PCB of a Crunchbox or something similar?

[mcallisterra]

I have an MI Audio Crunchbox which I quite like, although it is absolutely terrible at responding to you rolling your guitar knob down - it just turns to indiscernible mud.

Can you knowledgeable folk suggest some similar pedals I could build that perhaps clean up a little better when rolling the volume down? Really looking for that kind of mid to high gain Marshally crunch.

FWIW I mainly use a '65 DRRI.

Thanks!

[wgc]

egghead, but I'd probably try any of the madbean dirt boards

[mremic01]

http://rapidriotboxes.blogspot.com/2009/02/crunchbox-v2-project.html

There's a PCB for the Crunch Box. Not sure what mods would help it clean up though, at least not without reducing the gain.

[Tremster]

Without having played it, mine arrived yesterday, but it sounds like the Superjudge could suit you:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=19353.0

[Muadzin]

I've always wondered what the obsession is with cleaning up dirt pedals by rolling back the guitar volume. If it were a single channel amp I could understand, but with dirt pedals if you want a clean sound, isn't the easiest solution just to switch it off?

[hoodoo]

As above, i use the crunchbox in a couple of pedal boards i run, great distortion sound. Why would you try to tame a good distortion sound when there are so many great overdrives you can build to get the sound you want, with the stomp of a switch. Guitar straight into amp, different story.

[mcallisterra]

I've always wondered what the obsession is with cleaning up dirt pedals by rolling back the guitar volume. If it were a single channel amp I could understand, but with dirt pedals if you want a clean sound, isn't the easiest solution just to switch it off?

In a live setting, I find it useful to roll the volume back in different parts of the same song, to take a bit of the 'scream' out of it. I'm not looking for an entirely clean sound when I roll it back, just to tame it slightly. Switching between pedals to achieve that is not only inconvenient (turning one off, turning the other on, not to mention taking extra pedals to gigs) it also would change the 'flavor' of drive unless you have two of the same, which again is redundant.

Some of the drive pedals I have do this wonderfully, but the Crunchbox sounds like garbage as soon as the volume knob on the guitar is backed off from 10.

[mcallisterra]

Without having played it, mine arrived yesterday, but it sounds like the Superjudge could suit you:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=19353.0

This looks great, thanks! I'd love to hear what you think about it when you get it all built.

[Dulouz]

Maybe the Sparkplug (Barber-based). I haven't tried that pedals specifically, but I've played a bunch of Barber pedals and they are all great and clean up really well with your volume knob.

[wgc]

I've always found it useful to take a little edge off with the volume too. 

One thing you might think about is changing your guitar's pot- depends on your pups, but if you have humbuckers and its not 500k, try that.  I'm also assuming you don't have any active electronics installed in it.

[brejna]

Maybe dyna red distortions.. I think it cleans pretty well with guitar volume pot..

[midwayfair]

If your issue is that the pedal gets dark when you roll it down, then there aren't too many overdrives that will solve that issue. The problem is that a lot of the high-end content comes from the upper harmonics that disappear when the gain goes down.

The absolute king of avoiding that problem is the Fuzz Face. Make one with a pregain control (and maybe bass control) and you can absolutely get any shade of distortion out of it you need to, while cleaning up (and actually getting brighter) perfectly with the guitar knob.

[mcallisterra]

If your issue is that the pedal gets dark when you roll it down, then there aren't too many overdrives that will solve that issue. The problem is that a lot of the high-end content comes from the upper harmonics that disappear when the gain goes down.

The absolute king of avoiding that problem is the Fuzz Face. Make one with a pregain control (and maybe bass control) and you can absolutely get any shade of distortion out of it you need to, while cleaning up (and actually getting brighter) perfectly with the guitar knob.

I have the Kinman-style treble bleed mod on all my single coil guitars, and all my other drives and distortions clean up just fine when rolling the volume back. For some reason the CB just turns to mush. I also have a Mangler which yes cleans up perfectly, but isn't 'middy' enough for me in a band setting.

[midwayfair]

If your issue is that the pedal gets dark when you roll it down, then there aren't too many overdrives that will solve that issue. The problem is that a lot of the high-end content comes from the upper harmonics that disappear when the gain goes down.

The absolute king of avoiding that problem is the Fuzz Face. Make one with a pregain control (and maybe bass control) and you can absolutely get any shade of distortion out of it you need to, while cleaning up (and actually getting brighter) perfectly with the guitar knob.

I have the Kinman-style treble bleed mod on all my single coil guitars, and all my other drives and distortions clean up just fine when rolling the volume back. For some reason the CB just turns to mush. I also have a Mangler which yes cleans up perfectly, but isn't 'middy' enough for me in a band setting.

Are you using the actual crunchbox, or your build of it? Are you running it right after your guitar or do you have a buffer in between?

[mcallisterra]

It's an actual Crunch box, and it's after one other true bypass pedal (BYOC Envelope Filter), but they aren't ever on together really.