Piledriver boost pedal kit from MOD

[John]

Just put this together last night. Observations...

I really need to put an air conditioner in the milk house.

Instructions were clear and easy to understand (even for me)

Jojokeo earns every penny he makes building/repairing pedals!

For such a dead simple build and circuit, this is actually pretty nice. Nothing fancy, just gives you a good boost. Very little of what I call "distortion", just a gainy overdriven sound.

Schematic for anyone who cares

http://www.modkitsdiy.com/sites/default/files/product_files/the_piledriver_schematic.pdf

Oh, and of course a question. I do get an audible pop when switching. Small cap across the FS terminals get rid of that?

[smackoj]

hello; here is a clip from a message I rec'd from Simon in Australia. He goes by the name DrNomis on the freestompboxes.org forum. He's a great source of stomp B knowledge. Here's his suggestion for the "pop" switch:

 "what you could do is solder-in a 1M resistor from the footswitch side of the output cap to circuit ground, and do the same for the input cap, it won't have any audible effect on the Rangemaster's tone but it will stop "pops" when switching the effect in and out of your signal chain, I've done that to my Rangemaster build and it works great.... :thumbsup "

good hunting, jack   

[John]

Good to know, thanks!
Having the first practice session tonight, so I'll see how it sounds in the mix. And see how loud that pop is when it's in the chain with everything else.

[simonallaway]

That circuit is essentially a ZVex SHO. A simple and clear sounding boost. I built one myself:

http://hotbottles.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/building-a-z-vex-sho-clone-from-scratch/

[John]

Simon, thanks for posting that. After a practice I'm quite pleased with it. I did find that with it in front of the fuzz pedal it kills the signal, but as last one in it works perfectly. Not sure what that's about and don't have the brain power right now to puzzle it out. I certainly wouldn't pay $150 for it (as per your blog) but IMHO the enclosure, painted, is worth 20 by itself. Oh, with everything else going on the pop is only noticeable if you're looking for it. Trust me, my bass player would have piped up had he heard it!

[simonallaway]

The signal death in front of the fuzz is probably simple impedence matching. i.e. the loads are different now. I find that with my Steinberger (with EMGs, so low-impedence) it sounds waaaay different to my Les Paul with regular high-impedence pickups. I've been meaning to build a Pete Cornish buffer to prove/disprove this for myself.