Krank - Distortus Maximus  [traced]

General documentation, gut shot, schematic links, ongoing circuit tracing, deep thoughts ... all about boutique stompboxes.
User avatar
ieatyouforbreakfast
Breadboard Brother
Information
Posts: 115
Joined: 30 Nov 2007, 06:06
Been thanked: 10 times

Post by ieatyouforbreakfast »

i was thinking about a linear power booster based output buffer, to give it some extra scream.

User avatar
jrc4558
Solder Soldier
Information
Posts: 171
Joined: 25 Aug 2007, 07:13
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 1 time

Post by jrc4558 »

Ivana wrote:Спасибо, у вас тоже очень интересный форум и его активные участники :D С вашего позволения, тоже буду давать ссылки сюда на ГТлабе :wink:
Da, konechno. pojaluysta, ssilaytes'.

User avatar
rui
Information
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 Jan 2008, 13:42

Post by rui »

Hi guys,

has anyone actually have a sound clip or build photos of a KDM clone. I have built it per the best accurate schematic mentioned above but it doesn't sound even close to the real thing?!

Is there anything missing in the reverse engineered schematic? I know I built mine correctly.

Does anyone have a photo of teh underside of teh board?

User avatar
audioguy
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 262
Joined: 27 Nov 2007, 14:47
Has thanked: 22 times
Been thanked: 7 times

Post by audioguy »

odd.... mine sounds great- dead on from what I remember of the D.M.

User avatar
chris_d
Solder Soldier
Information
Posts: 180
Joined: 16 Aug 2007, 20:03
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by chris_d »

rui wrote:Hi guys,

has anyone actually have a sound clip or build photos of a KDM clone. I have built it per the best accurate schematic mentioned above but it doesn't sound even close to the real thing?!

Is there anything missing in the reverse engineered schematic? I know I built mine correctly.

Does anyone have a photo of teh underside of teh board?
How does yours sound different from the real deal? I don't have a real one to compare to, but the one i built seems to be in the same ballpark as the clips i have seen and heard.

I built it from the schematic posted over a DIYstompboxes, and my vero layout:

Image

I have been building cheap and dirty lately, and so in additional homage to the fuzzy terror of Watership Down i built it in this tin:

Image

I will see if i can get a quick clip together of my "clone", though i am not really set up for good recordings right now, i think i can get a reasonable representation of the sound i am getting...

-chris

User avatar
alteredsounds
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 255
Joined: 01 Oct 2007, 12:28
Been thanked: 6 times

Post by alteredsounds »

lol thanks for the layout, love the watership down theme! So how does this sound? I'm guessing a metal type sound?

User avatar
chris_d
Solder Soldier
Information
Posts: 180
Joined: 16 Aug 2007, 20:03
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by chris_d »

alteredsounds wrote:So how does this sound? I'm guessing a metal type sound?
Yeah. I am using it for kind of a heavy, kind-of-scooped mids, high gain, doomish sort of sound. I like it. Lots of bass available. The tone stack is slightly odd, very interactive, as are the volume and gain knobs.

The closest thing to pedals that i have built so far would be the Crunch Box. High gain(maybe a little more distortion than the CB), but with more bass and less noise than the CB, and also it cleans up really well (for a high gain pedal) to a decent crunch sound with the guitar volume. Whereas the Crunch Box is like a modded marshall, i would say that this thing feels a little bit more like a soldano or something in its gain and voicing.

-chris

User avatar
alteredsounds
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 255
Joined: 01 Oct 2007, 12:28
Been thanked: 6 times

Post by alteredsounds »

Cool, I like the CB but still cant get on with the muddiness. I'll build this and chuck it infront of my Mesa Dual Rectifier, should be fun :D

User avatar
rui
Information
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 Jan 2008, 13:42

Post by rui »

Hi guys,

Mine actually sounds more like my guitar is set on the neck pick up and not the bridge one, like it is!

I have tried another guitar cheaper guitar with the same results, by the way my main guitar is a Jackson Kelly. I do get a lot of gain, but it’s a mushy gain, blending all the notes together not offering as the original does the single note definition making it sound good.

