freestompboxes.org

Some vintage guts!

I have two questions about the Astrotone circuit...

1) Is there any way to get more output? I don't really hit unity until 1-2 o'clock on the volume knob and wanted to see if that can be improved.

2) Is there any way to get a little more gain/fuzz/distortion?

Thanks!

To get more level, you'd need to rework the Q2 output buffer into a gain stage and that would mean the tone pot would behave differently. You could just change it to the Bmp Q4 which would bump up the output. To get more dirt, you could swap to Ge diodes which would clip earlier, or try to increase Q1's gain, maybe upping the 22k or the B-C resistor.