Build Your Own Clone Message Board

It shouldn't. It should sound insane. Seriously. Picks up where a stock muff leaves off.

I thought it would've done that but the 2N5088's didn't bias for me. Only Q1 worked, all the others had too low collector voltages. I even removed the 22k Q4 collector resistor and replaced it with a 25k pot but could not dial in anything that worked.

I tried every NPN transistor I had about and only the BC550B's biased correctly. I checked and tripled checked the pinout on them with a transistor tester because BC's can be reversed. These weren't.
I can't figure it out.
Did you do the full conversion or the just the jumpers?

If the link you posted earlier (http://aronnelson.com/gallery/album03/Creammy_Dreamer) is the full conversion, it looks pretty much like a BMP circuit to me, other than a couple component value changes, like the 15K resistors between Q1-Q2 and Q2-Q3, the 22K resistors at the collectors, etc.

Other than the jumpering of the emitter resistors, the only other differences I could spot in a quick glance between this circuit and the Large Beaver were the cap in the feedback loop of Q1 (which has but a minor impact) and the 82K to ground at the base of Q2.

I always add a resistor to ground at the base of Q2, and include the Q1 cap on about half the builds. So my CD-modded units would have had these changes plus the emitters jumpered. So no, I've never built one precisely to that schematic.

I should note that I do not try to make the bias of these stages technically correct after jumpering the emitters. To me, it's a "bias be damned" sort of mod - if it throws off the bias, fine, as long as it sounds good.

hmmm, well then my guess is that it has to do with the input resistor. I left it 3k7 like the beaver. Did you change yours to 33k?

I have only one that uses a 33K at the input with the CD mods, the remainder use a 3K3 there - the same value I generally use for my BMP builds. No significant differences in gain or distortion character. There are some tone differences, but none of their tonestacks are identical, so I can't really attribute any of the tonal differences to the input resistor.

You're right - and it does work with 2N5088's

I breadboarded a Muff last night and then did the CD mod - no problems
I must have a cold solder joint on my build

It's working, and it's crazy.
Changing the 8k2 resistors to 15k kicks it up a level, that surprised me.

The BC550 transistors are a nice mod if you want to tame the muff, I just used one on the output section.

Very cool. I'll move this to the Large Beaver section soon (as soon as those sections are open for folks to post in).

I built my LB pedal last weekend and did the "scoop/flat..." mod. All was going great. So after getting it up and running, I figured I'd go for the Creamy Dreamer mod as described by kahel.




I ordered my 3PDT toggle from Mouser and followed kahel's drawing, and I do get the CD effect, but when I switch the toggle to the other position, I get no sound whatsoever. I hooked everything up in a "temorary" fashion - just running wires to the ends of the resistors and to the board just to see if it would work before I comitted to all the extra work. Now, Matt has a super clean looking inside. How did you do that Matt:



I mean, where is everything? Nice work!

As I mentioned, I followed kahel's drawing to a T (as far as I can tell). I have a jumper across the 3,6,9 tabs of the toggle and I ran a wire to the ground of the output jack. Should I have run it to the input jack? Shouldn't matter, right?

Thanks in advance for any ideas/feedback. At least I have it half right, ya know?

That diagram looks kosher to me.

In the "up" position, switch lugs 1 & 2 are connected, completing the 820ohm resistor path. Ditto for lugs 4 & 5 for the 150, and 7 & 8 for the other 820.

In the "down" position, lugs 2 & 3 are connected, which of course bypasses the resistor and ties to ground. Ditto for lugs 5 & 6 and 8 & 9.

Make sure you are connecting the appropriate pads of the resistor spots to lugs 2, 5, & 8 as shown in the diagram.

Assuming that's correct, check your switch orientation to make sure the connections I mentioned above have continuity when the switch is in that position. If the switch were rotated 90 degrees, I don't think it would work as intended.

Your ground should be fine.

Thanks Rog.

I'll double check everything later. I'm pretty sure that all the things match up - I had to redo that b/c originally I didn't. Also, soldered my switch in the orientation of the pic. so that should be good. When looking at the pic, I get sound if the toggle is down, but no sound if it's up.

I'll dbl chk everything this weekend and hopefully figure it out. It's such a tease to have 1/2 of the job right!! I like the extra sustain, but it also adds a whoofiness to the low end which has its place, but I definitely want to be able to switch between the two sounds rather than just commit to the Creamer Dreamer tone.

Thanks again and i'll keep you posted.

