Bare Bone Klone (no charge pump)
Definitely interested in this as well!
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mictester
- Old Solderhand
Information
OK - I'll put a couple of circuits up here in the near future, but I'll explain the underlying philosophy of the circuits first:
Diode clipping to ground (or half rail) sounds like diode clipping. It doesn't matter much what kind of diodes you use (with the exception of germanium) - you get exactly the same results, just that the clipping needs higher voltages if you use LEDs and lower if you use ordinary diodes. "To ground" clipping has its place, and I include it as an option in my distortion box.
Clipping in the negative feedback path around an op-amp has a different characteristic, and if there's a resistor in series with the diodes, you can round the clipping still further. This is the approach used in all the Tubescreamers and all their clones, so people obviously like the way it sounds. With some effort and ingenuity, you can get quite close to the over-driven valve-amp sound - in fact it's so close now that I've dispensed with carting around valve amps.
Equalisation is crucial. What's generally not realised is that EQ before the clipping stage can often be very beneficial. Post-clipping EQ also helps, and there are some great circuits around to help tune and tame the distortions.
It's interesting to take several differing approaches to producing distortions of the basic guitar signal, and then blending them to make even more varied sounds.
One of the most crucial parameters that you can play with is the drive level. In most instances, there's a definite "sweet spot" at which the circuit sounds truly great. If you want to get consistently close to that point, a farly tight compression stage makes a radical difference.
I've found over the years that most players will set their pedal up as they like it, and won't ever adjust it from their chosen setting. Dave Gilmour actually cut the knobs off his Tonebenders and Big Muffs to prevent them ever being tweaked! Many of the pedals I build have preset adjustments inside them, and a couple of footswitches to select "either", "both", or "neither" (bypass) modes. The player sets the pedal up at the time of purchase and then doesn't ever need to change it after that!
There are a huge number of myths and misconceptions about effect circuitry:
You're very unlikely to be able to hear much difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical clipping, particularly in a band situation. The "golden-eared" claim that there's a "huge" difference, but I defy you to hear it in the Real World™.
There's no real audible differences between differing types of clipping diode, despite the hype and mystique. If Finnegan spent "months" "auditioning" diodes, then he wasted his time, and it just adds to the impression that he's a pretty clueless hack....
Germanium diodes can give a softer onset of clipping in "to ground" clippers, but this probably won't be audible in most situations. Sorry to disappoint the germanium believers, but it's just mostly hype.
Buffers have NO effect on the sound of an effect - they just prevent the more sensitive parts of a circuit from the vagaries of the big voltage splats that abound on stage. Any buffer that affects "tone" is either a poor design or is defective!
As an aside, I built a couple of OCD-clones for a friend, and he kept killing them - the op-amp would die. He was convinced that the wonderful "sound" of the OCD (to his ears) was due to the lack of buffers - despite my trying to explain.... After the second one died, I replaced the op-amp (so it worked again) and added transistor buffers for the input and the output beneath the board, out of sight. He couldn't hear the difference - as far as he was concerned, the replacement op-amp was "better" and the thing sounded just the same.....
I expect to be called a heretic by many people on this site, but I can assure you that the conclusions I have drawn over the last 40 years of building effects largely dispel many of the myths!
I think it may be sensible to move this to another new thread....
Diode clipping to ground (or half rail) sounds like diode clipping. It doesn't matter much what kind of diodes you use (with the exception of germanium) - you get exactly the same results, just that the clipping needs higher voltages if you use LEDs and lower if you use ordinary diodes. "To ground" clipping has its place, and I include it as an option in my distortion box.
Clipping in the negative feedback path around an op-amp has a different characteristic, and if there's a resistor in series with the diodes, you can round the clipping still further. This is the approach used in all the Tubescreamers and all their clones, so people obviously like the way it sounds. With some effort and ingenuity, you can get quite close to the over-driven valve-amp sound - in fact it's so close now that I've dispensed with carting around valve amps.
Equalisation is crucial. What's generally not realised is that EQ before the clipping stage can often be very beneficial. Post-clipping EQ also helps, and there are some great circuits around to help tune and tame the distortions.
It's interesting to take several differing approaches to producing distortions of the basic guitar signal, and then blending them to make even more varied sounds.
