-N, rigged it up on my test board (which is a piece of wood with 2 metal sides...one has input/output, the other has holes for whatever pots you're using...everything connected with jumpers), and it sounded awful - all crackly, with signal droput, etc.. Unhooked it and put in a JRC386-D scavenged from another build, and, AW, YEAH! That's the ticket!
Yeah, I confirmed last night that the RS chip I have is nice and smooth, but the ones I got from Tayda are going to be better suited for high-gainers. They do make an ALMOST decent CDOD, but the signal is actually less than unity. Gonna have to order a different round for those, and one of these I guess.
I have a modem that has a 386 surface mount... and SMD resistors and caps and such. I might have to see just how small I could make one of these, for giggles. :icon_wink:
you could probably mount it all on your input jack. ;)
glad iy works fot ya!
Hi pinkjimi, thx for your veroboard schematic. It will easier for me to built.
Previously I made small ruby amp with LM386, but when I hear the sound of this overdrive, I've plan to convert to it.
My question is, can I put the output directly to speaker? or I have to connect it to amplifier?
Thx
hey bro,
you could probably go either way. if you want it to be feeding a speaker, you'll need a big cap...say 220u or so from the output to the speaker.
if you want it to be an overdrive, you'll need a much smaller output cap as done here.
it may sound really good if ya keep the jfet input stage, add the tone control after that before the 386 chip. you could use a switch to choose between a small and large value output cap, then you could use it as an overdriver OR an amp! ;)
Hi, thx for the quick response. I will try your schematic first with change 2.2uF to 220uF, I will think to add jfet later.
And thx for the idea of installing both output cap and add switch to change between them. :icon_biggrin:
hey, no worries, let us all know how it works out!
Hi bro, just build it last night. Not satisfy with the result ???
I've change output cap to 220uF (as your suggestion), use all 3 diode 1N4148 (substitute of 1N914, my only available stock) and feed output directly to speaker (8Ohm-0.5 watt)
Result: gain/vol control only work only last 5% rotation (quiet up to 95% rotation) and the tone control is not really has a big effect.
My question is, If I change D1 with diode 1N34A will this solve problem? Or I have to change the gain pot value? ;)Thx
can you draw me up a simple schematic of what you built exactly?
hard to advise without being able to look at it.
did you drop the jfet input stage of the ruby?
i'd try adjusting the bias on the jfe some to make it louder than unity, and put the diodes right there on the output of it after the coupling cap between the volume control and the input of the 386.
putting the diodes on the output may or may not be helping; try 'em and see.
you can use 914's, 4148's, whatever... sounds better to my ear with silicon diodes usually anyways.
germanium is awesome in some things, snake oil in others.
i don't think going to a bigger pot will help much..
i'd check the resistor to ground from the input of the jfet and maybe make the bias adjustable.
the ruby itself is a great little amp,
the stiff hippy should be @#$%in' RUDE!! ;)
I use new board, I just hijack LM386, 220uF, input jack and pot from the ruby amp :). Yes, agree, ruby is great mini amp, here I just want to try another cool sound.
Later I will buy all the hijacked component and put back to my ruby amp. Here I use your schematic to describe what I've done:
(http://s1285.photobucket.com/user/prabuchresno/media/stiffhippyamp_zps4534e7fe.jpg.html)
http://s1285.photobucket.com/user/prabuchresno/media/stiffhippyamp_zps4534e7fe.jpg.html
ok, if you're gonna use it without the speaker, ditch the 100k gain pot... that's most likely f'n you up. instead of seeing the 8 r speaker load, you're giving it more than 100k.
also, the diode clipper may not work in this kind of config... you may need to move them so they are directly after the 220u cap, or just before it. right now, they're in parallel with the speaker,
which is effectively a dead short to the amplifier.
i'd pull them out of there, too.
you need something to drive them into clipping... the 386 can do that, but not if it's gonna feed a speaker, too. and there's no where to patch a diode clipper in before that.
sorry, it just won't work like that. if ya want a speaker, you are gonna have to ditch the clipper and the 100k pot, and add a gain stage before the chip, and put your diode clipper there, instead.
look at the ruby amp schematic, and put the diode clipper right after the output cap between the jfet and the 386. that's about the only way to pull this off.
you're gonna want more than unity gain on the jfet, too, so look up biasing them... instead of using the 1.5m cap from input to ground, you may wanna use a pot so you can vary the gain.
sorry i can't be more help!!! ;)
Thx Pinkjimmi. I'm sorry to waste your time for answering my question.
I end up decide to convert it to overdrive effect (as your genuine schematic) and try to modif the ruby amp as your suggestion.
Thx again, you're very helpful. :)
no worries man.... hope it's working for ya soon!!