Hi all,
During my Green Pony build I had an issue with how the gain structure sounded on my pedal. My pedal simply did not sound the same compared to some demo clips I found.
In the None-position I hardly hard any gain at all. It was more just like a clean boost.
In LED- and Si-position there was gain that I think sounded OK but in any of these positions there was quite a drop in volume, compared to the None-position.
So, I reviewed all my soldering’s, checked my component placement on the PCB, browsed through the BOYC forum, exchanging the OP-amps etc. but I couldn’t find the cause of the problem.
Finally I decided to remove the Gain pot and do dome measurement.
On VR1a it measured 244KOhm
On VR1b it measured 226KOhm
I'd just rig your board up in a temporary way that you can sub in different value pots with some wire and alligator clips. When you find a value you really like, put that one in. I do this all the time in builds where the value of certain components is subjective.
I am far from an electronic expert but I thought the pot looked quite asymmetric in the values and decided to change it.
I ordered four new pots and out of the four the one with the best match, according to spec, measured 236KOhm on both VR1a and VR1b. All the others measured < 236KOhm.
After installing the new pot the pedal sounds great and there is no issue with the lack of gain in the None-position and there is basically no drop in volume in LED- or Si-position. Maybe a tiny bit in the Si-position but I am happy and satisfied with how the pedal now sounds.
Now (finally) to my questions;
1. Could the asymmetric value in the original pot have caused the issue I had, or did my exchange of the pot fixed something else, a bad soldering for example? I have seen another post is this forum where the OP had issue with the lack of gain in the None-position as well and was not able to solve it. At least not since my last check. Could we suffer from the same issue with a bad pot?
2. Would a pot closer to spec. 250KOhm (or a pot with the tolerance pushing the value > 250KOhm) be even better? For instance, my Classic OD (TS808 clone) seems to have a bit more gain than my Green Pony.
Thanks in advance
/Pelle