Well, I've just spent some hours today with my Buck Boogey, a screwdriver for trimpot adjustment, and some of the usual components and tools for pedal DIYing...... let me post some of my impressions:

I was trying to find sweet spots in Boogey's sound dialing in those trimmers, and I found out that I'll just leave aside that half-supply-voltage-at-fets-drain" approach. Just tweak by ear, and should be nice. The key to success here is to carefully find the "magic point" that gives you almost no hiss and a open sound as possible ... 

I also put a MPF102G in Q1s position, to tame down noise, and set its drain voltage at 1,5V (yeah, that's right) of 18V supply voltage (yeah, that's right again) and the sound is just nice. Now it is not noisy as it was before, even with gain maxed out, but still with plenty of clarity and "chug", well-defined, agressive as usual. This beast running with 18V is just awesome, nicer n' meaner than the 9V version, and more responsive.... less muddiness more volume as usual, a little less gain (or at least, I've got more control over it)...

My gm board is ready, tomorrow i'll start building it.  All fixed resistors, a switch to change between some caps n' resistors values of Q1's source, and maybe another switch to jump over 2 stages (orange channel?) ...... 

Hmm... I'm having some trouble when I use my Boogey on my Laney LC30II..... it's too bassy, like tone at zero, and it's only crunching a little.... bateries are at 9.20 and 9.14V each, in series. Same setup worked just fine on a cheapo SS practice amp here..... all solders, connections and components are ok.................. what could it be? The same thing happened with Wylde Overdrive a while ago...... same sound, seems like is gating, overdrive sound level is lower than clean sound...... bypass is working ok......

fixed. 

Ah come on...we want the details...  User error?

John,

I took off Q1 for Idss and Vgs measuring, and when I put back, it was backward..... 

There you go, extreme noob mistake, but now I have a clue on what happened to my Wylde OD also..... hehe 

Here's a pic of gm board.... I'll finish pot wiring today, I believe..... layout is very tight, I had some trouble soldering input wire, but all turned out ok.... 

I spent some hours playing with the pedal, and I can say that it's a winner. 

No noise, hiss or anything like ...... even with tone controls maxed up..... I put a 220k gain pot to explore more of the crunch sounds of it... and a switch (as you can see in the first picture) to change between caps of Q1 source..... and the scaled tonestack worked just fine, very similar, if it's not better, to the original schem.......

Maybe we can try Boogeyman now .... there were some complains about its tonestack (not very responsive), but it seems that there are missing some jumpers in mid and bass pots (lugs 2 and 3)..... doing that, it'll behave similar to a Fender tonestack......... what d'yall think? 

Here's a couple of ideas to make the gain control a bit more variable (as I have found that with different guitars/gear - I liked different levels of gain on Buck's layout):

- A thing one could do with the gain control is to use a 1M pot and use an on-off-on 3pdt switch to swap in a parallel resistor on the gain pot to get ~250k, 1M, and 500k.

- What I am planning to do is to put a 500k pot on a DPDT stomp switch so that I can switch it in/out in series with a 500k gain pot to get a 'boost' control for soloing, but I will likely need play with this a bit to keep from increasing noise.

I built this several months back using Bucksears layout.  I liked it a lot but my only complaint was that in order to open it up a bit, I had to stack my MOSFET booster behind (huge difference btw).  I ended up trading it for something else but I am sort of having sellers remorse having seen the latest work that has been going on.

Can anyone summarize the tonal differences between the early layout versions vs. the latest modifications?  Maybe I should give it another try???

I don't think there are any tonal diferences, it's just more behaved with the squeal kept under control and the impedance was corrected at the output with the new tone stack values. The power section and grounding were bulked up a bit as well so it will be quieter under different situations...

John

I built both the Buck and Gauss layouts.
They sound exactly the same to me.

I have only recently started to have issues with my Dr. B., so I'm considering trying Gauss' layout. I do have concerns with the close proximity of everything, but the results are coming in that it's working well/quietly, so I might give it a go.
I'm definitely doing the scaled-down tonestack on my next one.
- Buck

I want to build this effect but i have question.
I live in Europe and there is different marking of potentiometrs ( Linear is "A" and Log is "B") and i heard that in some potentiometrs in USA Linear are "B" and Log are "A" and im not sure what potentiometrs i should use.

So i ask

are the Volume, Treble, Gain and Bass are Logaritmic pots or linear?

Quote from: konradf13 on December 22, 2007, 12:50:48 PM
I want to build this effect but i have question.
I live in Europe and there is different marking of potentiometrs ( Linear is "A" and Log is "B") and i heard that in some potentiometrs in USA Linear are "B" and Log are "A" and im not sure what potentiometrs i should use.

So i ask

are the Volume, Treble, Gain and Bass are Logaritmic pots or linear?

Only the mid and presence knobs are linear. But I used a set of all-linear knobs, and the bass maxes out at 9 o'clock haha! I just deal with it by fine-tuning.

cheers,
Dan

Quote from: Victor on March 26, 2007, 10:49:14 PM
2) Is there any way to implement a Road King switch mod, like Raw/Vintage/Modern switch? I was thinking of using it to change between Q1's source cap values in order to get those sonic variations......... Raw would be standart cap, Vintage equals no cap, and Modern would be a bigger cap, but I don't have any Mesa Road King sound references, so I'm a bit confused........ can someone enlighten me about this? 

Any chance we can get an update on how to implement this? I've seen some finished builds utilizing it in the "Pics" thread, but haven't been able to track down a method... I'm planning a Dr. Boogie with THE WORKS!

My dr boogey has great distortion (pot is with 500k), and even when excessive bass pot 1, voltages of q1 the q5 all 4.5v, which would be ideal for voltages less severe (bass) in the sound.
Q1 =?
Q2 =?
Q3 =?
Q4 =?
Q5 =?

Hi, first thanks aron & all the community for this awesome dr. boogie project to get so real and good.
I'm a newbie in audio electronics and encounter terrible difficulties to get some components in the gaussmarkov latest  part list for this enhanced 5 stage, low noise dr boogie :
  - 2.5k-b  mid pot , does it exist ? -> took a 2k one
  - 6.8nf chicklet film ? i found 68nf chicklet film format but only standard filmbox for this value..

I was just wondering if s/o that already realized this awesome preamp version had the same problems and how we could find solutions/equivalent products ?

TIA,
Fabien

Wanted to simulate this schem to TINA but i'm getting 0V as output. Any idea about the mistake i've made?? 



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Quick question: isn't the diode D1 (9v to ground), isn't it the other way around?

or because 9v is higher than the reverse voltage, it's just regulating current - so either impeding current of going "up into 9v tap" or "down into ground tap" be our "safety"?
Apologize for my electronenglish. Just trying to pass the bit that is confusing me across

Bottom line - Any difference in having diode facing cathode up or cathode down (towars/away 9v tap) as long as we tap after the cathode?