Strange Orange Squeezer Behavior ?

[bwanasonic]

My Orange Squeezer just developed a weird syndrome: I used a linear volume pot, so unity gain has always been around 9-10 oclock. Just recently I find after a little while of playing, this setting is slightly less than unity so I goose the volume up to 11-12, and a little while later this is less than unity again, repeat until max volume setting is less than bypassed signal. Battery was not the issue, and I can *recover* the volume with a slight tweak of the bias trimpot. I suspect Q2 (5457) is flakey, but does this *drift* behaviour sound familiar to anyone? Kind of a PITA on a gig.

Kerry M

[brett]

I haven't had this problem, but it might also be worthwhile checking the electro cap that stores the feedback voltage for the volume control JFET.  Maybe its capacity is changing or is leaking more/less over time or with temperature changes.

Just a guess.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I agree with Brett... maybe that electro is in backwrds (measure the voltage across it while the circuit is working, to see whether it is reversed).
I put a tant backwards once in a similar ckt & got the strangest low frequency rumble effect!

[bwanasonic]

The thing is, it's been working fine since I built it a few weeks ago. I just used it on a gig, so I'm thinking maybe something got knocked loose. If I put one of the tants in backwards I would have had problems from the getgo. I reseated the trannies and twirled the trimpot back and forth and it seems to be OK. Probably just waiting for my next gig to act up again.

Kerry M