The Watering Hole

Should be ready in time to give it a whirl at my jam on saturday.

The circuit stuffed.

Clipping switch. I may or may not use this... there are already two other switches on the Paisley Drive, so this is only going in if I have space.

Provides three clipping options: Germanium in the low position, silicon diodes in the middle position (stock Paisley clipping), and infrared LED in the high position. A good range of crunch variation, without massive volume differences.

another nice project.  Supposed to be a really good pedal.

And... done.  Got the circuit finished and wired today.  Tried the fit in my testbed and was able to get all three switches and knobs in.  Wiring was hairy but it's not terrible for the amount of controls... gain, volume, and tone knobs, a presence switch, a three-position mids switch, and a three position clipping switch.  Since I made this for someone else, I also included a battery connector.  

I finished up pretty late, so all I've done so far is test voltages on the opamp pins, test voltages on the JFET pins, then install the JFETs and opamp and retest. So far every number is right, which would make this only the second time I've assembled a pedal on veroboard and had it work perfectly first thing (and wouldn't ya know it, the first time was a Wampler pedal too).

Tomorrow I drill the enclosure, stuff the board in, and then test it out at the jam. No LED yet... haven't decided on the color.

And BTW, here's a second shot of the case so you can all see that it is actually transparent.  I angled it into the light this time. You can also see the shiny flecks in the powder coat...

Good job! Let us know how it sounds.

Assembled. It sounds really nice.  What can you say about a tubescreamer... I'll outline what I see as the differences.  Wampler's major innovation on this is the mid switch. In the middle it sounds somewhat like a standard ts808. In the top position it's got a nice upper mid boost that is like "accentuated ts."  In the bottom position it is fatter and more killer.  It adds a thick mid boost that's lower voiced than a normal tubescreamer, and reduces the high end some. This position actually sounds like something other than a ts808.  The tone knob add brightness and sounds pretty good. With the presence switch up it adds highs at somewhere around 6k+... It's like a sparkle switch.  My gain switch sounds good but isn't working quite right yet. The middle position (stock) sounds very much like any ts gain you've heard. The top is infrared LED, and is louder, less compressed, and a little more aggressive on the gain.  The bottom setting isn't working right... it should be more gainy and quieter but instead it's just quieter.  I'm going to replace the Germanium diodes I used with something else, either different Ge or some schottkys.  Clips when I get a chance.  

This one is done, and in the mail to forum member ptelite...

I ended up making a couple of changes.  The tone knob is specced as a 25k reverse audio, which I have never seen for sale anywhere.  First I tried a 20k linear knob for the tone, which was terrible.  Then I tried the standard for a Tubescreamer tone knob, the 20k "W" taper knob.  This was passable but still not right.  In the end I settled on a 50k reverse audio knob.  This was an excellent choice, with a nice sweep range. Note that this doesn't change the actual "tone" of the box, it's just the range of adjustment.  Much more usable tone with this range.

I also included a 3-way diode switch, which switches on the left to high-distortion, high-compression, low volume BAT41 diodes.  The middle setting is the stock diodes for this pedal and every tubescreamer, 1n914 silicon. At the right position, it's got infrared LEDs... less clipping, less compressed, sharper, and louder.  All things being equal, if you level the volume knob to account for the output changes, the left position is softer, crunchier, and more compressed, the middle is good, solid tubescreamer crunch, and the right position is harder, edgier, less mushy.

I ran this tubescreamer variant up against 5 other similar pedals, and overall I'd call it a real winner.  With the mid switch in the up position, this is one fat, spanky TS.  More than any other setting on this pedal, this one makes it a winner.  It was fatter and warmer than any other TS in my arsenal, and I may build another from scratch and just build that change into the circuit, instead of making it switchable.

Anyway, I never did any great clips, but I do have jam recordings of this from the last two weeks, so at some point I'll dig out some clips; in the meantime, I'm expecting ptelite to report further when it arrives.

I'm still waiting for a report!