Sunn O))) inspired distortion

[JohnH]

Let me know how it all goes.

Well, spent the morning with the circuit again. I managed to get good, full-volume sound with the bass boost, but to my ear the boost did very little (if anything). The cap from +V to ground seemed to kill the oscillation, which is excellent.

I also tried a few different values for the capacitor that connects to the volume pot, and found one that works (or sounds) much better than the suggested value.

All in all I'm pretty happy with it. It loses distortion/sustain on both the first and sixth strings, but not enough to be problematic (it's only noticeable if you're hitting strings and letting them ring out)

Will solder it up in the next day or two, and drill an enclosure. A while ago I ordered some cool 30 x 15mm black hifi knobs which might be just the ticket for this pedal

[JohnH]

I had a win with this circuit yesterday. I'd been thinking about Marcel's fuzz pedal and how it was doing similar things to this circuit (not great sustain on some strings, fuzz puttering out and dying, etc), and how his had improved by driving a clean boost through it. So, I hooked this circuit up to a preamp on max volume and, like magic, the two E strings maintain sustain like the other four, and the distortion no longer sputters and dies.

Now I think I'll add in a preamp/boost stage before I box it up, maybe with a toggle switch to turn the boost on or off.

The other minor issue I wanted to try to sort out was that the distortion on the high e was markedly poorer than on the other five. This was the easiest fix of them all - just plugged it into a guitar tuned to drop C, and that pretty well sorted it out.

[JohnH]

I decided to box this up with the Tayda EP Booster that I just finished, as they work well in tandem (and I can use one enclosure for two effects)

This was my initial thought on layout:



I've altered it slightly since, but it is still largely the same. Mostly just had to change spacing to allow room for screenprinted text and a small image. Something like this:



I'll probably drill the enclosure tomorrow, but won't get around to spraying or printing it, as I'm still debating colour choices. Currently torn between chrome enclosure with black text, or black enclosure with silver text... (opinions welcome)

[JohnH]

I took this to work last week and dutifully measured all the holes, then measured again to be sure, then drilled them one at a time checking all the while that each piece of hardware fit - not only in the hole but also in relation to all the parts around it. All perfect.

Primed, sprayed, screen printed. Got it home tonight to start wiring it up and... the output cable won't fit in the jack because the 3PDT stomp switch is in the way, and the LED bezel nuts are so close to the corners that they can't be tightened. Of course, I thought I'd checked everything, but...

Luckily I have to more of the same sized enclosures laying around, so back to the drawing board.



On the upside, it looks great with the print. Will try to get a pic tomorrow in better light