I'm seeking a magical pedal that may not exist. I need help.

[TexasTwang]

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. 

[midwayfair]

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.

[TexasTwang]

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:)

[midwayfair]

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:)

I recommend starting with a breadboard. You can make a very small investment in a handful of parts from Tayda, and you'll be able to play with stuff to figure out, "Hey, will this work?" From there, you can make a decision if you want to pick up the soldering iron or have someone else here build you what you worked on.

This looks scary, but I promise it's not.

Here's some required reading on breadboarding:
https://www.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/Breadboarding/BreadboardIntro.htm

And some required reading on reading schematics:
http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/SchematicToReality/

The LPB-1 and the Rangemaster are actually somewhat similar. We're going to breadboard one or both. And then we're going to make them do something different.

Here's what I'd suggest snagging from Tayda (or another supplier) as far as parts:
-The breadboard ($4)
-Some wire (24 gauge stranded, prebonded is about right, or get some 22 gauge solid just for breadboarding)
-Transistors: 2N2222A (that one's low gain) and 2N3904 (that one's a little higher gain) and 2N5088 (that one's higher gain. These are all NPN transistors.
-Capacitors: in addition to the stock values for the Rangemaster, also get a couple 22nF (=0.022uF), 47nF (= 0.047uF), 100nF (= 0.1uF), and 1uF capacitors from the box caps or "greenies" (the polyester mylar film capactiors).
-Resistors: In addition to the stock values for the rangemaster and LPB-1, also get: 1M, 470K, 100K, 10K, and 390R ("R", NOT K!!!!) resistors. Also get: a 1M potentiometer, a 500K potentiometer, a 50K potentiometer, a 100K potentiometer, and a 10K REVERSE LOG potentiometer. (You have a couple options here. Tayda has some with pins and some with solder lugs. Obviously, if you're avoiding soldering, you need a way to attach the wires to the ones with solder lugs. But the ones with pins might mean running a lot of wire all over the breadboard to connect them properly.) The potentiometers will be used to replace the fixed resistors in the circuit. This is instead of getting a huge number of fixed resistors and having a pile to sort through.

Somethings you might consider also getting:
-A digital multimeter. These are useful for things other than building pedals if you don't have one. Or you might know someone you can borrow one from. It's a vital tool for debugging. It can also measure the resistance of the potentiometers when you dial in the sound you're looking for.
-A handful of alligator clips, so you don't have to solder things.
-An audio probe. Actually, you're going to make this from an old patch cable. Remove one end. The part connected to the sleeve is your ground (common).

You should be able to get everything on this list for under $20, except the meter. And then you'll still have the parts left over to build your pedal. And maybe a second one.

[TexasTwang]

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? 

[midwayfair]

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?

[TexasTwang]

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.

[midwayfair]

Couple attempts. This sounds thicker and bassier in person (basically, it's the most bass I was able to get before the transistor went into cutoff), but I can't really record very loud into my camera or it'll overdrive the camera's microphone, so there's some interference from the guitar in the room. It also sounds a little different depending on which channel I'm on. I recorded it into the blackface channel in the first example and the tweed channel in the second. It sounds closer to the soundcard on the blackface side.

Less distortion, more output, "lower" gain with a slight gate (not switched in this video):

This one has the decay characteristics of the soundcard, but it's not quite as fuzzy.

More distortion (different clipping diodes), with high pass on/off comparison, and gain switched between lower with a slight gate and high gain with no gate:

This one's fuzzier like your recording, but there's a little more sustain. The low gain + gate setting with the severe high cut sounds the closest to me.

Without getting too specific, it's intentionally weird biasing followed by a hard clipping limiter + switch or knob-controlled high cut in parallel with a mild octave. The octave is more noticeable with the diodes in clip 2. The input is buffered, so I didn't bother with the severe loading I was talking about above and this lets you stack it with a boost (it'll freak out and go into cutoff if you hit it hard enough and a bunch of other weirdness).

A slightly more severe treble cut post distortion should sound a little chunkier like in the second song on your set. This is probably as close as you can get without exploring circuits that I really honestly don't feel like breadboarding (like something using just the audio side of a PT2399). Also, I didn't bother using op amps, but an op amp could definitely get really trashy distortion and might be better suited for this task overall. Not my forte, though. I'm a transistor dude.

[TexasTwang]

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.   

[TexasTwang]

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

   

[kothoma]

basic audio futureman

Supposedly based on the Colorsound Overdriver, see Madbean CherryBomb...

[Cortexturizer]

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?

[TexasTwang]

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. 

[Cortexturizer]

no, don't take it the wrong way.
I hope you will make some great music with the future man, that's all this is about in the end right...cheers

[TexasTwang]

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....