Please let me know if you have built this project

[aron]

Good Job! I still have my first pedal in a similar plastic box.

[criss]

Aron

Thanx a million for this site and all your work .  I ve been interested in trying to build my own stompboxs for years , but like may others have been to worried about all the schematics ( thinking its all to hard )

Well after i found this site i seen your booster section and thought i can build from that ( exellent how to pics etc )  , i would love to see other fairly  easy projects in the future if those in the know how had time .  Anyway i went out grabbed all the bits , totaling around $12 Au and in a few hours had myself a booster and a new hobby .( yes it worked first time , even i was amazed )

And i must say the booster is very very nice , i still need a enclosure but once im done boxing it all up ill post my finished project .

once again i can,t thank you enough for giveing me the confidence to finaly take on this hobby .

[krister]

Hi Aron,

I've built two of these the first one worked just fine after I wired the pot to the right spot.

On the second one I've built, I have a problem I can't seem to figure out. When I push the guitar cable all the way in to input jack there is no signal. If I push it in half way I get signal. I have the input wired to tip, neg. from battery wired to ring and sleeve wired to ground on the board. Thank you for this awesome project and the invaluable information.

Kris

[thepannist]

 I have built this project.  I started out on breadboard, made a bunch of mistakes, finally learned how to work a breadboard and got it working.  Then I moved it to perfboard, made a bunch of mistakes, got that working.  Now it is in the box and everything works fine. I noticed that the resistor going to the LED was too low, so it is super bright.  Since I only use this pedal with wall power, I guess it doesn't matter as far as battery consumption goes, but it is still frickin' bright.  So, I'm definitely going to change that soon.  But the sound is still  great. 

Next stop, painting up the box!

Thanks for the great project,
Chris

[cx_deluxe]

I built it, it works.

Built on "experimentor 350 breadboard" for debugging purposes.  This is the first thing I have built since my crystal radio kit days!  Feels good.  Sounds good.  (bass-y) fuzz w/ big volume boost on clean channel of 20w solid state peavey. 

Problems:
At first it made a big volume drop when switched on. 

My advice for people who get a volume reduction or weak farting signal: Go back to the schematic!

I built from the tutorial (which was very helpful) and tried to debug from there.  Don't.  After you've worked with this thing for a couple of days the schematic will make sense at a glance.  In the end, I pulled off all of my resistors and re-ran them by looking at the schematic alone.  Had it working in 5 minutes.  Don't beat your head against the wall, use the schematic!  I was able to and I have no previous experience with reading them at all.

[DLH]

Hi all,

I have a question about this project.  I'm the rythym guitarist and vocalist in a  heavy blues/ jam band (e.g. Gov't Mule). I'm looking for a pedal that will add just a bit of bite to my clean tone.  I've been using a Ibanez TS-7 Tubescreamer for the bite on my clean tone and a Daddy-O for some crunch. I recently had Analogman mod the tubescreamer and I will now use that for crunch. I"ve never been completely happy with the Daddy-0. It seems to effect the tone of the other pedals. I call it the tone-sucker, so I'm taking that off the board.  My Amp is a Peavy Classic 50 4X10, but I can't really get that bitey clean tone without turning to 11, so I'm looking for something to replace the tubescreamer in doing that.  I just completed "The Tweako" from Small Bear Electronics so I have at least a minimal understanding how to build a pedal.

All of that is a very longwinded way of asking if this boost will give me what I'm looking for: some bite on my clean tone.

Thanks

[aron]

It might give you what you want. Perhaps all you need is a treble booster (a slight treble boost). Try fooling around with the input cap on your Tweako (assuming it's close). Make the input cap value smaller.

[DLH]

Thanks Aaron.  I feel somewhat comfortable working with a circuit although my soldering skills leave a great deal to be desired.  I'm been reading your board all morning and I have learned a great deal,  I friend of mine has been telling me I need to build a treble booster for some time. Maybe I should do that. I think Tonepad has a ready to solder board and plans. I might go that way.

[Roobin]

DLH: if you want a slight 'bite' to your clean tone to give it a slight hard edge, try a marshall Bluesbreaker . I'm using the original off GGG, and it adds a slight hardness ot my tone. Not much gain/drive, and a bit fuzzy when you try and turn the gain up, but apart form that, if you are able to settle with a bit less drive, then try the BB. Not sure about the BBII.

[DLH]

Thanks Roobin.

the Tubescreamer gives me plenty of drive. And The Tweako has very good crunchy tone also.  The band's sound is heavy (not metal by any stretch) and thus a pristine clean sound is not warranted, so I like a little bite when I'm not using the overdrive.  I'll check out the Bluesbreaker.

DLH

[somasix]

All right, newbie question.  Built this today using Radio Shack parts.  Used a 2n222 transistor in a Dip8 socket.  It's facing the right direction.  I know it's kinda working cuz when I put it in the signal chain, my amp volume kicks up quite a bit, hums and buzzes, but no guitar sound.  Followed the schematics and pics exactly.  The only time I got a guitar signal is when my girlfriend played and I closed the circuit by holding the stereo in jack and the mono out jack tightly in the web of my hands.  Even then it was really farty and buzzy. I could use a little debugging help.

