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DIY Stompboxes => Building your own stompbox => Topic started by: Mark Hammer on July 14, 2005, 08:55:29 PM

Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: Mark Hammer on July 14, 2005, 08:55:29 PM
Nothing terribly special, but it sounds nice to my ears anyways.  A slightly modded version of what I posted a number of years ago as my own perversion of Anderton's first "Tube Sound Fuzz" in Guitar Player.  Main changes are:
a) a bit more gain in the front end
b) insertion of Anderton's Frequency Booster between the gain stage and invertors (3 selectable boost frequencies if you use a 3-way on/off/on toggle)
c) the Stupidly Wonderful Tone Control on the output

The 200hz boost on this, via the frequency booster, does a nice job in recreating David Lindley's tone on "Mercury Blues".  (He's in town this weekend for a pair of performances, and I'm gonna try to present it as a gift if I can catch him.)  Not a fuzz, but a nice meaty overdrive.  I'll try and record/post some samples between now and the weekend.

The finish is some tractor paint I bought at Princess Auto.  Dries real nice.  Lettering is rub-on stuff I bought a stack of a couple of years ago from an art-supply store that was trying to get rid of it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/mhammer/Forty-Niner.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/mhammer/49-er-C.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/mhammer/49-er-B.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/mhammer/49-er-A.jpg
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: MartyB on July 14, 2005, 09:02:11 PM
Cool Mark!   Have you a perf layout?   Did you use a 4049UBE?

MartyB
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: nelson on July 14, 2005, 09:03:38 PM
V nice Mark. Will be very cool if you can get the pedal to him. Good Luck!
Title: ...
Post by: petemoore on July 14, 2005, 09:09:11 PM
Looks like a hot build there Mark, I see the 'stupidly simple' TC in there !!!
 I bet so...but sound samples !!!...lol !!!
 Nice Box BTW,.
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: puretube on July 15, 2005, 03:30:50 AM
a brownish box...

8)
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: MartyMart on July 15, 2005, 04:52:50 AM
That looks very nice mark, good luck with "the gift"

Marty.
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: jmusser on July 15, 2005, 07:37:53 AM
Do you think it surpasses the 3 Legged Dog and Red Lama for tone?
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: Mark Hammer on July 15, 2005, 08:21:58 AM
Couldn't tell you Jay.  Never built the others.  If I can get the stupid little Roland USB box working tonight and record some samples, I'll let you be the judge.  Certainly one thing it *will* do is permit sounds that have just a tad more bite and stridency to them than the bypassed sound.  Indeed, little enough distortion that one could desribe it as being a booster with "coloration".  Of course, at the other extreme, you can get full-blown oversaturation.  Again, that's one of the many reasons why I prefer to situate the gain in an op-amp at the front end, and not place it in the invertor sections.
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: Marcos - Munky on July 15, 2005, 09:12:13 AM
Looks an interesting effect. Good luck with the gift.
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: Mark Hammer on July 16, 2005, 09:26:28 AM
I posted a zipfile with the schem, the pix, a multi-item soundfile, and a complete ruindown of the soundfile over at http://hammer.ampage.org

From all outward appearances, right-clicking and saving WILL get you the file.  About 1.2meg overall.
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: Mark Hammer on July 17, 2005, 07:50:40 PM
Mission accomplished.  Hand delivered.  Unfortunately I wasted the camera batteries earlier in the day so the only picture that really counted was unobtainable.  Ah well.  Lindley seemed genuinely pleased that a schematic was included and that it was not a copy of something else.  I told him if he wanted it repaired he had to come back to town again.  That's one way to make a tired musician smile.
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: MartyB on July 17, 2005, 08:06:34 PM
Cool Mark!  :D

Very unique-sounding.  Congrats on your delivery.
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: puretube on July 18, 2005, 02:07:31 AM
8)  8)  8)

:D...
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: gez on July 18, 2005, 03:29:59 AM
Mission control...we have touch down!   8)
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: WGTP on July 18, 2005, 08:46:48 AM
Good deal.  Hope he benefits from your efforts as much as the rest of us have.   8)

Did you check out the New York Dolls?   :)
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: Marcos - Munky on July 18, 2005, 11:13:20 AM
Hey Mark, could you e-mail me the zip file and the tone control file? I'm having some trouble to enter in your site, which I beliebe it's because of my crappy internet server.

diygescorp@yahoo.com.br
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: jmusser on July 18, 2005, 04:12:45 PM
Hey Mark, really nice samples. From what I'm hearing, I can't compare it to the 3 Legged Dog. It may be the same chip, but it sure sounds different. Your circuit sounds like it's driven a little harder, and can fuzz more for one thing. With most things, the only way to know, is to build it and compare them side by side with your own equipment. They are both great sounding circuits. I really liked the "Cinnamon Girl" piece. :) Man, I wish I had as much stuff painted and boxed as you do, that's for sure, but I doubt I'm too far away from your amount of DIY stuff. :shock:
Title: hey
Post by: BigTexas on July 18, 2005, 05:52:16 PM
very nice looking... how reliable are those stommp switches you have for the boost? ive been looking for some cheaper alternative for spst/spdt stomps

