Build Your Own Clone Message Board

I'm interested in thoughts and opinions on what level of caps and resistors you guys use and why.

My friend who engineers his own mods and knows this stuff inside out tells me to buy 1% metal film Xicons and Wima's and things like that. I don't see anyone here using them. He is an engineer type... specs first. He will quote me things like "this one has the lowest dielectric absorbtion etc. But my old audiophile days tell me that the supper highest spec parts are not always the ones that sound the best ESPECIALLY since in guitar equipment, we aren't going for true purity, but are picking our favorite distortions and colorations. In this instance, it's easily understandable that a "warmer" cap might sound better than a "more accurate" one. Etc.

That said, I've been paying a lot of attention here and other places, and I don't really see anyone pushing the higher end caps and resistors.

(while we are on the subject, what about mosfets etc...)

Discuss.

Check these out. The brown resistors are 1% metal film. The red caps are WIMA's, and the tantlum's are dipped, Mallory's, as the Electolytics are, as well. And yes, I do believe it makes a difference, and makes a great pedals sound just a bit better.

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Everyone likes sausage. Nobody wants to see how it's made.

GmacD, what kind of resistors are those?

My friend modified a Boss GE-7 for me. Unlike the mods you see for sale that are a few caps and resistors, he replaced EVERY SINGLE cap and resistor in it with 1% Wima and Xicon. And replace all the op's (it has 4) with Burr Brown.

That sucker is cleaner than my rack EQ! The noice floor is WAY lower, even when slamming it with a couple of stacked ODs in front of it. And it can be used as a very clean, very transparent boost as well as EQ.

But like I said, he's a "spec guy." If one specs better, he'd use it. In many types of gear, that makes sense. But especially in OD, Dist., fuzz etc, then maybe a "colored" part might work better for some people than a "pure" one.

Interested in more specific info on what caps and resistors you use, source etc. when you get a chance.

Thanks!

The resistors are TRW milspec's NOS.

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Everyone likes sausage. Nobody wants to see how it's made.

Aren't the performance specs strictly to do with electronic performance rather than audio? Seems the two may have some correlation but not 100% of the time. You could get a crappy component that sounds better than a high end. Seems the disparity would be on consistancy with crappy components....would you get the same sound out of ten crappy components? Where as high end would be more consistant throughout manufacturing....they could be consistantly bad sounding but consistant non the less.

Or am I just smokin' too much of the crack rock here?

Maybe, maybe not.

Bottom line. Use whatever you have laying around, use expensive parts, use'em all. Then use what YOU think sounds best.


GeekDeafDaddy

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Everyone likes sausage. Nobody wants to see how it's made.

Right on!

i use AVX caps (BQseries), they are small and have a very tight tolerance... and aren't too expensive either. I like the sound of metalized polyester or polypropylene film vs. anything else.

I used to use metal film caps everywhere, but i like the sound of carbon in the signal path more. not really a noise issue, just use good ones. keith actualy thinks metal film is noiser...because he has electric fences all around the place-i imagine those metal film resistors are like little antenae.

carbon comp resistors are big and prone to drift and hiss over time. so carbon film is the way to go IMHO.

idealy you would want to use metal films in the power section of a pedal, and carbon films in the signal path.

Use as little electrolyitcs in the signal path as possible, they kill highs and dull the tone.

buy nice low-noise semiconductors...transistors, op-amps etc... especialy for things like input and output buffers.

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just a po' college kid.

N.O.C.3 Effects!

ok, I have a good feel for Op amps, but

what ARE good, low noise Semiconductors and transistors??? what do you guys like???

Bump,

Nick, Keith, Macdaddy? Anyone???

what ARE good mosfets etc

Germanium? look at the triboos instructions, I think there is a list of compatibles....for silicon, I go to my local and get whatever. The great germanium search continues.

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Everyone likes sausage. Nobody wants to see how it's made.

Haven't built a pedal yet from here but will be very soon!!

i'm aiming to use the little blue MR25 Metal Film Resisitors all round....they are pretty robust and accurate 1%, may consider WIMA caps as well, as far as electros go i've used some nice fancy 'audio' caps from panasonic, they have a metallic blue covering...will have to find a link for you guys. I'm sticking in turned pin DIL sockets and putting PCB terminal pins in for wire-to-board connections.

I come from an audiophile hifi background and using the best parts possible is the way in that industry, but as us guitarists know sometimes purity and definition is not allways the way forward.

In my experience better parts have been more robust and lasted longer....plus they are much much closer to there specified values, which to me is very important...when your dealing with audio, and you have a circuit desigedn to respond to a certain section of the audio spectrum you need the critical values to be where you designed them to be....not +10% or -10%....its quite possible that all your components could be in one of the extremes and thats not particlaoy good at all

Strato,

I come from that audiophile background as well. That's why I started this thread. To sort of see who used what, from these guys who have been doing this for a while.

I figure that once I've got a few under my belt, things will start to be more clear. Even though, I'm sure if I guy was going to build a bunch of pedals, there would be a degree of "the caps that sound best in this OD pedal don't sound the best in that one."

I'm probably going to build a test box and test mods, and different parts, on one of the Overdrive kits. Just the mods, parts swapping and chip swapping should keep me busy for quite a while.

Hi DreamTheaterRules,

yeah i think thats a good idea too...was gonna build a test box too...see what happens..


as promised before here are the very nice radial caps i used in my other audio projects (not guitar related)

http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSearch/ ... KU=8766711

http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/66297.pdf

these boys are a nice metallic blue, so u can distinguish them from others....there are other panasonic audio caps i used before these that i'm betting are pretty much the same..i think (but don't quote me) they are FC series..they are black with gold text....no link sorry, i used them in sucj sensitive things as hi-end headphone amps...along with WIMAs and they were very very good!!


i have a particular interest why these kits use carbon resistors and not metal film?...is this descision primarily driven by cost?

Strato, those look nice, but the prices are not in English

yeah sorry about that...its UK based...maybe they are in the US....should think so....try digikey or somebody like that...

itn the mean time


Metal Film Vs. Carbon Film

http://www.aikenamps.com/ResistorNoise.htm

metal film has less noise!!

just found out, the links to those fancy caps from Farnell can be purchased from pretty much every country in the world....look on the Farnell home page

Cool, but man, I saw you were from the UK, so I was joking about the prices not being in English.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll check some US places for them.