One of the most crucial parameters that you can play with is the drive level. In most instances, there's a definite "sweet spot" at which the circuit sounds truly great. If you want to get consistently close to that point, a farly tight compression stage makes a radical difference.
I've found over the years that most players will set their pedal up as they like it, and won't ever adjust it from their chosen setting. Dave Gilmour actually cut the knobs off his Tonebenders and Big Muffs to prevent them ever being tweaked! Many of the pedals I build have preset adjustments inside them, and a couple of footswitches to select "either", "both", or "neither" (bypass) modes. The player sets the pedal up at the time of purchase and then doesn't ever need to change it after that!
There are a huge number of myths and misconceptions about effect circuitry:
You're very unlikely to be able to hear much difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical clipping, particularly in a band situation. The "golden-eared" claim that there's a "huge" difference, but I defy you to hear it in the Real World™.
There's no real audible differences between differing types of clipping diode, despite the hype and mystique. If Finnegan spent "months" "auditioning" diodes, then he wasted his time, and it just adds to the impression that he's a pretty clueless hack....
Germanium diodes can give a softer onset of clipping in "to ground" clippers, but this probably won't be audible in most situations. Sorry to disappoint the germanium believers, but it's just mostly hype.
Buffers have NO effect on the sound of an effect - they just prevent the more sensitive parts of a circuit from the vagaries of the big voltage splats that abound on stage. Any buffer that affects "tone" is either a poor design or is defective!
As an aside, I built a couple of OCD-clones for a friend, and he kept killing them - the op-amp would die. He was convinced that the wonderful "sound" of the OCD (to his ears) was due to the lack of buffers - despite my trying to explain.... After the second one died, I replaced the op-amp (so it worked again) and added transistor buffers for the input and the output beneath the board, out of sight. He couldn't hear the difference - as far as he was concerned, the replacement op-amp was "better" and the thing sounded just the same.....
I expect to be called a heretic by many people on this site, but I can assure you that the conclusions I have drawn over the last 40 years of building effects largely dispel many of the myths!
I think it may be sensible to move this to another new thread....
"Why is it humming?" "Because it doesn't know the words!"
Very informative, I'll be looking for your future posts on this topic in another thread!
Bumping this up real quick. Ok, so I took my Klone home today (college student) and I played it, and it sounded great, adds some mids and girth to my tele. Came back home after dinner, and I daisy chained an extra effect (had 3 originally and then added a MLJR) and I moved it around a bit and it wouldnt pass signal in effect mode. Opened it up and it will only really pass signal with the gain pot from 7 o clock to 10 o clock then the signal basically cuts out. I think it's a possibility that one of the legs of the Indicator LED touched the enclosure, but would that even do anything besides kill my LED? It can sometimes pull up some more volume if I touch the back and front of the board in a certain way, but that's it. Really confused as all I did was daisy chain another effect here.... I'm at home so I don't have a soldering iron or multimeter here, just looking for possible suggestions until I get back to college. Works fine bypassed.
Edit: Gain between 7 o clock and 10 o clock treble wherever and volume where it sounds like win coming through my amp.
Edit: Gain between 7 o clock and 10 o clock treble wherever and volume where it sounds like win coming through my amp.
Bump
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Lucifer
- Cap Cooler
LEDs that can touch the chassis and boards that get louder or quieter depending on where you touch them all sounds like a bit of a dodgy build to me.
You don't build amps by any chance ?
But seriously . . . why not post some pics and give us a chance to help you out.
You don't build amps by any chance ?
But seriously . . . why not post some pics and give us a chance to help you out.
”Sex is great - but you can’t beat the real thing !” - The Wanker’s Handbook
Well the LED touching the chassis was because I was going to glue it in and forgo a bezel, but didn't have any glue with me and the touching doesn't make that much of a difference just thought it's be worth mentioning. I'll post pics later today and voltages tomorrow probably
So I took some voltages and the only thing different is IC Pin 8 seems to be rising by anywhere from 0.2-0.6V (up to 5.34 probably would continue to rise slowly) and Pin 14 is decreasing by about as much as 8 increases. It continues to rise slowly as it is plugged in. Tested pot tapers and they're all fine. Diodes both tested low and drained. towards 0.
