19 posts
My most treasured distortion pedal, the Sobbat Drivebreaker DB-01. Cloned on veroboard. I made no changes because I love this circuit, so it's a buffered effect, even when bypassed the sound runs through a high-to-low impedance buffer. I also love the two band peaking EQ, which uses simulated inductors. Not a baxandall, not a tubescreamer. Though this pedal like so many others starts with a tubescreamer, it really ends up nothing like a tube screamer-- a dual and quad opamp mean it's got 3 stages of gain (one stage is used for the buffer, two stages are used for the active EQ). Way more gain, no mid hump, radical eq, more output volume.
I took a dremel to a blank case and got part way to the effect I want... you can see it in this pic. It still needs some sort of finish and clearcoat. I'll refine this over time. The switch is a diode switch, which changes the gain diodes from the stock silicon diodes to infrared LEDs. More on that later.
The circuit. Done on veroboard. Despite the size, it fit in a 1290, unlike the original. This pedal runs around $200, my version was about 1/5 of that. Note the DPDT footswitch instead of 3PDT. That's because you only need the third pole for a true bypass effect to give the direct connection from input to output. If you do this effect without an LED, you can use a single-pole switch, the second pole on this is only for the LED (I picked blue for this one, btw).
The diode switch. I used stock 1n914 on one side, infrared LEDs on the other side. Infrared have the lowest forward voltage of any LEDs. People usually use red or yellow LEDs for an LED clipping stage, but to me, the volume jump between the .7vf of silicon, and the 3.3vf of red/yellow LEDs is too abrupt. Lots of people like the sound of it but to me, what I mostly hear is "louder". At that voltage level, the actual clipping isn't as interesting. Anyway, this one's subtle. This is not part of the stock design.
You are really getting into the veto builds. When do some of these go on sale?
Neato!! I remember that pedal from when you brought it down one year. Massive gain if you wanted it. You need to post some clips of this thing.
Yes... I've got a bunch of clips of the Wampler Ecstasy clone, I'll do this one next. I only played through it briefly to verify it works, I don't even have a good feel yet for how the different diode settings feel and sound.
I'm doing more vero now because a lot of the pedals I want to build aren't available as fabbed boards, and sometimes when they are, they are etched boards. I don't want to pay $12 for an etched board when really, the electrical connections on vero are way more solid... After doing guitarpcb and some other single-layer pcbs, I don't like those things, they're not solid and I just know over time, even when I tin them, they're not going to last. (though sometimes there's no other option, for example the Maestro would be way too big on veroboard). The through-plated, full resist boards are better but there just aren't that many available. I am working on a couple of madbeans' pedals, his layouts are brilliant and his prices are good. I'm going to build a couple of Deluxe Memory Man pedals off his boards. That's a real killer build... something like $55 in parts to get one of the more expensive pedals out there.
But most distortion and overdrive pedals can be pretty easily built on vero... it's definitely less convenient than a prefabbed board but you can't beat the cost.
I'll start putting items up for sale as soon as I have too many pedals (which is pretty much now, but I haven't decided what to part with yet).
yeah, Madbean is an animal and his boards are great from what I hear.
p.s. He even offered a Timmy board for a brief time, but out of respect for Paul, a smaller builder who only offers two pedals for sale, he pulled it off the site.
But he does have a bunch of boards for some of the really cool pedals.
I like his approach. Nicely designed boards, good instructions, and good prices. I've got about ten of his boards sitting in a backlog on my bench... but the main ones of interest to me right now are reverbs and delays. I just have way too many compressors and distortions.
I'm looking for stuff that's unique right now, after I build some delays and a reverb or two, I'll be doing some sort of Klon, and a Pigtronix Philosopher's Tone on veroboard. After that, who knows?
Friendly suggestion: The Dyna Red Distortion (high gain) and Honey Bee (lower gain) are two of the most highly thought of OD/Dist. pedals out there. Look at he crazy prices the Honey Bees sell for! I'd consider those two as well, and Madbean has boards for both.
Perf a Timmy if you can. GREAT PEDAL! Lives up to the hype.
Lastly, an easy one. Perf an SHO clone. Easy to find schematics for it. I think you'd dig that one too, and they can fit in the tiny cases.
The SHO doesn't interest me all that much, the Jack Orman Mosfet boost is a better version of that circuit, without the crackly pot (zvex markets this as a feature, most builders see it as a design flaw). kind of ludicrous. 7 parts in the actual circuit, very low complexity, and really shouldn't take up its own box and hardware. I'm thinking about adding the orman mosfet boost circuit to another pedal, with an extra footswitch.
The BJFe effects are interesting. The Dyna Red and Honeybee are both on my list.
I'll probably build a Timmy just to see if it lives up to the hype. I can do all of these on veroboard and save $30.
Charger, I'm aware of the "design flaw." LOL Dar pointed it out to the first time we talked about the pedal 4-5 years ago. The funny thing is, this pedal is WILDLY popular for over $200 per. There must be some reason, right?
FWIW, I have a Jack Orman boost (bought the board right from Jack) and several other mosfet boosts. Whatever it is, and it may well be the "flaw" but the SHO clone adds something that the others don't have. It's not just a flat clean boost like most mosfet boosts. It adds something to the sound and THAT is why he can sell them for so much. ANYONE could build a clone. Probably the easiest pedal to build there is. The only thing that matters is the sound, and it can sound REALLY good and can add some things to ANY tone.
I had two of them (built the second one just to loan out to people to try) and offered to let several people here borrow one to test. My thoughts were as soon as they did, they'd ask me to build them one. Nobody took me up on the loaner offer so I sold my second one. Mock one up out of a case and see if you think it's worth keeping. And yes, its a great easy "add" to other OD pedals. You can stick on in the box with LOTS of other things. I was going to build an "SHOCD. Combination of SHO and OCD. The guys who built them (especially with a flip/flop order switch) said they killed! I use those two pedals together often. In one box you'd have one killer pedal.
I'm rambling. Back to work now...
DreamTheaterRules — Sep 18, 2012The funny thing is, this pedal is WILDLY popular for over $200 per. There must be some reason, right?
Well, it is called a "Super Hard On" and it does have original artwork...
Peeps don't want to solder or learn, hence 200 bux. How much are the non hand painted ones?
I think the SHO clone I built makes tings a lil brighter.
the knob/pot rebiases the mosfet so it's crackly at low levels, and it also has more distortion than clean boost (the orman is more of a clean boost). The non-hand-painted version is $170, not that much of a discount.
Just ran this pedal through a couple of amps with some different guitars. Sorry no tracking yet, but it's awesome. The best part is the infrared clipping diodes. They don't completely change the character of the pedal, but they make it about 25% more awesome. At low gain settings it sounds much cleaner than the stock silicon diodes, it gets a really sweet almost clean twanginess, but it still has nearly as much gain at high settings. It also changes the character of the distortion tone, a little less compressed and a little less mids, a little more of a hi fi sound. I think I will build another one, with just infrared diodes and some realignment of the EQ frequencies. Not as raunchy as the original but this is a pedal any guitarist would find drool-worthy.
