Super hard on pedals

suspiciousminds

Anybody use these super hard on pedals (or clones) at all?
Are they worth having on your board?

frankus

I have a SHO clone in a 1590a enclosure, it's a great little pedal - the problem with the clones is that the potentiometer is a 5K reverse log pot ... and most people use a 4.7K linear pot so it's "nothing.. nothing ... nothing .. ah there it is! oh, that's it?"

stickyfiddle

I have the clone from pedalparts, again in a 1590A. It's a nice boost, with shitloads of gain if you crank it. I prefer the stratoblaster for slightly less gritty flavour though.

lustycourtier

Ive had a geuniune one and 3 clones. The Genuine was fantastic but was £200, and the clones are 90% for £40 or whatever. I have one on my board at all times. Have you tried a Super Duper 2 in 1?

EdGrip

I have built a couple, both with the correct 5KC pot (I've got some of those pots left over it anyone needs one to try).

It's a good pedal, the boost function is boosty, but mainly what it does - by presenting the guitar with a massively high impedence - is make your guitar sound really "bright" and present. Or, depending on your viewpoint, "damn trebly". I personally have found that it's a bit much, and if I were to build one again I would probably use half the input impedence, or less - for the same brightening/clarifying effect, just a bit less of it.

EdGrip

Here is the circuit, in its entirety: 

I seem to remember it's adapted from the input of an old mixing console. Do not pay £200 for one.

musteatbrain

Hello and welcome me. I have played a clone and owned the zvex one. Great pedals. Juansolo has made many and can probably also chime in, the circuit it so basic i take my hat off to Zak Vex for selling them at the price he does.

Deijavoo

I have a clone and love it tbh.

juansolo

Yep, it's one of those simple circuits that really, really works. I also doff my cap to Zach for coming up with it. It's especially good when used after fuzzes to thicken and boost them without loosing any of their flavour.

Anyone building one, you can get the C5K pot from Tayda.

lustycourtier

Its wonderful for 'tightening' up a cranked amp too.

gjonesy

juansolo said:

Yep, it's one of those simple circuits that really, really works. I also doff my cap to Zach for coming up with it. It's especially good when used after fuzzes to thicken and boost them without loosing any of their flavour.

Anyone building one, you can get the C5K pot from Tayda.

you can also get the 16mm solder lug pot at http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/ for £1.68 + postage 

timmysoft

thanks for giving me GAS guys. 

suspiciousminds

Well, just scored a clone for 16 quid!
So will give it a test later!

EdGrip

The Box of Rock and Distortron are both pedals that use SHOs as gain stages with tone filtering. I really really want to try a Distortron; it's on my to-build list. 

If you buy a BoR, as far as I know, you can just use the SHO side if you want, but you get more pedal for your money - just an observation for anyone who wants to get a "genuine" one for whatever reason.

EdGrip

As other people have pointed out, it's a great pedal to use with fuzzes and distortions to make them crisper/bigger. It's so simple, it's just a handy pedal to have around, especially if you make one with twin output jacks as per the original - it functions as a nice buffered-Y pedal too.

monquixote

EdGrip said:

The Box of Rock and Distortron are both pedals that use SHOs as gain stages with tone filtering. I really really want to try a Distortron; it's on my to-build list. 

If you buy a BoR, as far as I know, you can just use the SHO side if you want, but you get more pedal for your money - just an observation for anyone who wants to get a "genuine" one for whatever reason.

Distortron is one of my favorite drive pedals. The subs control makes it a winner for me as the BoR can get flubby. 

I'd like to try the Double Rock as that seems to be the best of both words and lets you drive the BoR circuit with the SHO which the BoR can't because the boost is always at the end of the chain.

robwright

frankus said:

........ so it's "nothing.. nothing ... nothing .. ah there it is! oh, that's it?"

We are talking about pedals, right? Sounding all too (disappointingly) familiar!

suspiciousminds

Hmm, well after a bit of a playaround the jury is out at the moment.
Using the pedal through my laney vc on clean it does "brighten" the clean signal however theres quite a lot of background noise - almost a windy/whoosh sound if that makes sense.
But then turn the knob virtually right up, in one spot the background noise goes and the gain kicks in which sounds ok.
Does this sound normal?

juansolo

Nope. they make a noise as you turn the knob (a 'feature' of the design), but it should give a pretty noticeable boost and not be particularly noisy when you're not turning the knob.

suspiciousminds

Checking the pot, it has b4.7k inside what difference would this make to the sound?

juansolo

No difference to the sound, it's just the taper that's different. It just means that the knob will do very little for the first two thirds of a turn and it'll all be in the last bit.