Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hey all,

I love this circuit! I built the mosfet boost and stuck with the standard overdrive with mofset clipping. I'm keen on installing this flipper-switch to make the pedal even more versatile, but am puzzled as to where a good location would be for the toggle?

Does anyone have a good suggestion? I feel it would be too close to the board if I installed it on the face of the pedal, but the sides seem like a bad place as well. I could remove the base-nut from the pole of the toggle to squeeze and extra mm or so of space between the bottom of it and the board, but I'm afraid it would cause problems. Could I just put a piece of electrical tape over the solder-poles?

Thanks in advance,

Preston

here's a pic from DVM's site, he built one with the toggle built in, but it looks like it may be pretty tight in there. He'd probably be able to give you more info.



another idea is to always use a PSU and mount the switch on the one of the sides of the pedal where the battery is should go (you would no longer be able to operate on battery power)

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

Yes, as wmarshguitarist showed, I mount a miniature 3PDT toggle switch between the bottom of the board and the top of the enclosure, just below the clipping toggle switch, with the toggle bat coming out through the left side of the enclosure. The switch must be mounted so that its most narrow dimension fits into that space. Consequently, the toggle bat moves vertically, in the same plane of motion as the footswitches. See below pics for details. This should be drilled & fitted before the PCB is soldered to the pot legs and toggle switch lugs, to be sure you have enough room. It's important to drill that side hole such that the switch body is flush against the inside of the top surface of the enclosure, to use as little of that vertical space as possible, so measure & drill carefully! I then cover the solder side of the board in that immediate area with a piece of electrical tape, even though the side of the 3PDT toggle body is plastic with very little exposed metal. Better to be cautious, I figure.

One other thing--because the side of the enclosure is not perfectly perpendicular to the top, when you tighten up the mounting nut on the 3PDT toggle switch, it lifts the back edge of the switch body up a bit and eats up more of the precious vertical space that you have there. To keep this from happening, I take a small washer (generally one of the washers from one of the two top-mounted toggles, since I don't use them) and cut it in half, and then wedge it in between the 3PDT switch body and the inside of the enclosure on the side of the threaded bushing facing away from the enclosure top. That way, when you tighten the mounting nut, the piece of washer forces the switch body to lie flat against the inside of the enclosure top and not lift up at the rear.

May sound a bit complicated, but I've done it many times now, and this mounting method works very well. And it preserves the battery compartment.

Here are the photos I mentioned:

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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

Thanks for the help, guys!

Unfortunately I've already soldered the PCB onto the pots & switches, so it looks like I won't be including the switch on this build. Very useful information for next time though, and great looking work!

You can still use the battery cavity, if you don't need to power it by battery.

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

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

The lug numbering on a 3PDT is like this...



Hope this helps...

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I... have become... uncomfortably numb...

Well, I just finished my first OD2, built as a hybrid, w/ mosfet input buffer, silicon boost, mosfet and silicon clipping, and silicon output buffer and wired up to put the boost into the OD section and I'm *very* impressed. It is a great sounding pedal, flexible and very configurable, and sounds as good (or better) than boutique pedals costing hundreds more. I did bump the boost by upping the 10K resistor to 15K (see above), and I did drop the loudness pot down to control the feedback (boy, does this sucker get over the top!! <G>). The boost is a little too dark in my limited testing at this point, but I'm going to play awhile before I condsider converting the boost to mosfet.

Great pedal!! Thanks for all the help on here, advice and mod info. I couldn't have done the hybrid and boost->OD mods w/o the direction and guidance provided here.

BTW, <G>, a first try build too! No glitches, roadblocks or mistakes (yet!) and it fired up on first try!

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Walt Campbell
Campbell Sound
http://www.campbellsound.com/

