Boost my Ultrastoner?

[AntKnee]

Ive never been a big fuzz user, but recently built an Ultrastoner (awesome circuit, btw), and I want it on my board. The problem is my usual tone uses boosts (SHO) and 18v overdrives (Kingslayer, RAH) and they put out a hot signal. Even at the front of the chainwher it sounds best, I need a way to get it up to the same level as my overdrive tone so I dont have to turn up my amp when I want to use the fuzz. Thats just not an option live. Since boosts dont sound right before or after in the chain, how can I fix this?

[alanp]

Still have to build my US board from Rej, but I've done a ?Lady, and also a Ultrastoner in my multi build. No problems getting unity volume with my builds (if anything, they get too damn loud sometimes.)

The canonical place to put fuzz in the chain is at the start.

Or in your Meatball's FX Loop

[juansolo]

Impressive, possibly the first time I've heard of the US lacking in gain.

If it's a Mk2, the simplest way is to use the LED clippers. There'll be a marked increase in vol with those.

[Muadzin]

If you use linear for volume, which works best in my experience for Muffs, unity gain should be at noon. What experience has also taught me is that when a Muff does not have enough gain there's usually a problem in the circuit, as I have not met many dirtboxes that can outgain a Muff. Certainly not any OD, which usually sounds puny next to a Muff. The only dirtbox that comes to mind is the Crunchbox.

[playpunk]

Check your caps. Also, a kingslayer into a muff is sweet


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[raulduke]

Juan's suggestion of using LED clipping diodes is a quick and easy way to get more volume. I prefer LED clippers in my Muff builds.

I'm not so sure that capacitor selection will have a dramatic effect on output volume (other than altering bass/treble frequencies depending on location).

Most Muff builds will always have at bare minimum a bit of boost on the output volume available.

Have you checked the US pedal in isolation just with the amp to check it can go above unity volume?

[RobA]

You can increase the output boost level of the Muff circuit by changing the resistors in the final amplifier stage. These are R22 and R23 in the Mudbunny schematic. You also need to alter the bias resisters if you go very far from the values that are currently there for R22 and R23. The various other Muff circuits can give you some hints as to what will work. You could actually push for more boost than even any of the normal circuits have if you want to. You could move to 18V and really put some gain out of the final stage.

The Muff's do usually have quite a bit of gain though. I've got one where I use Ge diodes and it still has well past unity on the output and I use pretty hot pickups. So, check that everything is working as it should be before you look into altering the circuit.
 

[AntKnee]

The problem is not with gain or volume in the US. It is with matching its level with the high output level of my other pedals. I run into a SHO, then into a Kingslayer, which gives a high combined output signal (and sounds awesome). The US sounds best (to me) alone, but can't get close to the output of those two pedals combined. So, I'm wondering how to get the level of the US up to match the others, not to unity with my guitar signal. I use either my SHO/KS tone, or my US tone, but need the US tone boosted. The problem there is the US doesn't sound as good (to me) with a boost.
Does that make sense?
Is there a super transparent boost that might work with it?

[juansolo]

SHO after US, use it for boost.

[AntKnee]

Thanks, I'll try it.
Juan, Alan, Rej, Cleg, and everyone else, awesome pedal btw!

[raulduke]

Is there a super transparent boost that might work with it?

Try Madbean Bacon Bits. It's an opamp booster with +/-9V supply rails. Will be transparent ,clean, and give oodles of volume.

Plus you'll be putting a few $ in our kind hosts pocket 

[AntKnee]

Is there a super transparent boost that might work with it?

Try Madbean Bacon Bits. It's an opamp booster with +/-9V supply rails. Will be transparent ,clean, and give oodles of volume.

Plus you'll be putting a few $ in our kind hosts pocket 

Our host gets plenty of my $, believe me!
I'll try the bacon bits out. I may also just build another vero SHO to put at the end of my chain, too. I tried a Fatpants after the US, but didn't like it.
I think I feel a dual box coming on...

[RobA]

The problem is not with gain or volume in the US. It is with matching its level with the high output level of my other pedals. I run into a SHO, then into a Kingslayer, which gives a high combined output signal (and sounds awesome). The US sounds best (to me) alone, but can't get close to the output of those two pedals combined. So, I'm wondering how to get the level of the US up to match the others, not to unity with my guitar signal. I use either my SHO/KS tone, or my US tone, but need the US tone boosted. The problem there is the US doesn't sound as good (to me) with a boost.
Does that make sense?
Is there a super transparent boost that might work with it?

Try modding the output amplifier resisters. The gain of the amp is pretty much given by -R_c/R_e. If you look at the charts with various Muff parts list, you'll see that there are other variants that have higher output gain. You can use one of these as a starting point. If that still doesn't get you enough volume, you can change the output to an even higher gain. The bias resistors on the base may also need to be changed. Look at the matching set in the parts list for the one you use.

You could mod the thing to go off of 18V too. The final stage could then be made to have a ton of gain with no added distortion.

[AntKnee]

You could mod the thing to go off of 18V too. The final stage could then be made to have a ton of gain with no added distortion.

I would be interested in doing this, but wouldn't know how to go about doing it.
I'll try putting my SHO after it and see what happens. If that works out, it will be simpler (not easier) for to just throw a SHO into a 1590BB with a Stoner.
Anyone used a Beauty Boost? I have one of those populated, but unused. I don't know how it sounds yet.

[RobA]

You could mod the thing to go off of 18V too. The final stage could then be made to have a ton of gain with no added distortion.

I would be interested in doing this, but wouldn't know how to go about doing it.
...

It wouldn't take much to do it. If the caps you have in there are rated at 25V or more, they'll all be OK. If you had any 16V caps in, especially in the power section, they'd need to be changed.

If the circuit you are using has a power filtering resistor in it, you need to make sure that it can handle the power across it, but the current draw is small enough that it shouldn't be a problem with any of the circuits I've seen.

The first gain stage is probably going to be a bit cleaner, but that shouldn't really be a problem. The middle two clipping stages aren't going to need any changes really since everything there is pretty much limited by the diodes. If you've got a mod in place to toggle out any of the diode sets, then it could get cleaner and louder here because the clipping from the transistor will be reduced.

The only real modification needed is in the output amplifier, and even here it'll work without any mods. But, you would want to mod this section because the whole point would be to allow this section to have more clean gain. The tone control section attenuates the volume quite a bit, so the final amplifier is where you get most of the volume. At 18V, you can get a bunch of gain out of this amplifier. The only changes needed are in the resistor values. What you want to use depends on how much gain you need. It isn't hard to figure out though.

I just put 18V on a couple of my Big Muff builds. It works fine. One of them has settings that can remove both sets of clipping diodes. This gets loud at 18V! I've been wanting to test a tone control mod, so I might have a go at putting this on the breadboard and take a look at what happens with the 18V mod while I'm at it. I'll let you know if I get a chance to do it any time soon.