Phatt-stuffRevisited

[phatt]

OK I have been revamping some circuits and finding some small issues so I thought I'd share them with you all.

PhAbbTone output has been tweaked yet again (even less noise) and The DDC circuit has been revisited.

Have been Trying to use a compressor lately and noticed it was all rather noisey so rather than blame the compressor for everything I thought I should take a long look at my own potential mistakes as well.

So a complete breadboard of the tone circuit and DDC and sure enough I was able to improve the noise floor.

Also I wanted to see if the DDC circuit would sound ok running from 12 volt single supply which it indeed does. It might interest those who wish to make a pedal out of the circuit.
Be aware that the tone stack needs to come before the DDC.
Often most stomp units that have any form of tone control insert it *After the dist* and this may leed to a negitive outcome.
At least it will with my setup as the best effect seems to come from the tone circuit being *In Front*.
Add more soon. Phil.

[phatt]

Here is a pic of what I've been taking to the music club for the last few months.

A cheap chinese guitar> into PhAbbtone and DDC (now with presense circuit) > a realistic EQ and > an old Laney 35Watt SS Keyboard Amp. I'm having a ton of fun with the cheapest stuff you could buy/build.

Phil.

[phatt]

Try Again,
Internal shot of the white box, Messy   but works like magic and gives no trouble.
Phil.

[phatt]

One more ; The Tone Brake,
This is just the Cab sim from the JTM Amps but sorted so you can use it with any preamp setup. Use *After distortion ,,not before.
I've built 6 of these and only have one left,, great for recording not so great live but it may work better live depending what gear you use.

My old Quadraverb sounds much more real with this between the recording desk.
It has no distortion on it's own but the tone shaping is very similar to the DDC.
Phil.

[rodriki1]

thanks phil. your ideas inspires me too much...
it sounds like a good idea if you post some sound sample too...
if it is not too hard work to you!!
regards

[phatt]

Hi rodriki,
Should be some here; http://www.ssguitar.com/index.php?topic=1446.0

If they don't work let me know.

As there is not massive interest in plain old Rock guitar sound then I'm not going to wear myself out making clips if no real interest.

From my point of view I go to the biggest shops and I can't find a decent amp so I just built my own.

Have tried;
Carvin Legacy, Fender Cyber twin, and dozens of other Crap gear.
The best of them are only hairs breath better / different than what I can produce from the circuits I've shared here.

Any of the modern stuff can give you distortion but most are lacking in the tone dept.
Phil.

[ghoshsubha444@gmail.com]

Dear Phil,

can you Explain us about phabtone and ddc please

[phatt]

R&R electric guitar is always distorted in some form or another so you can study this stuff forever but in a sense it all comes down to a basic format.

Input> EQ> Distortion> EQ> distortion> EQ.
In other words every stage in the whole system is open for tweaking in some way whether that be tone shaping or half wave clipping or compression,, pick a name

You can easy show this just by using pedals eq into od then another eq before your main amp and you will be surprised just how effective it is.

All I've really done is study all the tone circuits and found the HiWatt is the best for midrange control.
Mid cut has a big impact on most od pedals and I've found it ever so helpful in sweetening up the distortion.

I recommend the tone circuit as it will be easy to build and will work on almost anything.

The DDC circuit is just a tweaked up headphone box circuit I purchased years back and it had a very good sound but needed more bass for live use.

So I made my own with mods for me.

DDC on its own won't give you instant mojo but it's a good building block.

Depending how hot your pickups are (and type SC or HB) will dictate how much gain and tone shaping you really need to use.

I use lower output SC mainly because I find these far more versatile but If you own one of those insane gain pointy headstock guitars with very high output HB,s you won't have any head room and it will be all square wave with very little dynamics so you might want to back off the gain somewhere.

Big fat pickups will tend to sound like a rockman limiter sound from the 80's through diode distortion circuits like mine so be aware of the limitation of these diode circuits.

Just in case you missed the detail you may note that effectively I use 3 tone shaping circuits in the signal chain.

So don't be fooled,, tone shaping accounts for the missing mojo and tis far more important than the reverse wound diodes you score on ebay. 

OK it's not going to win awards but still far cheaper than building a Marshall.

Oh yeah, The tone circuit is not mine, just HiWatt tone circuit which has far more mid control than both F or M circuits.
My only claim is that I worked out it could be used in this manner.
Phil.