Suzy Q Kustom Harmonic Clipper Mk III (rev 1)

[pjp666]

[IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/25kkm0y.jpg[/IMG]

made it brighter, louder, less gated, and a hell of a lot gainier.
i use a vn2222 mosfet for q1, a GE ac176 for q2, and a 5088 for q3
also added the tone control from my monkey balls pedal, which implements a feedback loop and "fake variable cap" to attenuate some of the highs without fucking up the gain too badly.

removed the ge diode clipper between stages 2 and 3, it just killed the circuit too much. i've learned a bit since the original one i think. i moved it to the output of the circuit, and so far prefer either schotke's or plain old 914's. you may wanna either add a switch between the clipper and ground, or a resistance.. a 100k trimmer would let you dial in how much clipping occurs.

upped the gain of the chip, so now instead of 2x gain max, its more like 4 or 5x gain. the harmonics control really makes a difference now, and it can get VERY fuzzy. or can be turned all the way down if need be or for more of an amp sim kinda sound.

bumped up the final stage's gain substantially by changing the e resistor from 2.2k to 47r. you could also just ground it directly, but you probably don't need that much gain.

ditched the pair of caps between stages 2 and 3 as well, and made it a single .022 cap. .047 and .039 in series works out to almost exactly .022. go figure. ;)

switched around a couple components in the power supply as well, added another diode (yeah i know but i prefer this way... nothing tends to blow up, where as with a series diode the diode can fail and often does. by adding a reverse biased one to ground too an overvoltage or opposite polarity will just shunt to ground and nothing blows up)

added a bigger rfi cap to the power supply as well, and moved the ripple "choke" resistor.

i ditched ALL the fuckin snubber caps. no need for them. when i was testing stuff thru a little teeny amp, yeah, they sounded great to my ear at the time, but they really robbed the circuit of life pretty bad so i ditched all of them. the tone control works really nicely to do the exact same thing now anyways, so they were all unneccessary. the 100k feedback resistor on the chip you may wanna add a small treble peaker too, but i don't think its likely necessary.

so anyways... here ya go. the suzy q mk III kustom harmonic clipper

if ya set the attack about half, the harmonics about 1/4 and the volume about 10:00 it still really nails that green river sound, and if ya turn your guitar down its total suzy q.

but if ya crank the attack and harmonics knobs, it very much becomes a very "harmonic slurry" kind of fuzztone and can get ugly in a kinda beautiful way. the tone control can tame it down.

should have enough balls to kick any amp into overdrive.

put a fuzzface before this thing and be in guitar volume knob heaven. feels plays and sounds like you're playing thru a great classic amp.

funny, me ditching germanium from a circuit, huh? ;)

anyways... come meet the new hoss... similar to the old hoss, but more hoss power.

if ya build it and ya diggit, let me know. i'll try and lay out a vero at some point

peace

[PMowdes]

Nice one Jimi.

You want me to work this up to a board??  

Someone on here should be able to do the vero layout as well.

Good to see you and Dino getting involved around here, it's a great community and having you guys around makes it even more awesome.

[rocket88]

2nd that man. This pedal sounds badass I may have to draw a board up, you know for science.   Jimi loving the new stuff you've been coming up with btw. Hasn't been a bad one in the bunch.

[pjp666]

hey phil,
i'm still monkeying with it a little, so yeah, gimme a day or three, and i'd love to have ya work it up.
gotta fit it in a 1590a, tho, right? <g>

1590b should work, i got it on very and it fits ok, based on the layout miro did years ago.

but yeah!

so now it sounds like the suzy q with a harmonic percolator attached ;)

[pjp666]

thanks rocky,
i got some new things cooking, too...
staay tuned ;)

i DEFINITELY need a good vero knocked up. but first i wanna finalize it some more. this started as miro's layout, but it got buggy on me so i started fucking with it.

i got it real close to the original one, but no reaal balls. i brought it to a gig, and in order to get the sound i was used to it was BELOW unity gain.

can't have that, for fuck's sake!!! ;)
so i started monkeying with it.

never would have happened anyways without Dino (hats off to digi2t!! love him like a brother, and have had the honor of cracking a couple beers with him)

now it's even less like the circuit it emulates, lol... wonder if tone report weakly will steal this one too as an "improvement " to nick kula's circuit... lol

sorry, momentary petty ass loss of reason k? lol

i'm on the fence with the diode clipper. the compression of having it as it was is nice, but it really kills the output of the pedal. removing them makes it louder.

adding them at the end tames it just a little bit and adds a bit more compression.

i tried 1n34/60 ge, led's both 5 and 3mm , these curious little vintage schotkes i found that break down about .5 volt, an bog standard 914/4148's. to my ear they sounded the best, tho the led's in the original loop location are far better

but diode clipping isn't really necessary in this circuit, it distorts on its own. but the diodes make it a bit smoother.

if ya wantt it more like an amp sim (how i use it) you can remove the clippers completely

if ya want it to be more an overdrivey fuzz, by all means add them.

it still gets that kustom sound either way.

i've been using this as the front end of my amp since i came up with the original one for dickie,  and it pairs brilliantly with the monkey balls or a good FF in front of it.

on my board right now it goes FF>> rams head bmp with mid cut/boost >>monkey balls >> tuner>> my version of a wah >>dark matter (which i only have there as its a gift from my boy)>> klone (which is leaving)then to an ns2 >> eq>> and all the mods and time stuff, unvibe, volume, boost, phaser/flange/pitch/etc

i got hired to do a gig for a cat recently and plugged my board right into his recorder, didn't need an amp at all. it was a rush. still sounded just like me lol