Messing with a Boneyard....

[Willybomb]

Gudday all.

Just been playing around the Boneyard on vero.  It's a great drive, but I've always wanted a bit more *something* out of it so I've been experimenting with the clipping LEDs and adding some hard clippers to ground.  Basically, I'm mixing up features that I've seen around the place, like the 2 opposing LEDs in the Superjudge, and the hard clippers in the Crunchbox and the BE-OD (to a lesser degree).  I also noticed that the Valvestate amps (which I've always been a fan of) have clippers to ground as well as LEDs in the feedback loop.

The ultimate goal is to have a lower gain channel that is (here come the buzzwords) more open with a cleanish crunch edge (lol), and a high gain channel that's more saturated with a harder edge than the regular Boneyard (I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to box a Superjudge in with a Crunchbox and switch between the two).

SOOOoo, the idea is something like OD1 and 2 with high/low gain switching on each.  Currently I have diode switching between one symmetrical pair of LEDs and the stock arrangement of 4 found in the Boneyard, and I'm messing with switching in clippers to ground for one of the OD channels.

Question 1:  Why is 2 LEDs quieter and more saturated than the stock 4?  I'm trying to get my head around this but failing miserably.  It seems counter-intuitive to me but, it is what it is.

I'm messing around with both the placement and types of the clippers to ground.  A pair of 1n4148 sucked most of the volume out of the pedal, so I messed with placing it after the boost, only having the clippers connected when the boost (at a fixed value) is on.  It worked, but it isn't that nice sounding, so I'm thinking a resistor in line with those might tame a bit of the dirt.  The other downside of placing it after the boost meant that the gain control now had very little effect on the amount of dirt present - it was pretty much flat out the whole time, which makes sense as it's also after the volume.  I've also tried placing them after R6, which was a bit different again.

LEDs to ground don't have anywhere near as much volume loss (higher forward voltage, meaning less goes to ground, yeah), and much less effect on the sound overall.

Question 2:  Where would you put clippers to ground, and what diodes would you use (lol, how long is a piece of string)?

Ideas?  Suggestions?

[alanp]

Try 1N4001 clippers, and also some germs. (I like Russian germanium diodes, the D9D's sound awesome.) These work well in the Pharoah.