14 posts
For Christmas...
Jetter Red Shift! I've tried a lot of the great ones. This one is unique. Not much time with it but WOW! I already think it could be a "never sell" and maybe my new #1.
Last night with the Tweaker, tonight with the Budda SD 18, both nights with the new PRS Custom 24. Color me IMPRESSED! A beautiful flavor to any clean or OD voice I have tried it with, and any pickup setting.
Charger, if you stumble on this, build one. It's up there with the Honey Bee on the Holy Grail scale!
Oh and i have barely even tried the shift voice. Could be even more greatness there.
I'll build one... it's a particularly easy build to do just the "gain stage red" which has about 30 parts. The "red" voice is a Zen Drive with very few changes (I think there's one Ge diode replacing a BAT for semi-assymetrical clipping). The "purple" (shift) voice I'm still looking in to. Is the Red voice the one that gets the most love?
Well, the purple gets a lot of love too as a separate pedal, but it's a bonus here. The Purple is a 100 watt plexi super lead Marshall tone, while the Red is the Dumble.
More time with it and the purple is very cool but I like the red, so I'd just build a red. Thanks for the circuit notes!!! Very interesting. There is a whole frequency shape/note shape thing going on with the Red which is VERY cool. I know, it's the Dumble thing. I haven't played a Dumble obviously, but this is VERY nice.
Want some gut shots? If you can SEE things (I don't know if Jetter goops, and haven't opened it up yet) it would help you see what part types he used where, etc.
Awesome. Congrats!! Yep, Red is Dumble, Shift is Super Lead. I STILL go back and forth between the two and can never fully pick a fav, they really are distincly flavored. Sooo much tone for the price/pedal, in fact, I loved my Red Shift so much that I upgraded to the R2 some time back, lol, giving me just a bunch of amp like crunchy tones in one pedal, it's redic really. The Red Shift pedal you have stacks nicely you'll find (if you haven't tried that already), I was especially digging the Red channel set for lowish Dumble growl and then hitting the front end of that with the OCD. That's actually what led me to just upgrade to the R2 pedal, where its "Helium" side acts like a seperate boost/drive into the Red/Shift if you wish, or, you can use the "Helium" channel as a stand alone drive (very JTM like ;)). I never played a Dumble either obviously, but I do have every single stinking one of these Jetter pedals at my disposal (dude lives nearby, lol) and I dunno, the Red Shift just speaks to me, it has something the others don't, and this is coming from a high gain junky (some of the other pedals have way more saturation on tap - you'd think I'd go for that).
Charger - I wish you could put your obviously steady hands and skill to duping some mics for us!!! I know, I know, whole other ball game, but it'd be sweet.
Like I said, it's a zen drive copy. Pictures won't help as he goops everything, but his circuits have been reverse engineered by degoopers and they're all clones of existing pedals. That said, I haven't seen a reverse-engineered Purple schem (which is supposed to be like a Plexi 50) but from the descriptions and the sound of it, it sounds like a typical plexi drive, JFETs with an opamp. However, the fact that you can switch between the Red circuit and the purple circuit with one switch leads me to believe it's much simpler-- the typical two-way switch like this would swap clipping diodes. The Red uses a MOSFET clipper with some schootky and Ge diodes... the Shift might simply switch to something like LEDs, or add a silicon diode in series with each side.
If you can cut through the goop, swapping the opamp on the Red circuit with a tl2262 is highly touted as improving the tone from the stock opamp, which I believe is a OPA2604... the same applies to the zen drive, of course.
Yeah, there's a company out there that makes mic bodies and pcbs, aurycycle. http://www.diymic.com/
Unfortunately the minute they hit the market they were sold out and apparently have been ever since. The appeal of making a U87 for $150...
Update, checking the page, there is one model available, the a5500. Anyone wants to front me the $140, I'll build it. From perusing the components and specs, this is going to be a lot like a U47, with cheaper parts. In other words, in the territory of the nicer Chinese mics, in the $500 range. Great deal. Only reason I haven't jumped on it is I want some of the switchable polar pattern models that are out of stock...
Derek, thats awesome. I was actually after an R2 but found a deal on this first.
Charger, interesting comment about the op, as the BB2604 is one of the best sounding ones I've ever used in every OD I've swapped one into. and I have 2262 and 2272's. I preferred the 2272 in the Barber Direct Drive and it was only behind the two BB's I had (2604 and 2134) Those two were better in every pedal I tried them with, than any others. 2272 was next, along with 5532s which I compared later after my big shootout.
I like the 2604 and related (2134, etc) in a mic preamp, or in a buffer... those are some very nice parts. Very clean, very hi fi, low distortion, and high slew rate. But the AD712 (the chip used in the zen drive, and the only significant change between the zen and the gsr) is a monster... same noise spec (.0003% which is effectively no noise at all) but where the 2604 has open loop gain from 80 to 100, the AD712 goes from 150 to 400! As a distortion device, that's a big difference.
