Build Your Own Clone Message Board

It doesn't get any easier than this, as far as I know.

No biasing, no VREF, no power filtering...hell, no resistors!!!

Just a one IC, one cap, two diodes, and a pot.

My goal: the simplest possible dirt circuit. Mission? Accomplished!

If you have been wanting to get your feet wet with breadboarding, this is a great one to start with.

Schematic:




Vero Layout:




Perf Layout:

I love it! I'm giggling like a schoolgirl as I type..........

Cool. How's it sound?

The funny thing is that I assumed I needed a cap between pins 1 and 8 to get max gain, but I accidentally figured out that a jumper accomplishes the same thing. So that's just one cap instead of two.

Bare-bones dirt.

Just thought I'd update this and suggest people try germanium and/or schottky diodes in this circuit. It's mo' better fuzz that way.

I am pretty sure I have all those parts!

Its only a matter of time until CJ builds a circuit with No components and No knobs that produces Max gain.

Cool CJ. Is it more overdrive or fuzz in the stock format?

Yes.




Seriously, it's like a heavier drive tone. But it's also somewhat dynamic, and not terribly compressed. Putting a boost in front would crank things up, but then you'd have the Runoff Groove Big Daddy. Or thereabouts.

Not sure if I am the first one... but I built one of these over the weekend. Posted it in the SOYCB section. Great pedal. Thanks CJ!!!

http://www.buildyourownclone.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=25123

I perfed this up tonight and no matter what diodes I used it had that synthy, farty, splattery decay. Is that right? Kind of Fuzz Factory-ish.

However it sounded much better with no diodes at all. So is it possible that a IC Chip and one Electro could be a circuit?

Hmmm. I had that happen on a different circuit using a 386, and it turned out the IC was dodgy. Definitely try swapping chips. If that's not it, I'd audio probe to see where the farts are happening.


Oh yes. That's what I first intended to do, but I added the diodes for more dirt.

This is not too different than the old smokey amp schematic, just a few value changes and diodes added. Those little smokey amps put out about half a watt on the LM386 Chip, so isn't that a bit much for a line level device? Could this do any damage to the front end of your amp?
I have build multiple varieties of the smokeys (Gems, Ruby, Noisy Cricket) all of them drive cabs. The basic smokey is a LM386, and 2 caps. How is this different without the diodes?
-P

It does have some massive output. I can tell you that. And I get no farty sputtery output from mine. LOL. But then again, I did get my LM386 chips from the creme de la creme of parts suppliers!

I don't think so. 500mW is max output at 9v, and that assumes perfect conditions with an 8-ohm load. If you are concerned, you could lower the voltage to 6v (with series resistance) for output of 250mW at 8 ohms. I'm not sure what the input impedance of your amps are, but I'm assuming it will be much higher than 8 ohms.


I suppose it's not. I started from one of the application circuits from the datasheet and started dropping off parts until it became obvious I couldn't simplify any further. I must assume the person who "designed" the Smokey did the same thing. But then I added diodes to give it more dirt. And that also drops the output quite a bit, which should further console your fear of running it in front of an amp.

I must build one of these at some point, I've got an LM386 lying around somewhere find that and I can probably get it build in the next few days, even if I can't find it I can always grab a couple with my next parts order which will probably be sometime next week (still restocking after using a huge number of parts at university this year).

So, I guess I have a bad LM386, because my soldering looks good. No more in my stash, but I have a Noisy Cricket with one I could pull out later.

Funny thing, it seems to work fine without diodes, but the minute I add them the farts come.

Guess I should have put a few 386s on my last two orders in the last two days. Argh!

thinking of doing one of these this weekend. might throw a muff tone after this in series to the out for some added color.

You're adding parts? Man, you are so missing the point!

Seriously, though a Tone control may not be a bad idea.

Might as well go simple:
viewtopic.php?f=41&t=24894

i was digging through schematics and layouts at aaron's stompbox gallery and ran across that muff tone thing. i tried it on a 250. holy crap! it totally opened up the tonal possibilities for that pedal. it took it from that harsh grating tone you get with certain clippers and let you go from there to alot more harsh, all the way back to wooly and thick. since then i've done it on just about every pedal at least once, and even snuck it into an valve junior i was playing with. i've even put it on a phaser and at the bottom of the pot you get some really cool throaty tones when you've got a fuzz pushing it.

i know i'm missing the point, but i'm used to missing the point.



there's always THAT! hahaa,...

Can someone shoot me a link to the layout for this? I would like to try it on my Dead Easy Dirt. thanks!

Brad

muff tone



EDIT: from what i can see you probably won't need the gain recovery stage andy talks about. should be fine with this circuit.