serendipity mod: egodriver meets ts9

[B_of_H]

ive been using an egodriver style circuit and ts clone for years and I was looking to replace the ts with something that stacks better with the egodriver and is a little less compressed and 'pedal sounding' (more amp like).  I tried a bunch of things but this is by far the best i've come up with and seems to be a good middle ground between these two designs and the serendipity pcb is perfect for it.  This is a work in progress and i'm still tweaking it but i'm really happy with these values.

mods:
C1: 27n (instead of 470n)
C2: 1n
C5: 1u tantalum (+ on the C6 side)
C4: 2n7 on mine but 3n3 or 2n2 both sound fine but just change where you dial the tone knob perhaps

jumper from anode of D1 to cathode of D2, D3 is 1n34a or 1n270

IC: tl082 (at 18v) perhaps tlo72 or bb2604 at 9v

Voice: about 7k (less for more gain and mids or more resistance for deeper bass, flatter mids)

it's not as nasally as a ts but it's got a little more midrange than an egodriver perhaps depending on where you set the voice control (with it at 7k it's still forward in the mids but more subtle than my ts's).  I think you could bump up C3 to 150n and jumper the voice for a more tube screamer like mid range response as well without losing any bass but i haven't tried it yet  (maybe i'm looking at it backwards?). at 100n for C3 the voice control cuts bass above about 6.6k or so...maybe i'll try 68n or 82n for c3 next.  i tend to like my dirt pedals to be a little bassy so it might be too much for some. 

this thing stacks amazingly well with the egodriver..way better than two egodriver's or anything i've tried.  It's setup for lower gain sounds though, anything above about 1:00 is going to get a little fizzy.   

[B_of_H]

I made a few changes to this circuit prior to a gig last night.

c1: 33n
c2: 820p
c4: 3n3

added a germanium diode from anode of d1 to cathode of d2

This gave me a little more compression and break up at lower gain and darkened it up a bit allowing me to run the tone at 3:00.  I found that when stacked with the egodriver it made the ego too dark and when i used the ego by itself it was too bright after I adjusted it to be stacked.  This solved the problem mostly. 

Sounded great onstage, I set up a recorder in the audience and we'll see how it came out later.  If it's listenable i'll post some clips. 

[jkokura]

I think on my Serendipity I'm going to try some experiments too. I might breadboard it actually, now that I think about it... I gotta get on that breadboarding tutorial...

Jacob

[B_of_H]

update:

I changed the voice to 5.6k which brought out the mids a bit more, I think 7k was a little too bassy and it didn't have enough mids.  I'm gigging it again tonight so I'll see how it performs. 

[k.rock!]

Hey man, did you record any video or soundclip after making these mods? I'd be very interested to hear how your findings sound like Thanks!

-Kaleb

[B_of_H]

Hey man, did you record any video or soundclip after making these mods? I'd be very interested to hear how your findings sound like Thanks!

-Kaleb

you know...i've actually pulled this circuit from my pedalboard and i'm testing out the t-bagger instead.  I never really recorded anything with it either. 

i like it better than the t-bagger so far but it had a huge pop no matter how I wired the switch while the t-bagger is pretty silent.  To me though the circuit itself sounds like a cross between the ocd and a ts style pedal. 

[josetxu]

What do you mean when you say that change the voice to about 7k's? that put the pot at a point that if you measure it it reads about 7k or you change it to a fixed resistor?

I would like to try that mods in my serendipity