Modded Boneyard

[shawnee]

I FINALLY finished my Boneyard build. I have tweaked this thing for months and am extremely happy with it.



I think this pedal sounds better at a higher voltage than +/-9v. I tried everything up to +/-18v and ended up building my own power supply on perf using a TC1044 and 15v regulators. For some reason under load, I'm getting 14.5V and -13.5v for a 28v differential. It is less mushy when you raise the voltage from +/-9v and I highly recommend using +/12v. If you just build this pedal as normal and use the TC1044 for the charge pump you can input 12v with no problem to get the +/-12v that you need. More headroom, a little quieter, and less mush. That being said, if you get too high on the voltage, it won't "sing" as much in high gain mode. It's all preference but I was looking for a fairly low (AC/DC)gain for the crunch channel and a medium/high (JCM800) on the other channel. The lower gain you can use, the more amp like it sounds. The Crunch maxed out is about the same as the Hi-gain channel half way. I even thought about using a 25KB pot for the Crunch pot but ended up with the 50KB. I used a 250KA for the Hi-gain and got a better sweep than with the 250KB. This thing will sing but it's not over the top like the Chunk Chunk. Since I have both, I didn't need this one to be super hot.

I added Treble Mid and Bass which turned out pretty cool. I worked with the Marshall circuit on the Duncan Tone Calculator and breadboarded for months to get what I thought was the best compromise between the three controls. I removed the tone pot and soldered a 2K resistor in for a baseline (I like a little darker tone but you could use anything around 2.5K since it uses a 5K pot). The tone stack reduces gain quite a bit which worked in my favor. I used the standard 47ohm, 2.2uF combo for R5/C5 but I really liked 100ohm,1uF on the crunch channel but the high gain didn't sing enough. Without the tone stack I would use the 100ohm/1uF for sure if you want it to sound more amp like.
The tone stack I decided on is: 3.6K slope resistor, Treble 10KA/33n, Mid 2.5KA/330n, Bass 50KA/220n. I also changed the VOL to a 25KA pot. To connect, disconnect the wire going to lug 3 of the volume pot and put it where the slope resistor and treble cap connect. Now connect the wire from the treble wiper to lug 3 of the volume pot. I can get about a 13db swing on the treble, almost 6 db on the mids, and about 8db on the bass control. Not too bad considering the baseline is pretty good already.

I used shielded wire for the input and output from the jacks and to the switch. This thing is amazingly quiet.

I tried all kinds of other things but I don't think it improved the sound. I tried lots of other clippers but kept coming back to three red led's. I tried a cap across the hi-gain pot to reduce bass but I didn't like the way it sounded no matter what value I used. I though about push pull pots and all kinds of other switching options but the circuit is pretty awesome stock. The higher voltage and TMB changes made it the best Marshall style pedal that I have ever heard. I have a Splawn Quickrod (modded Marshall type 100 watt head) and I A/B'ed this pedal against it. It was honestly hard to tell which was which. I am hoping to get some sound clips done with a friend of mine soon (I don't have a way to record).

As far as looks, it's a Hammond 1590XX box which is prepainted. It's the same size as a 1790NS except it's not quite as tall. I haven't done any graphics yet but I have an idea for labels that should be really cool. I knew from the start that I wanted it to look like a Marshall amp so it will look a lot like the Plexi Legacy that K-Rock built (why mess with perfection)? The controls are Vol-Treble-Mid-Bass-Hi gain-Crunch. The little black knob is the boost volume. All blue LED's. They are really bright but I took the picture at an angle to keep them from blurring the picture.

Now to the Thank You's:
Brian! You rock man. This is the best forum with the best projects hands down.
All of you who have answered my questions and offered encouragement.
ODwan for his mod ideas.
Oldhousescott- There is no way that I could have done this to the level that I wanted to without his help. He is just an awesome guy and spent a lot of time helping me with this project. Thank you thank you thank you!

[snz728]

looks good
I love the boneyard, probably current favorite madbean build
How did you mod it?  do tell the details 

[nzCdog]

Man... great job!  Love those Marshall knobs.
Bet it sounds great, lets have a demo!

[shawnee]

I hope to get some sound clips done soon. The guy that I hope will do them is coming by today so we'll see if he'll hook us up.

Man after I re-read my post I laughed at the thank you part. I meant every word of it but it sounds like I was giving an acceptance speach after winning a grammy or something. 

[slimtriggers]

   Wow!  You've really taken this thing to another level.  Can't wait to hear the clips!

[TNblueshawk]

Dang. Gorgeous man. Love everything about it. Way to stick with it and getting it the way you wanted.

[Haberdasher]

awesome shawnee. you must have a lot of patience.