This question may sound a little silly, but since the od and the boost are independent, would it make any sense at all to have an extra pair of jacks?
If you consider that if you have separate inputs and outputs, you can choose where to place the boost in your pedal chain, an not just directly before or after the od.
Actually, in a multichannel amplifier situation, I find it very useful to put the boost in the fx loop. Since this is a clean boost (meaning that it won't compress, distort or otherwise alter the eq significantly, it will only add clean gain to the signal), putting it between the preamp section and the power amp, you will have a "Master B" option for every channel passing through it.
If all the amp's channels are set to the same volume, it's like having a solo option, because it will raise the volume to the same amount for every channel, instead of raising volume in the clean channels and overdriving without any significant change in volume the already saturated (dirty) ones by placing the boost before the preamp section.
I figure that this alteration poses some minor ground, dc supply and impedance issues, not to mention the enclosure would necessarily have to be larger, but i consider it a bonus, since I have to play, sing and deal with all the footwork all at once, and it's not that difficult to hit both footswitches by accident, instead of just one.
I was introduced to b.y.o.c. by one of the guitar players I usually play with last Friday, and was curious to learn about your products, so I'm not a costumer (not yet, anyway), but I'd like to know if it's possible to order the overdrive with these modifications, and how much would it cost.
Congrats, by the way, on selling what seems to be a very versatile and great sounding od. Don't own one yet, but I guess it won't be for long.

No--the beauty of true bypass pedals!

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

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

Many thanks duhvoodooman for posting this mod. Just done it to my OD pedal and it sounds so much better plus it is more versatile to use. Should be the standard way to wire it I think. While I had the pedal open I swapped out the JRC for the BB OPA chip which to me sounds better too.

Cheers

Roger

Glad to hear you're digging it. I think it really adds a lot to the OD2's flexibility & usefulness.

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

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

This is a great idea that i'll build into my od2 , so
when i make pedals for others they can try this
to decide , Thanks for all the clever !

Duhvoodooman, this brings up a question I've been wondering about for a while, and I'm guessing you'd know the answer: Doesn't putting the overdrive (and/or other distortion type effects) in the effects loop of such a pedal mean that you're sending a buffered signal to the overdrive? I often hear others say that it's "best" to put the overdrives first in the chain before any buffering.

Reason I ask is that I have a GT-8 which I use for time-based effects (and which I think does a pretty good job at these things) and usually run my overdrives in the effects loop. I've wondered if having them there is taking away some of the magic those pedals might add, not just because of the buffered input to the overdrive, but also because any signal boost that the overdrive might be sending down the chain is being tamed by the effect return into the multi-effect. For most of my purposes this setup has worked just fine. However, I'm wondering if I'm losing something by doing it this way.

I'm new around here, and have my first BYOC kits arriving in the mail in a day or two . . . including the OD2. Can't wait!

Thanks,
Justin

P. S. Wasn't sure if this might be worthy of a new thread. Sorry if it seems a bit off-topic.

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Justin

http://www.justinmorell.com

+1

Hot damn what an awesome mod. I haven't built my OD2 yet but I thought that it came with the boost before overdrive. Definitely agree thats the way it should be.

I'm about to build my first pedal (ESV Fuzz), then plan to tackle the OD2. I'm definitely doing this mod, but have a question about how it will interact with the clipping stage. I assume if I push the boost, it would then push the input of the clipping stage more right? If so, that would seem to solve the problem many people have brought up about the LEDs not engaging, and therefore sounding the same as "lift" mode.

If my (novice) thoughts are right about all of that, once the LEDs can be pushed, any thoughts on tone differences between the LED and MOSFET clipping?

Thanks to all for the great support community here!

Yep, you're right. I don't know the exact effect on the LEDs but it will typically increase the distortion on the front end. Be a great excuse to build a boost and just throw it in the chain first.

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Pedal building is like the opposite of sex. All the fun stuff happens before you get in the box.

The LED's will be noticeably louder--due to their higher forward voltage threshold, they clip less signal--and they have a more sharply defined, less compressed tone. Their character is often referred to as "Marshall-like", and while I think that's a bit of a stretch, I can understand why the comparison arises.

If you want to try a couple of different clippers there, try socketing both the LED and MOSFET clipper positions with inline sockets like these: http://buildyourownclone.com/products/socketsil64 Just cut off two or three at a time and solder them to the PCB eyelets, and you can go nuts trying different diode types and combinations.

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

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

Thanks for the quick replies on a long dead thread!

The LEDs may not be the sound I'm going for based on your description voodo -- even if I can get them more engaged using this mod. That being said, I'm experimenting a lot with my sound, so I love the idea of installing sockets! I'm doing that for sure. Thanks again!

The thread that keeps on giving!
Just wanted to say thanks for posting this simple mod. I'm not a big fan of boost after overdrive so this mod put my old OD2 back on the pedalboard!