Original effects with schematics, layouts and instructions, freely contributed by members or found in publications. Cannot be used for commercial purposes without the consent of the owners of the copyright.
I had to build a simple little preamp boost thing quickly for a customer the other day. I just threw together some random parts on the breadboard real quick and came up with something nice. I call it the "Last Minute Boost" because I came up with it at the last minute. Here's the scheme and the finished board:
Here are some up-close shots of the board. I used a trimmer for the gain control because this was intended to be stuck inside a guitar as a little preamp with the gain pre-set.
This gave me a chance to use one of the LM301 I had laying around waiting for a project. They are a nice little chip and this boost has a decent vibe where it doesn't sound totally sterile, but not too grungy either. It speaks with its own voice. I highly recommend getting some of these 301s to play with if you've never experienced them before.
If anyone is interested, I might be compelled to do a PCB design for this too.
"Analog electronics in music is dead. Analog effects pedal design is a dead art." - Fran
"I just threw together some random parts on the breadboard real quick and came up with something nice."
The "Caesar Salad" of boosts! Necessity is the mother of invention.
From Wiki
There are several stories about the specifics of the salad's creation. Cardini was living in San Diego but also working in Tijuana where he avoided the restrictions of prohibition. As his daughter Rosa (1928-2003) reported,[3] her father invented the dish when a Fourth of July 1924 rush depleted the kitchen's supplies. Cardini made do with what he had, successfully added the dramatic flair of the table-side tossing "by the chef".
Another story tells that as a Chef of Hotel Peñafiel in Tehuacán, Puebla, México, Alex Cardini, son of an Italian immigrant, made the Caesar Salad specially for a gourmet contest in Tijuana, winning first place with his innovative dish.
Also, people believe that the salad was created for a group of Hollywood stars after a long weekend party, and still another, that Cardini's brother Alex created it as "Aviator's salad" for a bunch of San Diego aviator comrades who were in a hurry, and the dish was renamed later, when Alex was a partner of his brother. A few fellows among Cardini's personnel also claimed the authorship, but without success.
Ill big up the 301...I've used it in a bunch of rat clones in the past and an expandora,IIRC,and it works pretty well in those applications...never checked it against the 308 or similar 'better' opamps,but thought ,it ain't broke,don't fix it
Silent Fly wrote:Shouldn't be the 1u capacitor on the top left NP?
It doesn't need to be in a single-supply circuit such as this. The biasing voltage for the opamp also gives the cap the polarizing bias it desires.
analogguru wrote:Shouldn´t the 1µ have a bigger value, or is this a treble-booster ?
True, there isn't much activity in the low frequencies. But the end result isn't the typical treble-boosted sound you would expect from something like a Rangemaster or Screaming Bird or anything like that, so I wouldn't refer to it as a treble-booster. I'd describe it as a "clear" sounding boost with a lean low-end. Though the lows are not boosted, they don't sound diminished either. It's sounds very nice with high-output humbuckers.
"Analog electronics in music is dead. Analog effects pedal design is a dead art." - Fran
