Re: independed clean control

Posted by induction on Mar 29, 2016; 7:05pm
URL: http://guitar-fx-layouts.238.s1.nabble.com/independed-clean-control-tp29371p29377.html

Conceptually there is not very much difference between the Sparkle Drive approach and the Split 'n' Blend. The only major difference is that the Sparkle Drive buffers the clean path with a non-inverting op-amp and the Split 'n' Blend uses a jfet buffer. This difference is important because an op-amp allows you to add gain while maintaining the buffering, while turning a jfet from a buffer to a booster will change the impedances.

The gain on the Sparkle Drive is not adjustable, but it would be very simple to add either a gain control or a post-gain volume control to the clean path independent of the blend, and of course you can do this with either a pre-set or a variable blend.

This approach relies on a buffering the input and output of the dirty effect (if that effect doesn't already have input and output buffers, you may want to add them, or at least the output buffer). So it should work fine with any circuit follows the usual rules of pedals: high input impedance and low output impedance. Any pedal doesn't sound good with an input or output buffer may not work out so well.

You might get away with skipping the input buffer on the dirty side, since adding an op-amp buffer in parallel to the naked input of the circuit shouldn't cause too many problems. I haven't tried it, though. So trust your breadboard more than me.