Here’s a quick demo of the ITS8 overdrive. Here’s the basic progression:
1) clean
2) od gain @ min, level @ 3:00
3) gain @ 11:00
4) gain maxed
It doesn’t sound as good as it would with a real amp, but you get the idea.
03
Jul
Quick Overdrive Demo
02
Jul
Overdrive Tweaks
I recently built an overdrive pedal from a kit. I got the ITS8 from General Guitar Gadgets, which is a clone of the Ibanez Tube Screamer. I built it, and it sounded okay, but it was a little too smooth and midrangey for me.
The first thing that I did was to change the clipping diodes. I put in some diodes (1N4148) that basically made the signal distort a little more. I liked the sound, but the drawback was that the pedal no longer had any boost. I had to crank the volume control to get to unity gain. In an attempt to correct this I changed out a couple of resistors and a capacitor. That pretty much did the trick, except that I noticed that the overdrive was starting to get a little harsh.
The last thing I swapped was the IC. I took out the original JRC4558 chip (which is used in pretty much every tube screamer pedal) and put in an LM1458N, which is a slightly more obscure chip, but still pretty well-used in distortion pedals. The 1458 kinda smoothed out some of the harshness and gave me a more well-rounded overdrive sound. I need to give it a full workout through my amp, but I’m pretty happy with the way things sound for now.
I went to see Stone Temple Pilots on Saturday night and it was a pretty good show. I was a big fan of Core when it came out (I was in high school), and it was cool to hear those songs live.
Scott Weiland did okay. It sounds like a lifetime of smoking and drinking has taken its toll - not mention the heroin. He looks pretty terrible. I’d be surprised if he weighs more than 100 lbs. The first 5 or 6 songs were pretty rough, but it seems like he found his voice after that. They played from 9:30 - 11:00, so it was a pretty decent set. They played a pretty good mix of songs, mostly concentrating on Core and Purple.
The band sounded great. I think that while Scott was shooting up, Robert and Dean DeLeo (bass and guitar) and Eric Kretz (drums) must have been practicing. They were just solid. Dean took a lot of solos, and I was amazed at how full the sound was with just bass and drums - Robert is a monster.
From what I understand, Dean runs 2 amps - a cranked Marshall (4×12) and a clean AC-30 (2×12). The Vox helps the weirdo chords retain their clarity while the Marshall gives him that huge Marshall sound.
It wasn’t the best show I’ve ever been to, but I’m glad I went.
27
Jun
Kung Fu Panda
I took Jack to see Kung Fu Panda this week, and I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t really know anything about it, but I haven’t been all that crazy about the last few animated movies from Dreamworks. Anyway, I didn’t really know anything about the movie, except that it has Jack Black in it.
There is too much Jack Black in the world today. I liked him when he was just the guy from Tenacious D. His first couple of movies were okay, but he is everywhere now as the big name on the billboard. Well, the opening sequence of this movie was amazing. It was this ultra-stylized dream sequence where Jack Black is narrating his own character as this amazing kung fu master. It reminded me of the JB from the Tenacious D song “Tribute,” which is a really funny song by the way.
The rest of this movie is really funny, clever and well-acted. The action scenes - and there were a lot of them - were fantastic. It was like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with actual tigers, pandas, snakes, etc. I’m not going to do a full review here, but if you have kids, I would definitely recommend taking them to see Kung Fu Panda. Jack was almost literally rolling in his chair with laughter. The only questionable content in the movie was a couple of uses of the word “sucked.” As far as I’m concerned, that’s better than all of the donkey/ass jokes in the Shrek movies.
In other news, I’m really looking forward to seeing WALL-E. It looks amazing. I’m convinced that Pixar can do no wrong.
27
Jun
Trem demo
Here’s a little recording that I did of the tremolo. I start out dry, then add the trem. I play with the speed and depth settings. At about the 1:45 mark I turn on the delay and play with some textural stuff. Right now I have the trem after the delay. I tried it the other way, and I think I like it better this way.
Anyway, here’s the clip. Feel free to post your thoughts, critiques, etc. This recording was done in Garageband with the software amp sim - not my Stulce. I don’t have a recording interface yet.
