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Hi Midway, and the rest of y'all.

The Futureman NAILS IT!  I mean...  exactly.  It only took about 15 minutes for me to hit the sweet spot.  I dialed in the tone on "planned communities" and I couldn't be happier.

I'm pretty sure it's mainly because of two things.  One of them is the EQ.  I can get in this zone with it where its like opposite sides of the mid section are blending nicely to give it that "honk", if that makes sense...

And the OD, or FUZZ, whatever it is, it's just like the demos when dialed down to about 9:30.  The fuzz drives on the attack it seems and dies pretty quickly, it's amazing.

Maybe I'll make a demo of it and throw it up on youtube.  I'll let you guys know if I do.

Thanks.

thanks for explaining to me the time and effort that you have put into, and may have further put into this.  I did not mean to offend you.  I had no clue that this could possibly turn into something so labor intensive when you mentioned you would be breadboarding a circuit.

It's true, in my "ignorance" I thought you were just planning on tweaking a circuit because it was interesting.  I had no idea this could have turned into something that would require so much of your time and resource.

I didnt come here looking for a cheap pedal, I simply wanted to know how to cop a tone.  I now understand how much time, effort, and skill go into this stuff.  And for that, I thank you.

It's been an eye-opener for sure. 

agreed.  it is all  about music, and having fun.  i'm going to audition a "singer" right now.  it's been really tough finding the right guy.  guys with microphones and no guitar who rock n roll are tough to find today.  i'm super psyched about midways circuit.  nice guy, i could be a total dirt-bag for all he knows.... 

so midwayfair goes through all that trouble, designs a circuit trying to emulate that sound, and you go and buy a pedal that's been around for decades?

Thanks for the heads up.  You win.  I guess I'm not very clear on what's OK with you for me to buy, that's all. 

BTW:  I bought the pedal at 7:19pm yesterday, before he bread-boarded a circuit.  And I've got to have a pedal come Tuesday.  Am I a bad person?  I hope not. 

I took the ultimate plunge of faith and $150 later, have a basic audio futureman coming.

This is the video that did it for me, he switches to the screwdriver pretty quick.  funny thing is, its a bad video, he doesnt like the pedal, but when he strums that first chord, its all there for sure, just more fuzz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9f76AkaYcE

   

Thanks:)

I think you're right.  At the end of video #2 it's the closest.  The subtle octave thing mimics it for sure.  And also, in the second video, there seems to be a more i dunno, "frog in your throat" kind of thing that's there too.

I played the more high end songs (my preferred tone of the two) using vh1 pickups and the deeper stuff using first issue dirty fingers.  Both with nylon strings.  The input volume on the soundcard varies from song to song i'm sure. 

It's hard for me in my mind knowing how this is gonna sound with humbuckers, the vt-40 and so on.  But im telling ya, with trends how they are (at least here in austin) people would be interested in a pedal that mimics a soundcard.  nice gimmick idea.  paint it to look like a soundcard, robot font, hipster paradise.

If it sounds like a good idea to you, slap one together for me in a box and I'll pay you for parts twice over so you can build another for the next guy who wants his guitar to sound horrible.   

have you heard of the demo-tape fuzz?

I haven't, but Mid-Fi designs great stuff.

Do you want me to throw something on the breadboard tonight and see how close I can get?

Heck yeah:)

If you nail it, maybe we can figure something out from there.

Thanks.

Oh man,

Thanks for taking the time to type me a list / guide for bread-boarding a circuit.  I read everything from here and both pages you linked and quite honestly, this is something i need to tackle when i have more time (and patience) to learn.

It's alluring for sure, but I dont think I'm at a point where i can dedicate myself to it.

And yeah, the super duper is out, it's deffinetely not going to solve my problem.  Im pretty fixed on getting that tone from my demos.  Theres got to be a pedal out there capable of it, have you heard of the demo-tape fuzz? 

Calling the clipping "digital" is not really accurate. It's still normal clipping. It's just that your soundcard's headroom is really low. There are a few other characteristics of this sound that you want to reproduce: there's not much sustain. It's just your guitar hitting a wall. The tonality is also quite dark, kinda muddy even.

Here's what I would do: A class A distortion that loads the pickups a lot. Class A because it won't add much sustain, just squash your guitar when it exceeds the transistor's headroom. Pickup loading because I'm pretty sure your soundcard has low input impedance, and it will cut a lot of the treble to get a similar dark sound. The Rangemaster circuit happens to fit the bill. Use a really big input cap. Bias it lower to reduce the headroom (e.g. 3v, you can do this by using a 50K pot for the boost). And when I say "loads the pickups a lot" I mean something like 50K input impedance.

That's where I'd start. You can breadboard it to work on it.

The other option is: I think a Supro sounds like what you posted. No fooling.

thanks midway:)

did i mention that i've never held a soldering iron?  i would LOVE to be able to someday build a pedal.  i was looking over some starter kits and got scared. 

funny you should mention class a and supro...  i was looking at lumpy's tone shop "class a overdrive" based on a supro, thinking it may do the trick, so i emailed the builder and he said it wont go where i need it to, so i trashed that idea.

so do you think if i got myself a rangemaster schem and a big input cap, i could put it together and bias it with low headroom if i made a study of it?  im getting dizzy.

p.s.  i forgot to mention that im using nylon strings, which add to that "dark" tone.

thanks:)

OK.  Here it goes.

I wrote all these songs, and when it came time to cut demos of them, I went lazy.  I plugged my guitar straight into the back of my ancient PC's soundcard, turned up the input sensitivity, and recorded in the red.  And it sounds amazingly perfect for these songs!

It's a pretty "crappy" tone, sure.  But there's something about it that works in the context of these songs.  I don't know if it's a fuzz, overdrive, both, or what.  All I know is that there's digital clipping going on and I cant for the life of me recreate it in a live situation (live band situation).

I'm using an early 70's top loaded ampeg vt-40 (no effects loop, speakers hardwired), i resided to the fact that i need to just go with the amps natural tone (along with some kind of boost) until now.

I figure you guys probably know what i should be looking at (to cop my own tone on these demos) if anything, because i haven't got a clue.

P.S.  I'm using pure nylon strings, which are darker than regular strings.

Here's the demos:  [soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/chord-caveman[/soundcloud]



Thanks.