[shawnee]

Thanks a lot guys. I am still pretty excited about this build. I have been searching for this tone in pedal for a long time. I have tried a LOT of boutique pedals before I strated building and never found THE sound. When I heard the Pete Thorn demo of the Plexitone on youtube I knew that this could be the one. I got the madbean pcb and started this at least six months ago. I built it stock and loved it but I knew that I had found a circuit worth the time and effort to experiment with until I had exhausted all of the tonal posibilities that I could come up with. I learned so much with this pedal (with a lot of help and a lot of trial and error). I built over 20 other circuits while I was tweaking this one but none of them had my interst like this. I am probably gong to build a couple of more (a two switch unit with no boost, and a single channel single switch unit for a smaller pedal board). I just can't imagine a better sounding Marshall type pedal is out there anywhere. That being said, if you are happy with the tone control on the pedal, then this one won't sound any better if you run it at +/-12v. I just like the TMB to make slight changes (mostly to the mids). Mine is a little lower gain than the standard boneyard and that may not be to everyone's liking.

This pedal really shines on a clean Marshall type amp. (I think it would absolutely rock an 18 watt Marshall). One thing that would be cool would be to have a small EQ circuit to shift the mids from a Fender (400hz scooped mid) to a Marshall like curve (700hz push) for use on a fender clean amp. I know there is TMB on mine but without a parametric, you can't quite get the upper mids that you can from the Marshall type clean. I'm being VERY picky here because it does sound great on a fender, just not quite as good as on the Marshall. I tried the Tonemender EQ but didn't love it. If a mid shift could be incorporated into the pedal via a small toggle, then you could go from fender clean to this Marshall type crunch and have it all. Maybe that's the next step in the evolution of this pedal..........

Well my recording dreams were dashed today. My friend is having problems with his USB interface to his recording computer and can't record now without another interface. Looks like no clips for now. 

[matticus]

Thanks a lot guys. I am still pretty excited about this build. I have been searching for this tone in pedal for a long time. I have tried a LOT of boutique pedals before I strated building and never found THE sound. When I heard the Pete Thorn demo of the Plexitone on youtube I knew that this could be the one. I got the madbean pcb and started this at least six months ago. I built it stock and loved it but I knew that I had found a circuit worth the time and effort to experiment with until I had exhausted all of the tonal posibilities that I could come up with. I learned so much with this pedal (with a lot of help and a lot of trial and error). I built over 20 other circuits while I was tweaking this one but none of them had my interst like this. I am probably gong to build a couple of more (a two switch unit with no boost, and a single channel single switch unit for a smaller pedal board). I just can't imagine a better sounding Marshall type pedal is out there anywhere. That being said, if you are happy with the tone control on the pedal, then this one won't sound any better if you run it at +/-12v. I just like the TMB to make slight changes (mostly to the mids). Mine is a little lower gain than the standard boneyard and that may not be to everyone's liking.

This pedal really shines on a clean Marshall type amp. (I think it would absolutely rock an 18 watt Marshall). One thing that would be cool would be to have a small EQ circuit to shift the mids from a Fender (400hz scooped mid) to a Marshall like curve (700hz push) for use on a fender clean amp. I know there is TMB on mine but without a parametric, you can't quite get the upper mids that you can from the Marshall type clean. I'm being VERY picky here because it does sound great on a fender, just not quite as good as on the Marshall. I tried the Tonemender EQ but didn't love it. If a mid shift could be incorporated into the pedal via a small toggle, then you could go from fender clean to this Marshall type crunch and have it all. Maybe that's the next step in the evolution of this pedal..........

Well my recording dreams were dashed today. My friend is having problems with his USB interface to his recording computer and can't record now without another interface. Looks like no clips for now. 

Have you made any further modifications since late last year?

And were you ever able to make any recordings of this?

I know it's an old thread and all but I think these mods sound promising.

[shawnee]

Hello matticus,
  I really haven't done much more with it. I used a 9.1v zener in the home made power supply for voltage input limiting so it won't fry the charge pump if someone plugs in more than 9v into it. I also used sockets for the voltage regulators so it can run at different voltages (+/- 9, 12, 15, 18). That way you can pick the amount of headroom you want. If you get too much voltage, it almost doesn't want to sustain as much because I have mine setup for the lowest gain I can accept for noise purposes.

Things I have thought about are: a separate boost pcb would allow you to use a switch to change the order: boost into boneyard or boneyard into boost depending on if you wanted more drive or more volume when the boost is on. I also thought about using a rotary switch for a ton of different clipping diode settings but the 3 red LED's just sounds so right on this one. The only thing I NEED to fix is the bass increase that happens when you go from low to high gain. The extra gain really can make the bass overwhelming depending on the bass settings of the amp and the pedal. Other than that I can't see much else that can be done to make it better.

I still want to do some clips but don't have a way to do them rigfht now. If I make a trip to Austin I can get with some buddies who are studio rats and try to get something laid down.

[gefi]

hello
you could put a diagram of the modified tonestack ?