Bump
Here are the pics. Wiring is a tad unclear, but it should be wired fine, as I had it working perfectly. Let me know if you need any connections clarified, and as always thanks for all the time you've put into helping me.
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Lucifer
- Cap Cooler
Hmm ! Somebody seems to have left part of their finger on the underside of your board 
Trackboard is always a good potential source of problems.
Of course, I can't see what's what with the foggy pics, so all I can do is advise you to check a few things.
1. The copper track is prone to oxidation, preventing good joints - it's too late to clean the tracks, but you can still inspect each joint carefully.
2. It's easy to get solder bridges between tracks - it only takes the tiniest sliver to cause problems.
3. Cutting tracks can sometimes leave tiny slivers of copper, either around the hole, or across adjacent tracks.
4. Making sure the track cuts are in the right place is difficult if you have to keep flipping the board over - so check the position of your cuts.
5. Check all you links and make sure the go to the right places and don't touch anything they're not supposed to touch.
6. Check that all wires coming through the board are trimmed so that nothing touches the chassis when the board is installed.
I always run a fine blade down the gap between the tracks, to clear any stray bits of copper or solder and I always give the track side of the board a thorough inspection under a magnifying glass, with a good light above.
It might be worth trying the circuit with the board just hanging loose (make sure it doesn't get shorted out to any exposed metalwork when you do this).
It is a real pain in the ar$e trying to find a mysterious fault on a board. So it's always worthwhile taking extra care at the assembly stage to prevent such faults.
But if all fails, take heart from the fact that we've all been there - every single one of us.
Good luck.
Trackboard is always a good potential source of problems.
Of course, I can't see what's what with the foggy pics, so all I can do is advise you to check a few things.
1. The copper track is prone to oxidation, preventing good joints - it's too late to clean the tracks, but you can still inspect each joint carefully.
2. It's easy to get solder bridges between tracks - it only takes the tiniest sliver to cause problems.
3. Cutting tracks can sometimes leave tiny slivers of copper, either around the hole, or across adjacent tracks.
4. Making sure the track cuts are in the right place is difficult if you have to keep flipping the board over - so check the position of your cuts.
5. Check all you links and make sure the go to the right places and don't touch anything they're not supposed to touch.
6. Check that all wires coming through the board are trimmed so that nothing touches the chassis when the board is installed.
I always run a fine blade down the gap between the tracks, to clear any stray bits of copper or solder and I always give the track side of the board a thorough inspection under a magnifying glass, with a good light above.
It might be worth trying the circuit with the board just hanging loose (make sure it doesn't get shorted out to any exposed metalwork when you do this).
It is a real pain in the ar$e trying to find a mysterious fault on a board. So it's always worthwhile taking extra care at the assembly stage to prevent such faults.
But if all fails, take heart from the fact that we've all been there - every single one of us.
Good luck.
”Sex is great - but you can’t beat the real thing !” - The Wanker’s Handbook
Looked it over a couple times and found a bad joint at an electrolytic going into the IC, so that makes sense, but now after a while at full gain it starts to give out and lose clarity. I'm thinking I just need to replace the opamp and I'll be fine.
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monkeyxx
- Resistor Ronker
what is the purpose of the 12 volt Zener diode in the power supply on this schematic?
I've built one like this and any time I raise the gain on the second op amp above the 68K resistor in this schematic, I risk the "motor boat" effect, sounds like a tremolo. Even raising the feedback resistor of U2A to 100K I start to get some "sag" from certain ways of playing the guitar. 68K seems to be the maximum safe value for that resistor in my build. So good job there, mictester. I don't know if some power supply tweaks would improve my VB voltage stability and allow me to crank this gain up a bit? I'm using a GuitarPCB.com board with no zener diode.
I wonder if there's any way to get more output out of this circuit without running into bad artifacts? I really miss the volume boost on the cleaner settings. On the gainier positions it's got more than enough output. I'd just like a better clean boost since that's partly what this circuit is known for. You sort of lose that half of what this does with this "bare bones" mod. I guess I'll just have to build the Madbean Sunking II for the "real deal."
I do have to say though, the main advantage of running at 9V for me is that the TLC2262 op amp sounds really nice. I wonder if there's something similar that can handle the charge pump voltages for my later build?
