Parallel distortion?

[neiloler]

Hey all,

I've been thinking about running OD/distortion/fuzz circuits in parallel (yes, after looking at the Empress Multidrive). Any one ever try any thing like this? Have you seen any projects for it?

I'm just wondering if I'm going to have to design a board from scratch or find a box big enough to fit a few PCBs into it. I was hoping to keep the size (relatively) small.

[jkokura]

I think Bengt has some projects around here, particularly the Blue Monster, which is a multi band distortion device. Similar in idea.

Otherwise, a splitter and a mixer would do you fine. Just send the same signal through each effect, and mix them at the end.

Jacob

[neiloler]

Cool. That's what I was thinking, in the way of buffered splitting and mixing, just figured if someone had a project and board already done why reinvent the wheel?

Thanks!

[seedlings]

Might have to be a little careful with phase, and have the same number of inverting stages for each parallel effect.  Or, it might add to the texture.  Never know until its on the breadboard.

CHAD

[stecykmi]

the size of the pcb will likely be a function of how many channels you want mixed and how complex each distortion is. simple fuzz circuits are quite small, but something like the chunk chunk (dr boogie) is huge. a circuit like that alone would probably have more components than the splitter/mixer sections.

bengt's project is really cool, but i imagine it took him a lot of work to put it in a "BB" sized box. if you used individual pcbs for each distortion, you'd probably be looking at a "DD" box at least.

another option might be to "outsource" the distortion; have a box full jacks that can send your signal out to other effects then mix them back together. i'm not explaining it well, but basically just a splitter/mixer for outboard effects. space-wise, its certainly much larger (you need at least 2 more effects to plug in otherwise there is no point), but also much more flexible.

[neiloler]

I thought about the external mixing as well, the size involved was the reason I'm staying away. I was thinking of making one external distortion path.

[jkokura]

The JMK Panner project wouldn't be hard to make work for a project like this. I'll get working on an alternative version that I can start working on. If it works well, we're still several months from it being released, but I can get a basic plan on getting this out if it works well.

Jacob

[culturejam]

Malekko did their own take on the Wolftone Sloika, which is all kinds of parallel distortion:
http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21983

[jkokura]

K, I got into this idea this evening. Here's what I came up with.

Basically, you'd have a Bypass switch, which goes into the bottom of the PCB (LIGO is LED, In, Gnd, Out) Then, it hits a splitter using a Dual Op Amp. Each output heads to it's respective output (S1/S2 is Send 1 and Send 2), which you would route to each effect you want. Each effect comes back to the PCB (R1/R2 is Return 1 and Return 2), before being blended via the same setup as the Panner, then buffered by a single op amp and then back out the bottom of the PCB.

So, in essence, you could build this as a stand alone, which would utitlize 6 1/4" jacks (in, send 1, send 2, return 2, return 1, out) or you could build it into a larger box with effects built right in.

The pot would work so that straight up is an even split of both effects, and either full on or full off would be one or the other of the effects in the loops.

So, this is true parallel blending of two effects, not like the panner which is designed to preserve your dry signal along one half of the circuit, and then blend whatever you have in the loop.

Jacob

[neiloler]

I'm thinking that form factor could be a huge benefit to this. I'm going to take a look at a simple buffer mixer for 4 channels. Let's keep our work paralleled.

[neiloler]

Thanks for the link and knowledge, I'll check this out right away too.

Malekko did their own take on the Wolftone Sloika, which is all kinds of parallel distortion:
http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21983

[pedalman]

Oohhhhh !  Twirls moustache with a scandalous grin. The wheels are turning now

[neiloler]

I've been trying to take a shot at making the RAT a bit more long and rectangular, and I think, in the end, that using the Runt board would be the best way to go for the Rat.

I was thinking about doing a Rat, a Big Muff (or perhaps a big muff lite with one less gain stage), and a Dirty Little Secret. Or perhaps I should go with a more simple fuzz face? And have one more external channel to mix in something else. Thoughts? I don't want to have similar distortions, or it'll get muddled. Simply using some simple switching on the high pass/low pass filter on the input of each circuit could be enough to differentiate as well...

[Vallhagen]

I think Bengt has some projects around here, particularly the Blue Monster, which is a multi band distortion device. Similar in idea.

I saw my name:)

neiloler; If you want, you can actually use the Blüe Monster circuit, and just skip (jumper) IC1 and its related components (which take care of the filtering). Take a look at the schematic, you see what i mean. On the other hand, i think the box will be both smarter and better if you just keep the filtering;)

Cheers