Rui

User avatar
chris_d
Solder Soldier
Information
Posts: 180
Joined: 16 Aug 2007, 20:03
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by chris_d »

rui wrote:Hi guys,

Mine actually sounds more like my guitar is set on the neck pick up and not the bridge one, like it is!

I have tried another guitar cheaper guitar with the same results, by the way my main guitar is a Jackson Kelly. I do get a lot of gain, but it’s a mushy gain, blending all the notes together not offering as the original does the single note definition making it sound good.

Rui
Hmm. I just did a quick crappy clip of my build you can compare with. This is not a good recording, just a LP-style into a SS practice amp that happens to be closest to my computer, into a garbage $10 mic. The cheap setup means it is not the best representation of the sound i get, but you might get the basic idea anyhow i think.

Does yours sound like this? (the one called "kranktest")

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_so ... ID=6146772

-chris

User avatar
rui
Information
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 Jan 2008, 13:42

Post by rui »

Hi guys,

mine sounds totally diffrerent from the clip above...something must be bad on mine, maybe a cap!

I just found a clip on youtube with a guy reviewing it.

just type in Krank Distortus maximus in the serach box on the website and it comes right up.

It sounds nothing short of amazing. We all must be doing something wrong because all the clips I have heard from clones are not even close to the original.
I still think there is something else on the bottom of the board on the real deal!!!

Are there any actuall photos from the underside of the board on the original KDM?? I cab find some from the top but never the bottom.

Rui

User avatar
audioguy
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 262
Joined: 27 Nov 2007, 14:47
Has thanked: 22 times
Been thanked: 7 times

Post by audioguy »

Mine sounds fucking killer. I use it with my band 3 mights a week and it blows my other guitarist out of the water!
Its all good here dude- Im gonna say you've got something wrong, and the people that have recorded clips probably dont have a high quality setup like the videos.

User avatar
rui
Information
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 Jan 2008, 13:42

Post by rui »

Hi,
Absolutely!! I am not putting down the soundclips from everyone her at all…if it sound like that I apologize!!

What I am trying to get at is that it seems that they are a lot different in my view and please bear in mind that I am not a novice in effects buildings, playing guitar and tone recognizing or electronics as a whole as I am an electrical engineering with a lot of years under my belt which in turn allows me to pose the question that either someone is just happy with the sound they got from their clone and that could be a possibility that there is more than what meets the eye when looking at the guts from the original KDM.

Please note that I have built the smash drive and some other simple circuits posted everywhere online where the LM386 is used in a high gain mode, and some others in unusual higher gain than spec’ed on eth National datasheet…up to even 74db of gain and that none with or without the input gain or buffer stages has given me the crisp, detailed high gain that the original KDM supplies. I have personally demoed some in my local guitar shops and never fails to amaze me how awesome it sounds even with cheap ss amps……….

Without concrete proof that the schematic of the clone posted on this same thread are exact as of the original I will still think that there is something else there that we are missing. I have looked everywhere for a photo of the bottom of the board but with no luck, that only will help.

Rui

User avatar
audioguy
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 262
Joined: 27 Nov 2007, 14:47
Has thanked: 22 times
Been thanked: 7 times

Post by audioguy »

1 solution then... buy it, R.E. it, Ebay it when you're done.

=o)

User avatar
rui
Information
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 Jan 2008, 13:42

Post by rui »

Hehe..right..I am too cheap for that (aren't we all), we are using these forums aren't we after all!? :)

We have to take advantage of what we know for cheap entertainment, i.e. build instead of buying.

Kind of expenssive, $150 for 10 resistors 6 caps i transtsitor and one IC totalling probably $5 hehe.

I will keep on looking and experimemting along with others in this same topic.

User avatar
chris_d
Solder Soldier
Information
Posts: 180
Joined: 16 Aug 2007, 20:03
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by chris_d »

rui wrote:Hi,
Absolutely!! I am not putting down the soundclips from everyone here at all…if it sound like that I apologize!!
Oh hey, don't worry, i will say straight up that the clip i posted is not "good". The combination of mic and cheap amp really makes a bad sound. The pedal in person is much less harsh, much less nasal, and much heavier in general. If i had a decent mic and ran the pedal into my proper amp i would do a better demo of all of the different things it can do, but i figured that you would be able to hear through the crap and see if the character of your build was drastically different or not.

