Cherry Bomb!

[G.G.]

Hi Folks,
Here's a little Cherry Bomb action for you. I've had this built up for a while now and finally got some decals on it. It's a great sounding circuit with a lot of range in the gain and tone controls. Unfortunately the distortion is kind of crackley on mid-gain settings. Putting in 2n3565's helped with that some, and sound nicer to my ear than BC109's. On Jon Patton's advice I put a Germanium MP38A in Q3 and that helped with the crackle quite a bit.  Sounds great on higher gain settings though, so I should probably just get used to using it that way.  Anyway, here are the pix:

[midwayfair]

Dude, that decal is awesome. It looks very 3D, like layered cardboard. Ever seen an old comic book/comic strip proof with the word bubbles taped on top of the pictures? Reminds me of that.

[spaceboss]

Nice job--beautiful pedal.

I like BC108s in mine. But as far as I can tell, I like them in everything.

This pedal has become a workhorse for me. A Klon type circuit further down the line, set to low/no gain helps smooth things out in an excellent way if you are dealing with a bright amp.

J

[G.G.]

J,
Do you use yours on mid-gain setting?  I might have to swap in some 108s, I have never tried them. I really like the overall sound of the pedal and don't want to give up on it if there's a way to tweak out the crackle (which I suspect there is).

[jkokura]

That finish is the bomb! People keep pushing the limits on things around here, I'm blown away like every other page.

Great job.

Jacob

[spaceboss]

J,
Do you use yours on mid-gain setting?  I might have to swap in some 108s, I have never tried them. I really like the overall sound of the pedal and don't want to give up on it if there's a way to tweak out the crackle (which I suspect there is).

Yeah, I run low to mid-gain most of the time, although I have the gain setting on the pedal maxed. I either roll back the volume or use a compressor set ahead of it to reduce the volume without using the compressor as a boost.

It could be that there's nothing special about the 108s and it's just the gain range of the ones I bought from small bear a ways back? but they seem to be lower gain with more body than 109s and the other suggested transistors. Also the tone controls on the CB seem to have a huge range. I keep mine with just a little bass (below 9 o'clock) and treble in the same range, with minor adjustments with different guitars.

There's quite a bit of boost on tap as well, so if you're using it as a boost, take care not to overload other pedals or amp in a displeasing way.

J

[G.G.]

I think transistor gain has a lot to do with it. I noticed a large reduction in crackle when I put in the lower gain Ge transistor so I might have to give the BC108s a shot. I'll try setting the controls differently as well and see what happens. thanks for the tips!

[midwayfair]

I think transistor gain has a lot to do with it. I noticed a large reduction in crackle when I put in the lower gain Ge transistor so I might have to give the BC108s a shot. I'll try setting the controls differently as well and see what happens. thanks for the tips!

You need "A" range for BC's to get to hfe 100 or so. BC108C aren't very different from a BC109C, both will have over 400 hfe.

Or try something like a humble old 3904.

Finding in-production transistors with average gains near 100 is utterly ridiculous.

[lincolnic]

I really like the decal work on this one. Like Jon said, very 3D!

[nzCdog]

Wow!  Great pedal, nice work