and i hate to waste a 3pdt on something like that
Title: Forty-Niner
Post by: Mark Hammer on July 19, 2005, 08:25:42 AM
The switch used for the boost function was actually swiped from a channel switcher remote switchbox from an old Sunn amp that I picked up in a pawnshop in Butte, Montana 15 years ago while driving across the country.  This particular one may be a little less reliable by virtue of its age, but this *style* is certainly relied on by amp makers.  The cheap X-wing DPDT is what I generally use (I don't like to waste a 3rd set of contacts unless the effect is so subtle that an indicator is required), and I have only had one or two fail me out of probably more than 50 at this point.  I find that the way you mount the switches can make a difference in their longevity.  Try and position them so that your foot is *more* likely to press the switch shaft directly downward, perpendicular to the floor, rather than at an angle.
Title: Re: Forty-Niner
Post by: Mark Hammer on December 04, 2019, 03:44:09 PM
I whipped up a few of these, using the layout that gaussmarkov had generously provided, and neither of them worked properly, producing an annoying pronounced flutter+tick when the frequency booster section was activated.  After much trial and error, I realized that in gaussmarkov's layout and drawing, the 10uf electro on the ground leg of the input stage (labelled as C3) is shown as going to ground.  It should go to Vref to work properly.

I'm having a difficult time finding that layout at the moment, but if you have it or the accompanying drawing, and tried building it, unsuccessfully, this is your solution.  My apologies for neglecting the error so long.  The fault is all mine, not having corrected the original drawing that gaussmarkov used as his reference.
Title: Re: Forty-Niner
Post by: tubegeek on December 04, 2019, 04:06:10 PM
Here is an updated schematic based on your description, Mark. Sorry it took me so long - I had trouble getting my 56K modem to connect properly.
(https://i.postimg.cc/FfqXrsmb/Forty-Niner.gif) (https://postimg.cc/FfqXrsmb)

The ZIP file link is:

http://hammer.ampage.org/files/FortyNiner-1.zip (http://hammer.ampage.org/files/FortyNiner-1.zip)
Title: Re: Forty-Niner
Post by: Mark Hammer on December 04, 2019, 04:24:04 PM
You're a prince, sir.  Much appreciated.   :icon_smile: (we need a tip-of-the-hat emoji)
Title: Re: Forty-Niner
Post by: tubegeek on December 04, 2019, 04:38:49 PM
Quote from: Mark Hammer on December 04, 2019, 04:24:04 PM
You're a prince, sir.  Much appreciated.   :icon_smile: (we need a tip-of-the-hat emoji)

Least I could do.
Title: Re: Forty-Niner
Post by: Fancy Lime on December 04, 2019, 04:43:01 PM
Quote from: Mark Hammer on December 04, 2019, 03:44:09 PM
I whipped up a few of these, using the layout that gaussmarkov had generously provided, and neither of them worked properly, producing an annoying pronounced flutter+tick when the frequency booster section was activated.  After much trial and error, I realized that in gaussmarkov's layout and drawing, the 10uf electro on the ground leg of the input stage (labelled as C3) is shown as going to ground.  It should go to Vref to work properly.
...

Really? That's very surprising to me. I have only ever experienced the opposite with that kind of stage. In my experience, connecting the ground leg to Vref can, depending on the impedances involved, create an LFO via the bias resistor on the non-inverting input of the opamp. You feed significant signal right into the bias network, after all. Lowering the values of the bias network resistors from 47k to 10k may help in such cases*. When the ground leg goes to "proper" ground (V- in most cases), the impedance on said ground is always so low that this effect is killed completely (or should be unless there is something wrong with the power supply). Additionally, the cap you are talking about is polar, so it should be happier to have 4.5V of DC forward bias on it than to have none (meaning it would swing into revers bias half the time).

I am very perplexed that you find the exact opposite to be true for the 49er. Maybe all those inverters invertors make it do the opposite of what I would expect  :icon_wink:

Cheers,
Andy

*p.s. Fun idea: Why not use some those left-over inverters to make a very low impedance reference voltage? Just connect input and output via a 100k resistor and a 1u ceramic cap and use the output as a 1/2 V+ reference voltage, which can then be buffered by one of the remaining buffers. Should provide a very low impedance Vref, no?
Title: Re: Forty-Niner
Post by: Mark Hammer on December 04, 2019, 05:15:09 PM
Quote from: tubegeek on December 04, 2019, 04:06:10 PM
Here is an updated schematic based on your description, Mark. Sorry it took me so long - I had trouble getting my 56K modem to connect properly.
56k?  You big city slickers have all the cool toys.  All I can use with my AOL connection is my 2400kbd Hayes.  Wife hates it when I hog the phone to download Roland service manuals.  Those 800k files take forEVER!  :icon_mrgreen:
Title: Re: Forty-Niner
Post by: Fancy Lime on December 04, 2019, 05:28:53 PM
Quote from: Mark Hammer on December 04, 2019, 05:15:09 PM
Quote from: tubegeek on December 04, 2019, 04:06:10 PM
Here is an updated schematic based on your description, Mark. Sorry it took me so long - I had trouble getting my 56K modem to connect properly.
56k?  You big city slickers have all the cool toys.  All I can use with my AOL connection is my 2400kbd Hayes.  Wife hates it when I hog the phone to download Roland service manuals.  Those 800k files take forEVER!  :icon_mrgreen:
Plus, the dog goes crazy and starts yodeling along with the dial-up sounds...