Hi!
I´m thinking about adding the Creamy-Mod to my Big Muff. But i´d like to have two LEDs, that show me, what Mod is active at the moment. I guess this could be done with a 4PDT, but they are very expensive. Is there a way to add two LEDs to the Creamy Dreamer Mod decribed by Kahel?
Sorry, i´m more a musician than electronic expert... and im german, so: sorry for my bad english!
Thanks!
Chris

Off the top of my head, I don't see how with a 3PDT. You could always try just jumpering two of the stages to ground. I've tried jumpering just Q2 and Q3 with good results, and also Q1 and Q3 (I'm sure I tried the Q1 and Q2 combination, but made no notes about it). From a sonic perspective, the results were extremely close to jumpering all three. That frees up a spot on the switch for the LED.

Rog, Matt, and anyone else that's been following:

Ok, I went back in and redid all my wires and whatnot. Here's where I'm at: using Kahel's pic, when I have my toggle switched down towards the grounded row, I get a nice loud, juicy Muff tone. I'm assuming that's the Creamy Dreamer mod. When the toggle is in the other position, I now get noise, but it's not loud at all and it sounds as if there's a noise gate on it also. What would cause this? I've wiggled all the wires around and I don't see any places where there can be shorting out (which doesn't mean it's not happening). But at least I get some sound in the other position.

However, I fear that I may need to get a new PCB as some of the "rivets" have come out of my current board. I'm not upset since this is my first build and when I built the stock specs it was perfect. I'm really into all the learning that's going on so, at least for now, this is still pretty fun. Also, I'm really getting a sense for how to keep things neat in clean in the small enclosure (read: getting a sense, not actually producing a clean looking interior! LOL).

Thanks for any ideas as to what's going on, Dave

Thanks for the update.

When you talk about the switch position, do you literally mean that the tip of the switch is pointing in the same direction as the grounded row? If that's the case, then you're actually getting the normal muff sound, because the switch tip will connect the opposite rows of lugs if that makes sense.

Or, if you knew this already and meant that it was really pointing away from the grounded row of lugs, then - as you suspect - you're getting the CD mod sound and a farty normal muff sound.

From your description of the tone, I'd say that one of the stages is effectively being crippled when you have the switch in the position that sounds bad. I can't tell which one from the description, but that's roughly what I'd expect from a bad emitter connection on Q1 (I've got a 1/3 shot of being right).

A lifted pad isn't the end of the world and doesn't mean you have to scrap the board. While I've never lifted a pad or made a bad solder joint myself - trust me - I know you can fix them. Sometimes, you just need to redo the solder joint there and you'll get the connection good enough to survive. In more severe cases, here's what I do...

Desolder and remove the component with the lifted pad and remove the pad carefully. Find yourself another new resistor or capacitor of the right value and insert the leads into the holes you just cleared but don't solder or clip it yet. Now follow the trace that the old pad connected to. Can you make the lead sticking through the bad pad hole reach the next component's solder joint? If so, just bend the leg to the next component's joint and solder it there.

Sometimes, a little heat-shrink tubing is necessary to avoid a short, and sometimes you might need to run a short piece of insulated wire to the next one. Some folks even scrape the green solder mask off the trace and solder the lead right to the trace itself.

My first LB board had nearly every modification and component value swap I could come up with. It went onto the bench literally twenty or thirty times because I could things to these hearty boards I just couldn't do on a cheapo PCB. As rugged as the boards are though, eventually a whole mess of pads came up. I've got several of the aforementioned fixes in place. She's no good for modding anymore, but the fixes have made her just as roadworthy as she was when first built, if not quite as neat looking on the bottom side.

Again, DOH! The toggle is how I described it, so yes, you're right, it's just triggering the normal Muff sound. So that would mean that one of the leads for the CD mod has a bad connection somewhere. I'm pretty sure it's one of my poor solders on the board - I had a heck of a time w/ one or two of those and may have done a half-assed job. I'll go back in there and try your suggestions of running the lead to the next component's soldering joint.

I'll probably be able to get to it tomorrow. It's good to know these boards can take Noob Abuse. Or, if I may create a word: Noobuse. Thanks again Rog!

I guess I never got back to this thread. I found the bad connection and everything works. The CD mod described is decent. Nothing over the top; pretty much what someone said: "A Big Muff on 11". It's pretty messy in there b/c I made the wires too long, but I taped up as much as I could to avoid shorts and overall I'm happy. I'm not going to go back and rewire it anytime soon.

I just ordered the Screamer PCB and sourced my own parts. That should be a cleaner build.

Thanks again!