I've never used a tlc2262... this is just what people on the nets say. I have used tlc2272s, which I think sound pretty good as distortion devices--I almost went with this in the opamp big muff... and tl072s, which are noisy but very grungy (ultimate choice for opamp big muff), and 45**, which all sound generically good and crunchy, and ne5532s, which are just about my favorite balance between noise and distortion characteristics. BTW, the differences in sound between the Zen and the Gain Stage Red probably comes down to the opamp difference between the ad712 and the OPA2604. The fact that the tlc2262 sounds very good in this circuit is probably more "happy accident" than that it's actually a great chip. I have only used two AD parts, but they are far and away the nicest opamps I've come across. I'd use them in everything if they didn't cost so freaking much. Lots of character, great noise specs, tasty distortion. I think the Burr Browns (OPA*) are some of the nicest parts you can buy for clean gear, hi fi, headphone amps, mic preamps, buffers... I have no doubt someone could engineer a fantastic distortion circuit specifically around an OPA, but usually people instead generically replace opamps with OPAs, for example, sticking them in a tube screamer, or in this case, in the zen.
Charger, i found some notes tonight confirming what i was afraid to mention ealier, due to the fact that i was questioning my memory. I did a big several week long op amp shootout a couple years ago. I only used a Barber Direct Drive. I had 4558, 4559, 2262, 2272, And OPA 2134 and 2604. I had 3 2262's. all of them sounded horrible in the DD. my notes say, and i remember this, an almost static-y character to the distortion. I swapped all 3 in thinking that one was bad, which is still posible... these things warn you about static in your body ruining them. But the character of the od was brittle. The 2272 was only behind the Burr Browns, both of which were clearer, smoother, more open and in in every way, more "hi fi"
I did not have any Analog Devices chips. I'll have to try a 712!
I have no particular attachment to the tlc2262. Again, this is the first I've heard of it sounding good, and it's only in this particular pedal that it is reported to sound good. I don't even own one, but definitely will try one in my zen clone. There are a lot of reasons that it could sound good in this circuit. I'd say it's most likely a happy accident... the particular configuration of the circuitry and the filtering, etc, just lends itself to sounding good with this chip. Guitar pedal circuits are not one-size-fits-all. That's why I don't agree with the attitude of "just stick an expensive chip in there and it will make the pedal better." That's going to be true if the pedal can take advantage of the opamp, and if the result is something you like. The TL072 sounds great in my opamp big muff, better than 6 other chips I tried, including the tlc2272 (which costs $1 more) and the 2134 (which costs $2+ more). That's a 20 cent chip. But I haven't liked the TL072 anywhere else yet. (However, the TL074, a 4-channel TL072, is the main chip in the Sobbat Drivebreaker, and sounds incredible. ). YMMV.
When I'm testing opamps I'll do them roughly in this order:
ne5532 (always start with this because it's often my favorite and a good baseline)
lf353/4558/lm1458 (similar in most cases)
tl072
4580 (Wampler uses this a lot)
lm833
tlc2272
ca3130 (this is the BJFe guy's opamp of choice)
njm4556
a burr brown (2134 or 2107 or 2604)
an analog part if I have one (right now I have OP275)
wtf dtr, it took you "weeks" to do a shootout of 6 chips?
BTW this guy did some nice testing of some low to high end parts in the kind of environment where clean actually matters... a headphone amp.
http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/08/op-amp-measurements.html
I like his methods. It's not the be-all-end-all for me, because there's a big difference between looking for excellent, high-end performance, and looking for things to distort. But it's a good primer on where these chips excel.
Yeah, I know this isn't higher end audio where "the better the chip, the better it will make your device sound." Read much about certain chips working better in some pedals than others due to all the other factors.
Yes, it took weeks because I wanted it too. Halfway through the testing I got more chips in. Plus ear fatigue can set in when you listen to the same things over and over. Plus, or course, I tested multiple chips with multiple guitars, and with several amps. so I'd sort of go through all the chips one night with a PRS into the Classic 30. The next night the strat/ C30. The next the Wolfgang/C30. Joe Satriani/C30... etc. Then C30 through a different cab/speaker... then rotate through the chips with the High Octane amp, one guitar per night.
I'm very different in that respect. I want to hear the opamps with the same guitar, same amp, and same pedal settings, right then and there. Less subjective. I might miss some magic setting where one opamp sounds good with one guitar, but I mostly want to get it over with.
BTW the CA3130 is very musical, the BJFe HoneyBee opamp. However, it is a single opamp. To use this in a standard pedal you need one of these:
http://cimarrontechnology.com/single-to-dualop-ampadapter-dipversionpn021001.aspx
I keep one of these handy with two CA3130's in it. I'm considering mixing and matching... a tl071 with a ca3130, an lf351, etc. In some pedals this adapter won't fit...
Charger, if I wasnt clear on my test methods, that is what i did as well. Same guitar/amp/settings all evening, swap chips all evening. Next night a different guitar from the night before, but ssme guitar/amp/settings all evening, swap chips all evening. Every night had all variables the ssme for that night, except the chips. The next night one of the other variable would change from the night before, but remain constant all evening, while again only chips changed during the eveing.
That gave me a chance to test my subject variable, the chips, with various guitars, amps, speakers, etc.