Visual Sound - Open Road  [schematic]

All about modern commercial stompbox circuits from Electro Harmonix over MXR, Boss and Ibanez into the nineties.
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jonny4rd
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Post by jonny4rd »

I know we already have some pics. I tweaked these so the traces would show better. Still working on the trace.

I've been doing some digging and I'm leaning more toward this being an ODR clone. This speculation is based on the description of the circuit, the fact that the odr is out of production and the rumor that VS likes to cater to the Nashville crowd who are apparently fans of the ODR.
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jonny4rd
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Post by jonny4rd »

This is part of the trace starting with the power plug. Some of the traces are really hard to see and some of the components do not have values so I did my best. Sorry if it doesn't make sense. Let me know if this is even going to be worthwhile and if so I will post more soon.

Thanks.
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atreidesheir
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Post by atreidesheir »

The odr had that many parts unfortunately.
"Contemplate it - on the tree of woe." :Thulsa Doom

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Post by jonny4rd »

I bought an ODR-1 and ab'd it against my Open Road and I'm confident saying that the Open Road is a clone of the Nobels ODR-1. In light of that I'm going to abandon my effort to trace the OR circuit since its such a PITA due to the SMD. There are slight differences in bass response and the knobs behave a little differently but the similarities far outweigh any differences. The differences don't surprise me VS pedals have their own mojo. Example: I've tried every Shredmaster clone out there and the Hyde is the only one that gets the bass response right; the other clones just get boomy or lost in the mix. I emailed VS and was told that slight changes were made to the original circuit. I'm thinking the buffer may affect the sound since most agree the pedal is a straight up clone with an added eq switch.
Note: In my research I have also discovered that the Rockett Chicken Soup is an ODR-1 clone and the Ibanez OD820 is possibly the same circuit. Having said all that. These pedals are noisy as heck. why Visual Sound did not include their noise reducer trim pot on the Open Road is beyond me.

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