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IvIark over at tagboardeffects answered my question.. apparently Bjorn likes using zener diodes in the LED circuit, it isn't really part of the audio circuit at all.. so you can omit it without affecting the way it sounds.

Sorry this is an old post but I'm just trying to figure out the yellow shark myself. The zener diode seems to be involved in voltage regulation, am I right? If a regulated power supply is used we could just omit the zener altogether without any affect on the sound, right?

Sorry this is an old post but I'm just trying to figure out the yellow shark myself. The zener diode seems to be involved in voltage regulation, am I right? If a regulated power supply is used we could just omit the zener altogether without any affect on the sound, right?

Looks great! I have to try waterslide decaling sometime just based on this one!

If you want more bite / gain, socket the transistor and try a 2N5088 like in the original Les Lius instead of the 2N3565. It really depends on the guitar and amp combination though. It's fun to completely change the clipping by just changing the transistor. I just spend 1/2 hour going back and forth and finally settled on the 2N5088 for the earlier clipping.

For Jabulani Jonny, the pedal gives a tweed style overdrive. It gives you some grit and sustain without turning the amp up. I like setting gain to about 3 o'clock for rhythm and then hitting the boost switch for classic rock / blues leads with a strat.

Ok I fixed the hum...  put a 100 ohm resistor just after +9V and it is now quiet until gain gets maxed which is understandable. This old crappy power supply served me well with many other pedals, but it seems La Vache is more prone to 60 cycle hum?? Anyway, case closed. My regulated psu is in the mail too.

Thanks for the positive feedback! I found the graphic here http://openclipart.org/user-detail/johnny_automatic nice thing is the clipart on this site is totally free to do whatever you want with it. This artist has some great material for etching IMO. I'll have to contact him once I do a few more and thank him. If anyone is interested I sand the top down to 600 grit, transfer the graphic with an iron, put it in ferric chloride for just under 10 minutes. Then spraypaint the graphics black (masking tape is good for the empty areas), sand up to 1000 grit, then clear coat.


About the humming... Yes the pedal hummed before boxing but went away with a battery. It also does not hum under any circumstances when it is switched to bypass. I'm breadboarding the circuit this weekend and I'll report back how it compares. Based on your comment above I think it might be a bad connection somewhere although the circuit sounds great... strange!?

I'm using tagboardeffects layout... hope that's alright!

It sounds great but...
There is a background hum that gets louder as I turn up the volume pot. I've never had an issue with my power supply before (although it is unregulated). The hum goes away with a battery.

For anyone who's built/tried a la vache, is this just an inherently noisy circuit? It is like a medium to low hum. It doesn't really get noticeable until the volume is past 12.