Cruz Drive by Jon Patton - verified

[Freppo]

Here's a very good sounding overdrive, The Cruz Drive.
It's Jon Patton's adaption of the Tube Driver, with JFET insted of a tube.
I think Jon makes great stuff, and this one is no exception.

Here is the original thread.

http://www.parasitstudio.se/vero-layouts/cruz-drive-by-jon-patton

Cheers / Fredrik

[Frank_NH]

Wow - thanks Freppo!  I had been following this at the Madbean forum.   I even think I have an LT1054...

[Muadzin]

Tube Driver as in the Butler Tube Driver?

[Freppo]

Layout verified! :)

It's one of the best overdrives I have built in a long time. Recommended build!

Muadzin wrote

Tube Driver as in the Butler Tube Driver?

Yes :)

[Frank_NH]

Looks like a relatively straightforward build.  Thanks again Freppo!

So, what do you like most about the overdrive?  Any chance you can do some demo videos?  I tend to like overdrives that run at 18V (e.g. Klon or the Jack Black Deuce Coupe).

[kirshman]

Hey guys.  Got at least 3 different lt1054 s on mouser.  1054ip, cp,  and cpe4, all made by ti.  Any particular one to use.  Just making sure there isn't a special s option here.

[MAndrews]

Jon posted a demo in the original thread. The Cruz Drive is set different left and right. Settings explained in the thread.
Demo

[Freppo]

kirshman wrote

Hey guys.  Got at least 3 different lt1054 s on mouser.  1054ip, cp,  and cpe4, all made by ti.  Any particular one to use.  Just making sure there isn't a special s option here.

I used the 1054IP version for my build, but any dip 8 version should be fine.

[Muadzin]

Built this one and I had me some weird adventures with the trimpots. At first I biased the transistors according to the values given by Jon in the Madbean thread. 12v for Q2, 9v for Q3. Didn't get any sound. So I broke out my looper, multimeter and my audio probe and there was sound up to Q2. The source and the gate had normal audio, the drain however was very soft. I checked for solder bridge connections, I went berserk with my multimeter, checked the layout, all seemed okay. Then on a hunch I put the audio probe on the drain of Q2 and started turning down the trimpot and suddenly lift off. Same with Q3. So now Q2 is biased at 3.8v and Q3 at 4.56 and now I got a good sounding OD. It sounds good but somehow I can't escape the notion that something is wrong somewhere.

I also first built it with a linear volume pot, as I usually prefer the spread of a linear volume pot over a log,  but this seems to be one of those few pedals that really does work better with a log pot.

[kirshman]

Wow, I love this overdrive.  set q2 and q3 to the recommended 12 and 9v.  also set q1 to 9v.  Don't know what everyone else sets q1 to, but this thing is pretty amazing.  Definitely going to have a spot on my board!