Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hello All,

I just finished my 6th peda, a germanium Boost, and it is too noisy to use. Have any of you experinced or troubleshot this?

Thanks!

Will

To get the least amount of noise from the Ge transistor it is best to power it with a battery. If it’s too noisy even with a battery powering it you’ll need to try replacing the transistor for one with a lower noise floor.

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"It’s your soldering."

Huh. Well that seems kind of shady. Sell a kit that, with it's core component, is unusable. I tried a battery and it was a hair better, but still unusable.

Off to Small bear to buy reliable components, I guess. Lesson learned.

That is hardly a fair assessment of BYOC and its products. If your kit contained a poor quality germanium transistor, all you have to do is contact sales@buildyourownclone.com and they will quickly get a free replacement out to you. Germanium transistors are notoriously variable in performance, not to mention quite sensitive to changes in ambient temperature. This is "nature of the beast" stuff. The upside, of course, is that when they perform well, they produce that warm, woolly fuzz tone that silicon transistors just can't achieve.

The other possibility is that the issue is being caused by some other factor in your build and not the Ge transistor. You can easily check this if you have a low to medium gain silicon transistor available to substitute for the Ge tranny (you'll need to match up the pin-out to the socket, of course). If the noise disappears or drops substantially, then you'll know that the Ge tranny is the culprit. If not, then it's time to look elsewhere in the build.

We would be happy to look over your pedal if you would post photos--it never hurts to let a couple of other pairs of eyes take a look-see. If you do this, please make the shots large, well-lit, and well-focused, and include both sides of the PCB and all of the jack and switch wiring.

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

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

It would be unfair if it was an isolated incident. Unfortunately it isn't. I had similar issues with an octave pedal that I built. The main issue I have is the minor (but important) lack of accurate representation of the final product. For example, the analog delay states "With a 16,384 bucket brigade delay line, the BYOC analog delay isn't going to give you pristine clear bell like repeats."

That is VERY important info that amateur builders may not know, and is vital to the ensuing tone. Yet the Divided Octave has no verbiage regarding the slight overdrive that is inherent in the design, and that would have been a major factor in choosing that pedal. Same for this boost. No mention of the "... notoriously variable performance ...". And with that said, why not TEST the notoriously variable device in order to provide the best products?

It seems in bad form to expect the builder to know the massive amounts of information regarding performance of NOS parts and designs and then when it doesn't perform as specified by the seller, blame it on said lack of knowledge.

But the good news is, I bought three transistors from Small Bear (Who test the devices for noise and performance BTW) and all are shockingly quiet. So, No worries.