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The tri boost was the first BYOC pedal I ever built. It's been on my board for about 4 years now and has always been a great boost. Recently I had to move it to a different pedal board and since then it's been over-driving. Never used to do that. The Linear and Mosfet boosts were always very clean. I decided to open it up and rewired the foot switch. No change. Just sounds over driven (buzzy) and crappy. Can you suggest reasons for this or what I can try to do to get my clean boost back? I did try cleaning it up with the trim pot, but no change. Attached a quick pic, but not sure if it will help. As always thanks for the great support!

Still going into the same amp?

Has the position of the Triboost in the signal path changed? What is between it and the guitar now vs. before?

_________________
“My favorite programming language is SOLDER” - Bob Pease (RIP)

My Website * My Musical Gear * My DIY Pedals: Pg.1 - Pg.2

Thanks for the reply. No, position never changed, but I did try taking it out of the effect chain as well and going straight to amp (same Mesa amp). Just sounds crappy all of a sudden and not sure why.

Unfortunately they stopped making this pedal so I'd like to keep it working, but probably going to build another boost now anyway. If anyone can suggest something I'm happy to give it a shot.

If the pedal is sounding bad/distorted in all three boost modes, it points to a problem in the areas of the circuit that all three boost stages share.

Do you have access to a multimeter and know how to use it? If so, with the pedal powered up, get a DC voltage reading from the top of resistor R2 (see labeled PCB diagram below).

_________________
“My favorite programming language is SOLDER” - Bob Pease (RIP)

My Website * My Musical Gear * My DIY Pedals: Pg.1 - Pg.2

I had one that has a " peak " distortion type sound [ obvious distortion on hard hit signals ] so,
I bought another and it does the same thing both on all three modes , they're been sitting but I like the concept
so getting it working right would be Great !

Could it be a power supply issue? If you're on a different board I'm assuming you changed the PS too.

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William S. Marsh
guitarist - composer - educator
http://www.wmarshmusic.com

I'll double check for both good batteries and psu , thanks

My story is nearly identical. Built the Triboost in 2010, first build, always worked great. Been idle about six months. Fired it up this week - same guitar, power supply and amp. A little soft crackle/noise in the switch and buzzy in all modes. TriBoost is in same spot in chain - same performance by itself. Adjusting trim pot does not help. The side of R2 closer to edge of board reads 8.99v (same as supply output), the side closer to center of board reads 0.722v. Any advice much appreciated.

All the boost have relatively low headroom. Even the MOSFET. So you are going to get some distortion if you hit it with enough input signal. In fact you should expect some distortion from the silicon and definitely from the germanium. Not to the point that it sounds like a full on fuzz, but you are going to get some clipping even with low output single coils. That's kinda the point.

For the people whose triboosts worked before, but then stopped working, obviously, something has physically changed. The most probable things would be that one of the wires has come loose or one of the jacks have rotated and is shorting against something. Maybe the rotary switch is failing. Use a DMM and test for proper continuity. Check your voltages. Remove the germanium transistor from its socket and see if having that out of the circuit has any effect.

_________________
*patience is a virtue*

Please do not PM me. email is prefered. keith@buildyourownclone.com

Great news - completed the checks in Keith's post w/ good results. At that point, I decided it must be the archer, not the arrow. Experimented with pickup heights, guitar volume knob, and Triboost level pot. Learned to dial in clean and slightly dirty boosts in all three modes. Discovered many useful sounds. In retrospect, the majority of the time I've used the Triboost was with the Leeds Fuzz or the dirty amp channel, which masked any breakup added by the Triboost. Many thanks for the excellent advice, Keith!

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"All we are saying is give peace a chance." - J. Lennon

Sound testing a boost can be a little tricky. Keep in mind that the volume knob is passive and located at the very end of the signal path, so what you hear at level 1 is the same as turning it to 10 as far as what the pedal is producing. To hear what only the pedal is doing, you should set the boost volume as low as possible, and play through something with as much headroom as possible at a bedroom level. If you're using a master volume amp, you want to turn the master volume all the way up and use the gain or channel volume as your primary volume control so that you're getting as little break up from the amp as possible.

_________________
*patience is a virtue*

Please do not PM me. email is prefered. keith@buildyourownclone.com

I'll have to get back to it [ to not waste my time & money ] but any single mosfet boost I've made has not had this
" peak " overload type of sound that my two triboosts have, so you'd think one boost by itself should be o.k. ?