ilovefuzz.com

Roseweave wrote:I'm also still looking for an OD. I want one with a real British voice, that has a lot of b ite but also has an option to bump the mids for a real squishy QOTSA or orange amp kinda sound.

Catalinbread SCOD nails that tone. You can't just bump the mids (it always has them), but the thing is dirty. I don't know why they call it an overdrive when it is fuzzier than a Rat.

Scruffie wrote:

SirBlend12 wrote:You could try to build it. I'm making one for myself in a few days, but I'm gonna make it a double and might try all Ge (trans and diodes ).

Don't fall into the Germanium Mojo love (don't get me wrong they are nice for fuzz but so expensive and also it will need re biasing to get the circuit to work i'd imagine, not forgetting their leakage etc) for one NPN germaniums are harder to come by than PNP I find let alone more expensive than silicons, secondly Germanium diodes will only offer softer clipping, they wont give you a mojo tone, silicon will work fine but of course you will get softer clipping with the 1N43A due to there forward voltages etc.

You may be better at DIY than myself though but that's just my views on your plans and just want to avoid you costs.

It's definitely true that NPN Ge's are hard to find AND costly, so I may stick to Si for those. I guess most of the benefit I was thinking of would have come from the diodes. I was actually aiming for a bit of a softer clip for a really classic sound.

I'm gonna breadboard the ol' switcheroos first and see what combos turn out the best. I guess I'll just see what happens as I go along.

i didn't think the SCOD was fuzzy at all
actually i had that and the silver kiss and found them both kind of boring.

the red llama is hard to beat for sound + simplicity. i have a wren & cuff clone, and it was what i had been looking for but could never get from $200+ pedals.

tigerdriver wrote:i didn't think the SCOD was fuzzy at all
actually i had that and the silver kiss and found them both kind of boring.

the red llama is hard to beat for sound + simplicity. i have a wren & cuff clone, and it was what i had been looking for but could never get from $200+ pedals.

Must be different setups and/or tastes. For me it wasn't a raspy fuzz, but still a smooth fuzz like a big muff with tonnes of mids (making it way more Rat-like).

How is the treble and tone balance on the Red Llama style pedals? I've been curious about them for a while.

RL sounds just like my guitar into my amp but maybe a little brighter... to me that's the way to go since you can always roll off some treble on your guitar. just before that i had a barber burn unit with ultra-tweakable EQ but could never get it to sound natural, so i was happy to just do away with tone controls altogether.

wish i had bought the actual way huge version back in the day, but i was young and wasted my money on dumb crap like the fuzz factory

SirBlend12 wrote:
It's definitely true that NPN Ge's are hard to find AND costly, so I may stick to Si for those. I guess most of the benefit I was thinking of would have come from the diodes. I was actually aiming for a bit of a softer clip for a really classic sound.

I'm gonna breadboard the ol' switcheroos first and see what combos turn out the best. I guess I'll just see what happens as I go along.

Try Schottkys out for cheaper diodes if 1N34A are expensive to get they have a lower forward voltage than silicon and less the germanium I beleive, although I've never got round to using them myself as I have Silicons and germaniums, they may give you a mid way though, but you'd have to compare data sheets as I say, never had a reason to use them or even research them (which may be a mistake on my part lol)

You could convert the Pedal to positive ground though I think (although it wouldn't work with other pedals on a multi power supply) as I beleive it was changed from positive in the first place... then you could use the very slightly cheaper PNP germaniums i.e AC128 but leakage and bias would still stand in your way and reversing a polarity could have other affects, something you'd have to try on the breadboard.

Scruffie wrote:

SirBlend12 wrote:
It's definitely true that NPN Ge's are hard to find AND costly, so I may stick to Si for those. I guess most of the benefit I was thinking of would have come from the diodes. I was actually aiming for a bit of a softer clip for a really classic sound.

I'm gonna breadboard the ol' switcheroos first and see what combos turn out the best. I guess I'll just see what happens as I go along.

