Soul Sonic - Crackle NOT Okay!

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 14 Oct 2009, 04:42

95strat wrote:
soulsonic wrote:
95strat wrote:Hey Soulsonic,

Am I crazy or did you have a photo tutorial of the "Crackle NOT Okay!" on your blog? If so I can't find it. If not I must be dreaming.
You are probably thinking about the step-by-step tutorial I did of Analogguru's JFET booster.
Ahh, that's it. Is it still up?

It should be up there. I posted it up in January '08.

95strat · Post by **95strat** » 14 Oct 2009, 17:13

soulsonic wrote:
95strat wrote:
soulsonic wrote:
95strat wrote:Hey Soulsonic,

Am I crazy or did you have a photo tutorial of the "Crackle NOT Okay!" on your blog? If so I can't find it. If not I must be dreaming.
You are probably thinking about the step-by-step tutorial I did of Analogguru's JFET booster.
Ahh, that's it. Is it still up?
It should be up there. I posted it up in January '08.

Thanks SS. I'm trying my hand at creating a PCB of CNOK in Eagle. My first attempt of creating something from a schematic. I'll let you know how it goes.

95strat · Post by **95strat** » 16 Oct 2009, 22:29

Alright, this is my first ever attempt at creating anything in Eagle so please be kind. This is not yet confirmed, but the layout should match Soul Sonic's schematic. My first layout was designed around mounting the board to the pot, but not sure it will fit. Anyway, here's what I have so far.

Thanks to Martin for sharing the design and helping me with the layout.

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 17 Oct 2009, 18:03

oh wait, the +9v pad is connected to the wrong diode!
Sorry, I completely missed that before.

95strat · Post by **95strat** » 18 Oct 2009, 02:02

soulsonic wrote:oh wait, the +9v pad is connected to the wrong diode!
Sorry, I completely missed that before.

Ah crap. I'll pull it and try fixing it. I knew it was to good to be true.

95strat · Post by **95strat** » 18 Oct 2009, 02:24

soulsonic wrote:oh wait, the +9v pad is connected to the wrong diode!
Sorry, I completely missed that before.

It's weird, the schematic seems fine. The +9v is running into D1, but when I got to the board it's not there. Am I missing something?

95strat · Post by **95strat** » 20 Oct 2009, 00:45

Alright, how does this one look?

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 21 Oct 2009, 10:16

yeah, that looks alright. good job!

omni · Post by **omni** » 21 Oct 2009, 14:58

Thinking about trying to put this in a guitar so I added some enhancements that were discussed for in this thread plus a bypass switch. Did I forget anything or can I remove any parts. Also can a 500K push/pull pot be substituted for VR1? What about Soulsonic's vero board calling out C1 as a .15uF cap instead of .1uF does it matter?

95strat · Post by **95strat** » 22 Oct 2009, 03:58

soulsonic wrote:yeah, that looks alright. good job!

Thanks! My first successful eagle design. I'll post up the transfer later if anyone is interested. However, if I can do it anyone can...trust me.

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 22 Oct 2009, 04:23

Switching power with the bypass switch isn't a good idea. It is almost sure to make a terrible noise when switching the effect on. Better would be to use the DPDT for a fulll bypass so the effect doesn't load the bypassed signal. Most people use a 3PDT and add an LED indicator as well.
The way the DIP switch looks arranged with different biasing networks, it appears that the unused resistors will always be loading the Drain and potentially shunting current - I could see this possibly causing bias problems, especially in instances where the higher value resistors (especially the 10M) would be selected.
I prefer to use 150n for the input cap, though whether you would hear a difference depends mostly on the values chosen for the biasing resistors.
You can use 500k for the Gain control, but again, the best choice in value is dependent on the value of biasing resistors used. I use a 1M Anti-Log taper with 2M2 biasing resistors and that works well for me.

omni wrote:Thinking about trying to put this in a guitar so I added some enhancements that were discussed for in this thread plus a bypass switch. Did I forget anything or can I remove any parts. Also can a 500K push/pull pot be substituted for VR1? What about Soulsonic's vero board calling out C1 as a .15uF cap instead of .1uF does it matter?

omni · Post by **omni** » 22 Oct 2009, 19:43

Updated the drawing and minimized the parts count. I will make a layout that uses a p/p pot and smt parts. Would a 500k resistor in series with VR1 pin 3 give me the same results as a 1m pot?

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 22 Oct 2009, 21:21

omni wrote:Would a 500k resistor in series with VR1 pin 3 give me the same results as a 1m pot?

No, this would limit the maximum amount of gain. It would cut it in half. The gain is determined by the ratio of the gain control to the feedback resistors. If you want to use a 500k pot, you should probably just stick to 1M, or possibly 500k, resistors. I don't remember if 500k sounded any good for feedback/biasing... it should probably be ok, but it definitely sounds brighter with the higher values. The lowest I've gone is 100k biasing resistors with a 100k gain pot, but that needed a buffer in front of it to sound any good.

mervgriffen · Post by **mervgriffen** » 19 Nov 2009, 21:49

Alright, my first attempt at a simple vero layout. Only one trace cut....YAY! Can anyone confirm if this is correct?

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 19 Nov 2009, 22:03

It looks like you have the Source and Gate pins swapped.

himister · Post by **himister** » 19 Nov 2009, 23:55

I've been waiting for pcb transfer file for layout posted earlier....didn't have patience to wait for so I had to redraw for myself and I'll share it here. I must say, BIG thanks Martin for this little tweaked fellow.

Thanks to 95strat for layout design.
Cheers.

Pcb and layout:

SSCNOPCB.pdf: (101.92 KiB) Downloaded 338 times

mervgriffen · Post by **mervgriffen** » 20 Nov 2009, 18:59

soulsonic wrote:It looks like you have the Source and Gate pins swapped.

oops, so I did. Corrected it and it should be okay now. Those MOSFET diagrams are confusing to me for some reason.

themainevent · Post by **themainevent** » 29 Nov 2009, 00:36

Hey guys, I'm using a 1M reverse audio pot for the circuit along with 2M2 resistors for R1 and R2. Will this configuration give me the largest amount of gain? Right now it doesn't seem like the boost at max is loud enough for me and I was wondering what I could do to make the max boost louder. I know that R1&R2 are related to P1 as far as boost goes, but I'm not sure if they're inversely or directly related.

BTW: Great circuit Soulsonic, this was my first build and I'm totally loving it.

DimebuGG · Post by **DimebuGG** » 29 Nov 2009, 03:09

themainevent wrote:Hey guys, I'm using a 1M reverse audio pot for the circuit along with 2M2 resistors for R1 and R2. Will this configuration give me the largest amount of gain? Right now it doesn't seem like the boost at max is loud enough for me and I was wondering what I could do to make the max boost louder.

BTW: Great circuit Soulsonic, this was my first build and I'm totally loving it.

I also use 1M reverse audio pot and it's even louder than expected, as in really f**** loud.
SHO is nothing compared to this. Mr. Vex you should revise your SHO into this one!

themainevent · Post by **themainevent** » 29 Nov 2009, 04:07

DimebuGG wrote:
I also use 1M reverse audio pot and it's even louder than expected, as in really f**** loud.
SHO is nothing compared to this. Mr. Vex you should revise your SHO into this one!

Yep. You're right. Turns out I forgot to turn off the dirt channel on my amp, so once I did turn it off and then played through a clean amp...let's just say I think I almost blew up my amp. This really is one awesome circuit. Good work to all who contributed to this thread.

Soul Sonic - Crackle NOT Okay! [documentation]