I also find that raising the gain on the first op amp, the clipping section, gives a better sound with this lower voltage. I went up to 560K and 300 pF in the feedback loop of U1B (keeping the time constant correct) gives a much better range on the gain knob. I think by dropping to 9V on the output amplifier you lose some of that distortion of the original. This was an easy way to get it back.
This was a fun project but I don't personally believe it exceeds or meets the standard version, due to the lower output. I think it will prove useful though as a light to medium overdrive booster, it's really sounding nice for that kind of stuff. It might possibly exceed the original for this purpose, with the TLC2262. I'll have to compare later. I've got enough clean boosts anyway, and this thing sounds good with some grit dialed it so it's almost not really an issue. It just bugs me that there's a "wrong" setting on this one. I don't like running out of volume on a volume knob. I like my pedals to be 100% dead-on as much as I can manage.
Anyway that's my 2 cents after 2 or 3 days of tweaking on this thing and playing it. I guess it's time to box it up now!
I've built one like this and any time I raise the gain on the second op amp above the 68K resistor in this schematic, I risk the "motor boat" effect, sounds like a tremolo. Even raising the feedback resistor of U2A to 100K I start to get some "sag" from certain ways of playing the guitar. 68K seems to be the maximum safe value for that resistor in my build. So good job there, mictester. I don't know if some power supply tweaks would improve my VB voltage stability and allow me to crank this gain up a bit? I'm using a GuitarPCB.com board with no zener diode.
I wonder if there's any way to get more output out of this circuit without running into bad artifacts? I really miss the volume boost on the cleaner settings. On the gainier positions it's got more than enough output. I'd just like a better clean boost since that's partly what this circuit is known for. You sort of lose that half of what this does with this "bare bones" mod. I guess I'll just have to build the Madbean Sunking II for the "real deal."
I do have to say though, the main advantage of running at 9V for me is that the TLC2262 op amp sounds really nice. I wonder if there's something similar that can handle the charge pump voltages for my later build?
I also find that raising the gain on the first op amp, the clipping section, gives a better sound with this lower voltage. I went up to 560K and 300 pF in the feedback loop of U1B (keeping the time constant correct) gives a much better range on the gain knob. I think by dropping to 9V on the output amplifier you lose some of that distortion of the original. This was an easy way to get it back.
This was a fun project but I don't personally believe it exceeds or meets the standard version, due to the lower output. I think it will prove useful though as a light to medium overdrive booster, it's really sounding nice for that kind of stuff. It might possibly exceed the original for this purpose, with the TLC2262. I'll have to compare later. I've got enough clean boosts anyway, and this thing sounds good with some grit dialed it so it's almost not really an issue. It just bugs me that there's a "wrong" setting on this one. I don't like running out of volume on a volume knob. I like my pedals to be 100% dead-on as much as I can manage.
Anyway that's my 2 cents after 2 or 3 days of tweaking on this thing and playing it. I guess it's time to box it up now!
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jeepe
- Breadboard Brother
Information
- Posts: 73
- Joined: 10 Jun 2019, 16:48
- Completed builds: I might be at level 2, so to speak..
not totally green, but that's all :)
my "level" is about building a big muff... medium complexity :)
I'll never build a DS-2, for example :)
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even though I'm a layman to electronics
I'll never build anything without seeing the actual schematics too...
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my all time favorite: Fuzz FAce
it is an always ongoing project..
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I want to end up strumming some strings at the end of the day, whatever the sound
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I'm so sad that this beautiful culture (and freedom movement) is totally ephemeral - Location: Budaspest, Europe
- Has thanked: 625 times
- Been thanked: 22 times
hi, from the relative future:
the vero layout (since 2012) is here, by IvIark:
https://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/20 ... bones.html
moreover, there is a 2021 "rework" of the circuit (here at fsb), a very analytic and well thought up simplification, by dylan159:
viewtopic.php?p=291919#p291919
the vero layout (since 2012) is here, by IvIark:
https://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/20 ... bones.html
moreover, there is a 2021 "rework" of the circuit (here at fsb), a very analytic and well thought up simplification, by dylan159:
viewtopic.php?p=291919#p291919
pedal building, tracing and sharing is such a beautiful freedom movement... If only it could be viewed as a future heritage, but it really is ephemeral, as it seems