RAILhead Effects - The TUA (Total Utter Annihilation)

hewie · Post by **hewie** » 01 Apr 2011, 19:48

Holy crap on a land mine, I have created a serious monster. For over a year now, I've been working on a massively heavy metalcore distortion box — The TUA (Total, Utter Annihilation) — and I finally got it to where I was ready to fabricate a board. It started out as a modified version of the Dual Rectifier circuit, but I did loads of tweaking to get it to sound exactly how I want it to — and mother, is it AWESOME. After biasing the transistors, I just stood there and played and played and played — eventually stopping in a fit of mischievous, childish laughter. This, Pedal. Rules. There is nothing nice or pretty about the TUA — it's simply the sounds of Perdition trapped inside a metal box.

"Schematic" is attached. It's a Dr Boogey. Pot values are complete assumptions.

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 01 Apr 2011, 20:49

Got any gut shots? It's always nice to have an extra set of eyes to verify the schematic.

MangusBorten · Post by **MangusBorten** » 01 Apr 2011, 22:55

It seems most high gainers are based off this circuit. On his website where he lists the tua, he says to consider it the electrictabs on steroids.

hewie · Post by **hewie** » 02 Apr 2011, 02:24

culturejam wrote:Got any gut shots? It's always nice to have an extra set of eyes to verify the schematic.

Not my gutshots/photos/etc, but these are findings from various of the designer's sites (blog mostly). The PCB layout was actually quite helpful, seeing as though the part labeling is identical to the gaussmarkov schematic.

hewie · Post by **hewie** » 02 Apr 2011, 02:34

MangusBorten wrote:It seems most high gainers are based off this circuit. On his website where he lists the tua, he says to consider it the electrictabs on steroids.

The issue here being that I don't think anything has really been changed from the original circuit. The only possibility is that the pot values have changed/increased. It'd be nice if the person who runs Railhead would chime in.

DimebuGG · Post by **DimebuGG** » 02 Apr 2011, 09:51

This is the be all end all of high-gain distortions, and it provides the most guttural, gnashing, straight-from-Hades sounds you'll ever hear — think the ElectricTabs Boogie on "refined steroids."

I'm not sure if he's aware of FSB. He should have gooped it to make it more exciting.

DimebuGG · Post by **DimebuGG** » 02 Apr 2011, 10:02

hewie wrote: The issue here being that I don't think anything has really been changed from the original circuit. The only possibility is that the pot values have changed/increased. It'd be nice if the person who runs Railhead would chime in.

He just changed the VOLUME label into V, Bass into B, Mid into M, etc. Now, that's a MASSIVE tweaking!.

hewie · Post by **hewie** » 02 Apr 2011, 14:05

There is still the possibility that the few unconfirmed values have been altered, but drastic alterations/substitutions of those would not change the effect for the better. The only realistic change I can see from the unconfirmed values would be lowering R3 (2M2) for less gain? I couldn't imagine increasing it's value

I don't see how the designer spent "over a year" working on this, since it's mentioned on the other site that as of July 20, 2007 he was working on "a simple ABY switch based off of the layout made available by Mike Fuller at Fulltone -- and yes, this is my first build." The TUA was then introduced June 2008.

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 02 Apr 2011, 14:32

The internet is ruthless like that (it never forgets).

RHFX · Post by **RHFX** » 02 Apr 2011, 14:41

Hey all

As I've stated on my site(s), this pedal is based off the rectifer circuit and the ElectricTabs design. I even posted all kinds of gut shots for anyone and everyone to see -- so I haven't felt like I was I was trying to hide anything about the origin of the circuit. Back in the day, several of us of us from "the other place" were playing with breadboarded versions, replacing caps, resistors, etc., etc. -- just trying any and everything to see how far we could push and pull the circuit to see what it wold do. Some liked different cap values, others didn't...low biasing, high biasing, bypassed tone stack, blah blah blah. We just spent a good long time, as we each had time, screwing around with it. It's been a while since I posted over there, but I'm sure I'm on there somewhere asking related questions, or posting in one of the Boogey threads.

That was almost 3 years ago, after all.

I apologize if any comments made 3 years ago detracted from my statements that the TUA is based off the rectifier circuit and the ElectricTabs circuit. Again, if I was trying to protect anything, I could have gooped or not posted a billion pictures of the guts and PCB.

madbean · Post by **madbean** » 02 Apr 2011, 16:15

Really nice PCB design and construction. Kudos!

I'm not a fan of bottom mounted DC jacks, but space is tight there. There's a Kobiconn DC jack without the ring tab for non battery uses. It's a lot smaller, and snaps in the enclosure rather than requiring a nut.

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/163 ... B4NBfZ4%3d

RHFX · Post by **RHFX** » 02 Apr 2011, 17:50

madbean wrote:Really nice PCB design and construction. Kudos!

I'm not a fan of bottom mounted DC jacks, but space is tight there. There's a Kobiconn DC jack without the ring tab for non battery uses. It's a lot smaller, and snaps in the enclosure rather than requiring a nut.

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/163 ... B4NBfZ4%3d

The pics with the board in the shell are old and not how I mount the jack any longer. I've been side mounting by the input jack for some time now. I'll look into those jacks, though.