Passive zener diode overdrive circuit ?

[MartyMart]

http://www.dairiki.org/HammondWiki/KonsZenerDiodeBasedOverdriveCircuit

I found this whilst "surfing" the web and it looks interesting, do you think
that you could "drive " it enough from a booster circuit ?
That hammond output has got to be fairly large .....

comments  ?

Marty.

[brett]

Hi.  I think if you replaced the zeners with germanium diodes, you might get it to work with a modest booster.  With regular Si diodes (Vf~0.7), you'd obviously need a large signal (a few volts peak-peak).

I suspect that this sort of thing will always run second to simple effects such as the MXR distortion plus or the bosstone.

cheers

[MartyMart]

Thanks Brett, yeah i thought as much .... soon as I posted I was reminded
of the "Black Ice" ? diode clipper that you slot in your gtr !!
Still, there's more to this in terms of parts/tone shaping .....

Marty.

[moosapotamus]

I think it looks interesting. If it sounds good on a Hammond organ, I'm thinking that it might have possibilities for bass. Yeah, it'll need some extra input gain. Could maybe try lower voltage zeners, too. But, it has balanced I/O? Wha't the deal with that G-G output on a Hammond? I'm not familiar with that.

~ Charlie

[MartyMart]

I think it looks interesting. If it sounds good on a Hammond organ, I'm thinking that it might have possibilities for bass. Yeah, it'll need some extra input gain. Could maybe try lower voltage zeners, too. But, it has balanced I/O? Wha't the deal with that G-G output on a Hammond? I'm not familiar with that.

~ Charlie

In the "blurb" it says that the hammond GG outputs are transformer
coupled - so "balanced" right ? which would mean a +4 db input - quite a lot more than our gtr outputs .....
so then a nice "pre-amp" or boost circuit in front should work fine ?
I like the idea of 1 zener for "maximun saturation" switchable down to
10 of them for a "gentle overdrive"  !!
I have a bunch of 2.4 volt zeners, so may give it a go !!
I'll let you know how it sounds .....

Marty.

[MartyMart]

What's "odd" about that circuit ....
You've got the two balanced inputs, which travel "both ways" through the
diodes and the little swichable cap and exit via the dual gang pot !!
Am i going mad, or does that make sense  .. ??
seems like a circular "feedback" path ... correct ?

Marty.

[moosapotamus]

Yeah... I guess?!?! Not really sure how to reproduce the G-G outputs to give this circuit exactly what it's looking for... A balanced, ground-lifted input? From that PDF of the scheme, it just looks like a transformer coupled output. But, what needs to be on the other side of that traffo? I wonder if you could just use a 1:1, maybe 10K:10K, and feed the output of a preamp/booster circuit to one of the terminals and tie the other to ground?

~ Charlie