Try Schottkys out for cheaper diodes if 1N34A are expensive to get they have a lower forward voltage than silicon and less the germanium I beleive, although I've never got round to using them myself as I have Silicons and germaniums, they may give you a mid way though, but you'd have to compare data sheets as I say, never had a reason to use them or even research them (which may be a mistake on my part lol)

You could convert the Pedal to positive ground though I think (although it wouldn't work with other pedals on a multi power supply) as I beleive it was changed from positive in the first place... then you could use the very slightly cheaper PNP germaniums i.e AC128 but leakage and bias would still stand in your way and reversing a polarity could have other affects, something you'd have to try on the breadboard.

Well, I got pretty lucky on the cost of some Ge diodes (10 for 50 cents ) but I have yet to find a GREAT deal on trannys. And of course, most sites have PNP only.

If I get lucky maybe I can find some decently priced NPNs and then I would have to do the whole positive ground thing. That's just making everything too complex. I could just use 2N2222s instead.

Protones Dead Horse

SirBlend12 wrote:

Scruffie wrote:

SirBlend12 wrote:
It's definitely true that NPN Ge's are hard to find AND costly, so I may stick to Si for those. I guess most of the benefit I was thinking of would have come from the diodes. I was actually aiming for a bit of a softer clip for a really classic sound.

I'm gonna breadboard the ol' switcheroos first and see what combos turn out the best. I guess I'll just see what happens as I go along.

Try Schottkys out for cheaper diodes if 1N34A are expensive to get they have a lower forward voltage than silicon and less the germanium I beleive, although I've never got round to using them myself as I have Silicons and germaniums, they may give you a mid way though, but you'd have to compare data sheets as I say, never had a reason to use them or even research them (which may be a mistake on my part lol)

You could convert the Pedal to positive ground though I think (although it wouldn't work with other pedals on a multi power supply) as I beleive it was changed from positive in the first place... then you could use the very slightly cheaper PNP germaniums i.e AC128 but leakage and bias would still stand in your way and reversing a polarity could have other affects, something you'd have to try on the breadboard.

Well, I got pretty lucky on the cost of some Ge diodes (10 for 50 cents ) but I have yet to find a GREAT deal on trannys. And of course, most sites have PNP only.

If I get lucky maybe I can find some decently priced NPNs and then I would have to do the whole positive ground thing. That's just making everything too complex. I could just use 2N2222s instead.

I could mail you some PNP's... AC's OC's etc... but 2N2222's would work (although high noise) along with many other NPN trans, (stick them on a 3PDT and you could have 2 switchable trans on a switch... ) and where'd you get those Ge diodes? Gimme, gimme, gimme lol mine are 10 for £2

^^^ Futurelec. They have absolutely insane prices for almost everything they stock. And by insane, I mean lower than anywhere else I've found. Shipping can take a bit, though. They're located in Australia.

I was talking about Germaniums when I said AC's and OC's as in AC128, OC44, 71, 74, 81, 84 s on (from the 1960's)... if your in the U.S www.smallbearelec.com is the best site I know for stock of rare and random parts, maybe not the best for overal caps and resistors mind.

My v2 OCD will punch any OD in the face. Although, I'm curious as to how it compares to any later version

my v3 OCD will punch your v2 OCD in the face, but then feel sorry about it and apologize, but then kick it in the balls when it's not looking

tigerdriver wrote:RL sounds just like my guitar into my amp but maybe a little brighter... to me that's the way to go since you can always roll off some treble on your guitar. just before that i had a barber burn unit with ultra-tweakable EQ but could never get it to sound natural, so i was happy to just do away with tone controls altogether.

wish i had bought the actual way huge version back in the day, but i was young and wasted my money on dumb crap like the fuzz factory

Sounds like just what I'm looking for as a one off pedal for when I just take my Jazzmaster and my homebuilt Tweed Deluxe. That set up tends to lose too much of it's character and a little brightness with most ODs.

i've built a couple red llamas. they are quite simple and a really great first build. they are capable of sounding quite mean. i'm a fan. they don't have copious amounts of gain, and as a result work extremely well for multi tracked guitar parts. my current favorite overdrive is the runoff groove mayqueen, another deceptively simple build (with pcb from generalguitargadgets) that sounds hard to beat. it's really saturated, with harmonics that just fly off the fretboard.