Thanks sincerely,


Jason

[rhys]

i built this project this weekend with a 2n2222.  right now its in a box with a toggle switch and no led b/c i didn't have a 3pdt.  fun project though.  my only problem is that i pick up a radio station when the boost is maxed out--pot turned up to 9 or 10. 

i had a similar problem to jason's for a while--finally figured out that i had not connected the ground by running a wire from the input sleeve lug to the out sleeve lug.  now, i just have the radio station.  it's a country station if anyone was wondering.

[Jayco]

Aron,

Built this last night...  works nicely.

Not sure I care for the sound of the distortion on it when its maxed (using an NTE123AP which the guys at the parts shop told me was equivalent to a 2N2222)... I also used a Radio Shack film cap for the .1uf input cap... which could have something to do with it.   The guys at a radio repair shop gave me "416P - Sprague - Taiwan - .1", but its an axial cap (looks like a HUGE resistor) so I'm not sure if that would be better or worse than the radial film cap from radio shack.

My boxes and switches come from Mouser tomorrow, so I plan on boxing this thing up this weekend. 

What do you think about the NTE123AP and the 416P?  Should I swap out the input cap and/or try some different transistors?  All I've got otherwise for transistors are a bunch from Radio Shack that SAID 2N2222, but the entire pack of 15 were random equivalents (2N5210, MPSA42, MPSA18,2N5088, 2N4401 - Not sure why I got those in a bag that was supposed to be 2N2222).

Otherwise the circuit worked great... no problems at all building it... just wanting to tweak it a little.

Thanks,
Jim

[somasix]

Finished it today on my second try.  I'm very pleased.  Now all I have to do is box it up.  I couldn't have done it without this forum.  Thank you.

Would the Kay Tremolo a good second project for a beginner?  I used to have one.  Loved the sound, the enclosure was unique to say the least.

[AzzR]

I built this and for soe reason i cant get it to boost unless i put the two germainuim diodes in that were meant to distort but dont.

Anyway it boosts really well with the diodes in and barely distorts at all which i must say i actually like better.

Because i have no real use for this project as a stand alone pedal i am going to use it as a gain stage in a ruby amp using the fender 3 knob tonestack. Using those three schematics (ruby, 3 knob tone stack and NPN boost by Gus Smalley) which order do they go in. Fom what ive read it should go booster, tonestack and then ruby. is this correct?

Thanks

Dream

[zjokka]

I finished mine before yesterday. Initiallly I tested it with headphone on my Boss ME-5, in order not to wake people up in the middle of the night. It works in the sense that I get a moderately acceptable signal, but the level is kind of low in comparison to the signal i get when pluggin straight in.

That makes me wonder how I could use it as a boostpedal if the volume goes down when I use the circuit. Even when fully boosted, the signal is still weaker than when straightjacking into the amp.

If I would have gotten no signal, fierce distortion of the guitar signal --> I would know I have a problem. Now I'm not sure.

I didn't have the 0.1µF cap, so I put two 0.047µF green chicklet caps (code 473) in series, so that should give me 0.096µF right? Should be close enough.

Or did I get the wrong value output cap (can't check now, at work) to get such a reduction in volume.

Anyways, I have been long on the search for a beginner project in active circuit, and this is the ideal stepping stone, it seems. I should go on the tweak now, starting with the range control?

Any suggestion on the volume problem?
thanks so much in advance.
ZJ

[woulfer]

I am also a noobie, but if I understand correctly, with caps, their values double when put in parallel, and divide when in series. I'm sure somone will correct me if I'm wrong.

I finished my first build last night, and when boosted, the signal seemed to boost only mids and highs. Then, I rechecked my circuit, and had used a 10 uf cap in place of the 22 uf. I switched that out, and it is much better. It has a good boost with the pot all the way down, then if you crank it up, WOW!!

[Jamforthelamb]

Hey Aron,
Finished the circuit today. Waiting on a parts order for a stomp switch, and I've only run a keyboard through it thus far, but seems to be working just fine.

I've seen a mod around for this from doing a little searching, but the schematic for it uses a 2n2222a, and changes some of the caps. I built straight from the schematic here, and used a 2n3904. Is it possible that I could still do the "Range" mod with a 1k pot with a 1uf cap to ground on one of the legs ? I haven't experimented with it at all since I just got it working a bit ago.

Thanks,
JFTL

[zjokka]

I am also a noobie, but if I understand correctly, with caps, their values double when put in parallel, and divide when in series. I'm sure somone will correct me if I'm wrong.

I went googling and asked a friend last night and you're absolutely correct: I should put them in parallel for the values to add up.

Otherwise, I made a great limiter    and learned something. I will re-do it tonight!!

thanks

[aron]

Is it possible that I could still do the "Range" mod with a 1k pot with a 1uf cap to ground on one of the legs ? I haven't experimented with it at all since I just got it working a bit ago.

Yep, no problem. You can also get a 2n2222 anytime later.