yet another 386 distortion

[psychedelicfish]

Here you go: as said in the title, this is another 386 distortion. Did a search, but too much came up for me to really be bothered checking whether there's anything similar out there.

As far as sound goes, it is high gain verging on fuzz. nice smooth sound , not crunchy but sufficient bite to sound good to my ear.
I hope you like it!

[timd]

The link comes up bad...can you repost?

[pinkjimiphoton]

i don't even see a link 

[LucifersTrip]

you have to get creative if you want to see the link

[psychedelicfish]

Sorry, I've had problems posting images before

[pinkjimiphoton]

you have to get creative if you want to see the link

wow, that actually looks like it would sound pretty cool. i love 386 distortions, ans 2n7000's are toneful when distorted.

is it pretty massive distortion? can you post a clip?

thanks for re-posting the image lu

[psychedelicfish]

I don't really have the equipment to record samples, and my stompbox building pit is too far away from the computer for me to bother moving the breadboard etc. to it. Besides, it's simple enough to knock it together on a breadboard in 5 minutes or so isn't it?

[pinkjimiphoton]

well  played ed!! but i think you underestimate MY lazyness!!

i'll knock one up tomorrow if i get a chance bro. let ya know what i think.

[deadastronaut]

lucifer obviously doesn't need a link..

he must be the devil..


weird having the fet after the 386...i'd like to hear it though...

might want to whack a 100uf across + -...

[pinkjimiphoton]

i'm gonna mess with it today a little, might be a good project for my son's first fuzz.


gonna definitely give it a bit more gain, and some polarity protection etc... may add the pre-tone control from my stiff hippy to it too to smooth out the fizzy-fizzys.

we'll see what happens, but i love the idea of overdriving a fet with a power amp. i bet it's gonna sound real nice and smooth and tubey!!

[pinkjimiphoton]

haven't built it yet, and of course, i could make the vero smaller, but i am too lazy, frankly.

pull down resistors, power supply filter and reverse polarity protection added blah blah blah.



i haven't vero-fied this, but it should be good to go. i did make it kinda bigger than it had to be, cuz i'm using it as a project for my son
to build his first fuzz. and...more room to mod if needed/wanted.

tried (for a change) to keep audio and power rails separate, also experimented to see if having three sides of "ground plane" will help with noise.

one more reason it's huge.

ideally, i like all the off board connections to be on one side where possible, but hey, i'm @#$%in' lazy.

[psychedelicfish]

might want to whack a 100uf across + -...

Surely most people would know to do that anyway? I'm starting to think it needs a voltage regulator, I have about 3 100uf caps across my voltage rails, and i'm still getting a lot of hum\

i bet it's gonna sound real nice and smooth and tubey!!

On my neck pickup it does sound quite smooth, IMO it sounds very black sabbath-ish when i play my bridge pickup through it.

As far as sound goes, it is high gain verging on fuzz. nice smooth sound , not crunchy but sufficient bite to sound good to my ear.

And all of you can ignore that, i bumped the treble control on my amp! 

[psychedelicfish]

also, the gain control doesn't work amazingly, there's a slight but audible jump in the level of distortion when I max it

[pinkjimiphoton]

yah, try a 10k or 100k for the gain control. should definitely make it have more nuts if memory serves.

if it's humming and noisy on the breadboard, it may be fine once it's boxed. gonna f around with it when i get a chance. 

[psychedelicfish]

here's a newer version, with switch based EQ, and a (hopefully) better gain control.

gonna definitely give it a bit more gain

How were you thinking of doing that? a gain stage before the circuit? I would say to reduce the gain on the 386 and add another MOSFET stage, that would probably make for a smoother sounding fuzz

[pinkjimiphoton]

different value gain pot, for one. was being brain dead again.

if you change out the gain pot you have for a 1k, you'll get more control over the gain. it's probably why it's basically all the way up and has minimal effect.
the whole range of the gain available is probably maxed out too quick to really be useful at 5k. i made the same mistake on a few different fuzzes. sometimes too big just doesn't work well, other times ya can get away with it.

on my stiff hippy pedal  http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=96856.0, i use a 1k, it has plenty of distortion, and is very adjustable. 5k is probably just too much for the circuit.

not sure with the rest, i'll @#$% with it and see what i come up with. i tend to like this chip for overdrives. you can get some nice drives out of it.

have you tried any buffer before it? just curious, some of 'em seem to work better with a buffer before 'em. if so, may be worth playing with.

i like that it's a low parts count. fun to play with.

[pinkjimiphoton]

i aquired lucifer's scary powers....

(view source )

this looks pretty cool, but i like the simplicity of the first one. 

[psychedelicfish]

have you tried any buffer before it? just curious, some of 'em seem to work better with a buffer before 'em. if so, may be worth playing with.

In what way do they work better? is it fizz at the end of a note? or is it something else?

i like that it's a low parts count. fun to play with.

I completely agree

Also, I haven't tried any of the changes in the 2nd schematic, so if anyone builds it with them, please let me know what they're like

[pinkjimiphoton]

what i found, was to wire a simple tone control (like a guitar) in parallel with the input to the 386, rolling off some of the treble before it gets fuzzed seems to decrease the fizzyness some and give a smoother sustain.

i've built a couple different ones. the original stiff hippy pedal sounds better with say, a boss pedal in front of it. smoother and a little more even on the decay of notes.

the second one with the pre-tone control seems to be ok without that tho.

[psychedelicfish]

I just had a thought, what about sticking a single tube stage instead of the MOSFET? Might be interesting...