As an aside, just for reference, the settings of that clip are Gain-11:00, Treble-7:00, Bass-1:00, Mid-11:00, Level 2:00. The first bit is with the pedal on, but the guitar volume down, the second is with the volume up full, and the third is the bypassed "clean" sound of that little amp. The weakest link though is the mic which overloads if i look at it funny and squashes the hell out of the signal when it is not clipping.

I will say that, based on the clips and videos i have seen so far of the real deal, i think that this schematic and build is probably just fine. There are lots of different sounds in it, lots of flexibility for a high gain box. Rolling off the volume on the guitar practically removes the pedal from the chain, distortion-wise, and the tone controls cover a lot of ground.

Now, one possible inaccuracy i see is that either on the schematic or in my layout version of it, the "mid" pot is probably reversed. I haven't looked to see if the error is in the schematic, in my layout, or only in my build, but definitely on the mid pot in my build lugs 1 and 3 should be reversed in their connections.

Other than that, i think that the schematic is probably pretty close to the real thing. One thing that was suggested over at DIYstompboxes was that the different LM386s might have an effect on the circuit's sound. Are you using an LM386-3? I am currently using the LM386N-1 that radioshack carries, but will eventually get a "-3" to see if i can hear a difference in this circuit.

Have fun!

-chris

User avatar
Mr. G.
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 384
Joined: 03 Jul 2008, 19:32
my favorite amplifier: Undecided
Completed builds: 3-loop + tuner out TB loop pedal
Eternity overdrive (Deaj perf layout)
YATS (many)
BOR
DLS
COT (Briggs mods)
Crunchbox
SHO (several)
Fuzz Factory
Several LM386 based distortions
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 9 times

Post by Mr. G. »

Just curious.... what is the purpose of the 4M7 R1 resistor? What effect would a smaller value have on the circuit? The main reason I ask is because I don't have a 4M7 resistor. The closest I can do is 4M73 with two 2M2 resistors and a 3K3 resistor all in series. Could I get away with just using two 2M2 resistors in series, or maybe even just one 2M2 resistor?

User avatar
alteredsounds
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 255
Joined: 01 Oct 2007, 12:28
Been thanked: 6 times

Post by alteredsounds »

a 2m2 in there wouldnt make any difference to the sound

User avatar
Mr. G.
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 384
Joined: 03 Jul 2008, 19:32
my favorite amplifier: Undecided
Completed builds: 3-loop + tuner out TB loop pedal
Eternity overdrive (Deaj perf layout)
YATS (many)
BOR
DLS
COT (Briggs mods)
Crunchbox
SHO (several)
Fuzz Factory
Several LM386 based distortions
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 9 times

Post by Mr. G. »

Thanks!

So, what is that resistor for, and why was a 4M7 used in the original?

User avatar
guiltyspark
Solder Soldier
Information
Posts: 202
Joined: 18 Aug 2007, 05:24
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 39 times

Post by guiltyspark »

chris_d wrote:
rui wrote:Hi guys,

has anyone actually have a sound clip or build photos of a KDM clone. I have built it per the best accurate schematic mentioned above but it doesn't sound even close to the real thing?!

Is there anything missing in the reverse engineered schematic? I know I built mine correctly.

Does anyone have a photo of teh underside of teh board?
How does yours sound different from the real deal? I don't have a real one to compare to, but the one i built seems to be in the same ballpark as the clips i have seen and heard.

I built it from the schematic posted over a DIYstompboxes, and my vero layout:

Image

I have been building cheap and dirty lately, and so in additional homage to the fuzzy terror of Watership Down i built it in this tin:

Image

I will see if i can get a quick clip together of my "clone", though i am not really set up for good recordings right now, i think i can get a reasonable representation of the sound i am getting...

-chris

Cute! A Bunnydrive!

Guiltyspark

Post Reply