Zenith Drive

[tubenit]

With Geezer's help on the dual volume & gain controls & switching .....................

I did this pedal.  It sounds really great to me. 

I tried 5 different  opamps and decided on OPA2604

I also substitued a .22 cap in for where a .44 cap had been in the signal path.  I feel it made the tone significantly more transparent.
However, it did lose some of the "dumblish" tone in the pedal doing thing.  However, it helped with the blooming and increased the harmonics somewhat also.

With respect, Tubenit

[Geezer]

Very nice! Love the color schem! 

[fdesalvo]

You guys are amazing!

[tubenit]

A couple of ideas to consider.  

Channel 2 has a midboost cap engaged when that channel is engaged.

OR

Channel 2 has a LED overdrive engaged when that channel is engaged.

With respect, Tubenit

[tubenit]

I had what I thought was a pretty cool "Tube-ish Screamer type" FX pedal. However, it  wasn't as cool as the Zenith Drive, so I figured out the layout and modified it to be closer to Zenith Drive topology.

Using the same amp setting and guitar setting and speaker etc .......................... here is the tone comparison

Zenith Drive has a somewhat sweeter tone and better harmonics. Very tranparent.

This Zend Skreemore is definitely smoother and significantly creamier in tone. It isn't quite as sweet and maybe doesn't have quite the harmonics as the Zenith Drive.    However, the Zend Skreemore does the Dumblish blooming thing really well  (better than my Zenith Drive).   Not sure why the Zend Skreemore blooms better, but perhaps the component values help with that piece of it? The notes will swell up and hang on this sort of musical edge of feedback. Very cool tone to it.  

I feel like the pedals are different enough in tone to justify having both of these.  I'd say they are equally transparent to my hearing.  Both are MUCH more transparent than the TS-type pedal before it was converted.

With respect,  Tubenit

[tubenit]

OK, here is the Zenith Drive pedal with the dual controls.

1st clean amp only,  then clean amp channel with Zenith Drive OD1, & then tube OD with the Zenith Drive OD2 with midboost. You can hear the "blooming" tone towards the end of the tune.  Guitar volume was less than "8" & amp volume was less than "5". Dialing either up just a little bit definitely increases the blooming thing.

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=11740503&q=hi&newref=1

With respect, Tubenit

[tubenit]

This is the converted TS type pedal into a more Zenith drive topology:

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11743738

[tubenit]

Made this pedal for my son.  Called it the "Knack Overdrive" because my son has a Mstr's in Electrical Engineering.  Note Dilbert cartoon:

Dilbert - The Knack

The pedal sounds great and the "mid boost" foot switch works just fine.  The bright/fat toggle is a nice feature too for one to have switching between humbuckers and single coils.

With respect, Tubenit

[Willabe]

Looks great Tubenit.     

The Knack.    


                 Brad        

[Geezer]

Haha! Loved the cartoon (and the pedal is pretty cool, too!)

I know your son is gonna love it, too........

G