MetalheadGautham
New Member
I bumped by this forum via google search when looking for stuff of the above topic.
Well, I've been short of cash to buy a distortion pedal so I decided to make one myself. Where I come from (India) pedals are pretty expensive since they all are imported, but electronic parts are really cheap.
Trouble is, my electronics knowledge is a bit rusty.
Can someone please explain me how to go about building a circuit for the purpose and what are the components which vary sound ?
Here is a little bit of what I understood so far:
The audio is input to an OP AMP which is in non-inverting configuration and a pot is used to vary the gain.
Now what sort of OP AMP should I be ideally using ? I've a couple of UA741CN's lying around and an LM308 (which is the same as in a ProCo RAT Distortion Pedal). But its damn expensive compared to others. So can someone suggest a cheap but audio-friendly OP-AMP ?
Next, how do you wire up an OP AMP ?
And yeah, what's the max gain ?
Diode clipping is used to create harsh distortion.
I kinda got an idea about what kind of diodes to use. So I've a whole bunch of LED's and normal Diodes to mess around with the tone.
Seems to me that the cutoff of the diode determines the sound. Is it possible to electronically vary the cutoff of the diode, or atleast have a different kind of clipper circuit where the cutoff can vary ?
The clipped signal is sent to another OP-AMP for final amplification
OK this thing too is variable gain controlled through a pot. But yeah, whats the max gain here ?
I realize that what I said may be wrong in several places and I might have missed a lot. For instance most circuits I see online have a capacitor or two. But in my circuit I only see OP-AMPs, Diodes, pots and resistors. And in some circuits, I've seen that a capacitor is able to determine the amount of bass/treble. So a variable capacitor can change the tone. Is this true ?
And how does overdrive work ?
Finally, please suggest some easily hackable distortion schematics, which have room for lot of part-replacements to vary sound.
Well, I've been short of cash to buy a distortion pedal so I decided to make one myself. Where I come from (India) pedals are pretty expensive since they all are imported, but electronic parts are really cheap.
Trouble is, my electronics knowledge is a bit rusty.
Can someone please explain me how to go about building a circuit for the purpose and what are the components which vary sound ?
Here is a little bit of what I understood so far:
The audio is input to an OP AMP which is in non-inverting configuration and a pot is used to vary the gain.
Now what sort of OP AMP should I be ideally using ? I've a couple of UA741CN's lying around and an LM308 (which is the same as in a ProCo RAT Distortion Pedal). But its damn expensive compared to others. So can someone suggest a cheap but audio-friendly OP-AMP ?
Next, how do you wire up an OP AMP ?
And yeah, what's the max gain ?
Diode clipping is used to create harsh distortion.
I kinda got an idea about what kind of diodes to use. So I've a whole bunch of LED's and normal Diodes to mess around with the tone.
Seems to me that the cutoff of the diode determines the sound. Is it possible to electronically vary the cutoff of the diode, or atleast have a different kind of clipper circuit where the cutoff can vary ?
The clipped signal is sent to another OP-AMP for final amplification
OK this thing too is variable gain controlled through a pot. But yeah, whats the max gain here ?
I realize that what I said may be wrong in several places and I might have missed a lot. For instance most circuits I see online have a capacitor or two. But in my circuit I only see OP-AMPs, Diodes, pots and resistors. And in some circuits, I've seen that a capacitor is able to determine the amount of bass/treble. So a variable capacitor can change the tone. Is this true ?
And how does overdrive work ?
Finally, please suggest some easily hackable distortion schematics, which have room for lot of part-replacements to vary sound.