26
Jun
The trem is working
I finally got the capacitors that I needed to finish building my tremolo, and I got it finished up last night, er, this morning. I got everything wired up, so I plugged it in and saw that the LED was pulsing in tempo, which is always a good sign. It worked in bypass, so I stepped on the switch and it sounded exactly the same - no tremolo.
I checked my wiring and everything was fine, so I checked my solder joints on the PCB. I touched every bit of solder to make sure that solder was flowing where it’s supposed to and plugged everything back in. Voila - the tremolo works. Apparently, I had a cold solder joint somewhere.
Anyway, it sounds really good. I need to figure out some settings, because I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to use it. I’m thinking that I probably won’t for for real deep choppy trem, but go for kinda spacey shallow trem for a more textured sound. I’ll try to post some clips in the next day or two.
24
Jun
Mikey’s TV habits
Mikey has been playing with the remote control lately, so you never know what channel the tv is going to be on when you turn it on. This morning it was on the News from the Middle East channel or something. I had no idea that we had that channel. I would watch it all the time.
He also pushes enough random buttons that he manages to set the DVR to record. It’s usually something totally off the wall - like last month when he set it to record Flavor of Love with Flava Flav.
21
Jun
Tremolo roadblock
I have reached a stopping point with my tremolo build. I received the rest of the parts that I ordered yesterday, so after the kids went to bed I got to work populating the board. I put the resistors in, the trimpot, the transistors, the electrolytic capacitors, then the regular capacitors. By the way, my soldering technique is getting much better. I was almost done when I realized that I was out of components. The schematic calls for 3 .68µF capacitors and I only had one. I went back and checked my order sheet, and I only ordered one. Ugh. I checked at Radio Shack this afternoon, and they didn’t have the right value - of course.
Oh well, this build was already going to take longer than I thought because Small Bear Electronics didn’t send the pots that I ordered. In the last shipment I got from them, they didn’t send the sockets and knobs that I ordered. Two orders in row with items missing. I could understand if I ordered like 100 knobs and they sent 98 or something, but they just totally skipped the item altogether.
I think I’m done with Small Bear. In the future, I’m doing all my orders through Mouser or Pedal Parts Plus unless Small Bear is the only place to find what I need.
19
Jun
More Wah Mods
I just did a couple of little tweaks to my wah pedal that really fattened things up.
Vocal Mod - I replaced the stock 33k resistor with a 68k. I’m not sure exactly what this does, but it made the “wah” sound a little more vocal.
Sweep Range - This was the big one. I replaced the .01µF capacitor with .022µF. If I understand it correctly the larger value capacitor allows more bass into the circuit, making the output fatter and less nasal.
I almost screwed up my wah doing the sweep range mod. When I desoldered the old capacitor and pulled it out, I think I pulled off one of the solder pads. This left nothing on the PCB for the solder to stick to. I ended up following the trace and soldering the leg of the capacitor to the next component in the circuit. I wasn’t sure that it was going to work, but I fired it up and it sounded great.
There are a few more little tweaks that I may try, but I think I’m pretty much done with it for the time being.
I got a used crybaby wah a couple of weeks ago, and I noticed right away that it colored my tone even when it was not switched on. Mechanical true bypass uses a DPDT (double pole double throw) or 3PDT (triple pole double throw) switch to ensure that the original signal is unaltered unless the effect is engaged.
When I ordered the parts for my tremolo, I picked up a new switch from Small Bear Electronics. Part of the order showed up yesterday did this mod last night. It was a little more involved than I anticipated, but it wasn’t too hard. I had to cut a trace on the PCB and resolder all the connections to the switch.
I’m pretty sure that it sounds better in bypass mode now. It’s hard to tell without a true A-B comparison, but it seems like the tone was a lot darker and muddier before. The actual tone of the wah is still pretty harsh, so I need to look into doing some of those other mods. If I have the right resistor/capacitor values I’ll probably do some of the mods pretty soon. I’ll probably to the vocal mod and the sweep range mod to make it a little less trebly and more smooth.
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