My crazy DIY overdrive pedal build with 2x 12 rotator switch

[ty]

Hey guys,

someone into pedal building? 

I'm on my first project and extremely happy so I want to share my crazy build with you.

I took the DIY kit www.musikding.de/Der-Screamer-Overdrive-Bausatz  as basis and tested it with different clipping diodes.

The circuit uses asymmetrical soft clipping. I tried symmetrical clipping but that sounded very boring (to me).
The DIY kit contains 3x 1N4148 diodes. They create a nice "chainsaw" like sound.

I can also recommend green low current LEDs (https://www.musikding.de/LED-3mm-gruen-low-current). For now I tried 1x green low current LED in asymmetrical combination with 2x 1N4148. That creates more like a Harley Davidson sound - pretty fat, a bit darker than the first version.

Pink LED in the same 1 VS 2 combination gives a brilliant more overdrive sound www.musikding.de/LED-3mm-pink

Bright red is similar to pink but a bit warmer and darker www.musikding.de/LED-3mm-rot-hell


I also tested white, blue, yellow and a FDH333. They all sounded very boring (to me). I like to call this sound "like sleeping feet" (wie eingeschlafene Füsse) ;-) 


Now my idea is to connect all the interesting diodes to a rotator switch. I'll test some more and hopefully will end up with 12 nice sounding ones.


Further I'll connect all the nice diodes as a pair (serial) to another rotator switch. This way I can combine all of them in different 1 VS 2 settings.

So I'll end up with 2 switches with 12 different diode types on each. It's pretty crazy how many combinations you can get out of that :-D 

This pedal is going to be a monster. 


Oh btw. I did all the stuff on a breadboard. So not much soldering was needed. I also intend to keep it on the breadboard when I put it in the pedal case.
I was surprised how quiet everything turned out. My Boss EQ pedal creates some noise but the DIY pedal despite being on a breadboard is absolutely silent. I'm quite surprised. 

I think it helped that I tried to keep the cables as short as possible. I optimized and compressed everything. The whole build only takes up half of a standard sized breadboard. 



 

[DefJef]

Interesting path to go down. Most I've dabbled with has been a mod to a Boss compressor and it did make it more functional but still not my favourite pedal for my usage. Are you planning any more? I think I could be tempted to make a fine fuzz.

[ty]

Yes, my next project will be a hard clipping distortion pedal with a similar 2x 12 selector setup.

I'd like to do the same with a fuzz circuit but as for now I don't understand how fuzz works. Maybe I'll get into that later on.

I also had the opportunity to test a friends tube pedal. That's really e great alternative to a full tube amp. Especially if you only play at home as I do. Musikding.de also offers various DIY tube pedals. But there again at the moment I don't understand how they exactly work. Would be interesting if you can also implement multiple options in one.

DefJef do you go for a DIY kit or design a complete circuit yourself?

[DefJef]

I've done neither ty only a mod kit on a Boss compressor to make it more subtle with a greater usable range.

I have two tube filled pedals: a Behringer that actually uses a starved plate setup so runs on low power so I suspect the tube is more of a gimmick than anything (it certainly didn't turn any solid state amps into tube ones!), and a Blackstar Dual Drive brick that uses full power and a pair od cascaded ECC83s but still didn't appeal to me much. I still don't feel that tube compression and response of an amp so I wonder what it's not doing that it really should?

[ty]

Sorry for the late reply.

Maybe it's a matter of taste and depends on the combination of tube pedal & amp? At least the one my friend uses sounds really nice.

I'll probably try building this DIY kit www.musikding.de/Tube-Driver-Bausatz

I'm working on my second DIY pedal now. The first one being the Screamer (by Musikding). Now I'm modding a hard clipping one - the Rat (also by Musikding). The original schematic has symmetrical clipping. I'll change that to asymmetrical because to me it sounds better (less boring).
When I'm done with that I'll take a break ;-) But I'm sure I'll get bored during the next Corona winter ;-) So I'll have time for a tube pedal.

It's crazy how much I've learned by building these pedals. Thankfully my good friend knows electronics stuff. I build in some stupid errors. For example I had too many different ICs laying around and stuffed the wrong one into the circuit Well... of course it didn't work at first.

I'll post an updated list on which clipping diodes I finally used. At the moment I still have to decide. I found about 15 to sound "good" (according to my taste) but the switch can only take 12 ;-) So I'll have to do a shootout.