Hi all,
It's Christmastime coming sooner than we all think and I think my best friend needs a new overdrive pedal for his Christmas stocking so I though I should get on the case now. He's not a big fuzz guy but could use a pedal that does a light to medium overdrive or maybe a bit more but he's no metalhead or grunge guy or full-out distortion player. So, I'm looking for circuit recommendations that I could build myself. I've built probably a dozen pedals over the years and I use either ones I've built myself or ones I've modified/improved/tailored to my needs (sometimes heavily modified) from various manufacturers so I have some experience doing this. A few years back, I was on a tour and gave a few guys in our tech crew (including my guitar tech) homemade stomp boxes that I built as a 'thank you'. It was a big hit so I thought it might make just the right Christmas gift.
Now, I'm looking for an IC based circuit (probably using TL071/72) or better (or worse, depending) and I'd like to have a choice of diodes for the distortion (diode bounding). I thought three choices are about right, probably selected via a rotary switch. I've experimented alot with various diode combinations, SI and GE, with symmetrical and non-symmetrical configurations, with pretty good results. I want a tone control but beyond that I'm hoping for some simplicity and don't want to baffle my friend with too many parameters or pots.
I know there have been such an explosion of new stomp boxes over that last 10 or 12 years or so; I haven't really kept up but I've left behind the idea of plowing any money I make in the music business back into what's new and hip and the flavor of the month. I already have bins and bins of stomp boxes I don't use anymore. My friend and I both share the ethos of a simple setup, with a very moderately sized/populated pedalboard. I'm in no danger of NASA calling me up, asking to install a copy of my pedalboard in their latest spaceship.
I've built some CMOS circuits in the past but I don't think that's my friend's thing. I could build a deluxe updated version of a Distortion + or a Shaka Braddah but I was hoping to evaluate a few other ideas as I'm only an occasional stomp builder and I've been busy with other pursuits, I feel kinda out of the stomp box loop right now.
Thanks in adv for your help and recommendations,
Bob M.