More DIY Effects

ralley

Well I finally finished debugging and fine tuning my Tube Reamer pedal. It's a clone of the famous Ibanez Tube Screamer minus the input and output buffers and FET switching and with no tone controls. Sounds absolutely fantastic with an incredible amount of volume on tap - unity is at about 40% on the pot - even after I changed pot values to calm it down.

First photo is the draft version while I was still debugging and fine tuning, looked horrid, sounded great! Second photo is the final version all boxed up and painted. Third photo is a Midi-switch box I built earlier for my Boss Midi foot Controller/Alesis Quadraverb. It allows me to change bank up or down or bypass the Quadraverb entirely.

Rob.

JoeyBones

Hey Rob,

So are you gonna post the schematic for us or do we have to beg :-\

How about some sound clips. I'd love to do a comparism to my nephews ts-808.

ralley

Hiya Joey,

Schematic is easy, check out: http://www.runoffgroove.com/tubereamer.html.

The layout I used is: http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/v/Toneys-Album/tube_reamerv2_333.png.html

Sound clips may take a while, I don't have a mic. so the only way to record this is by putting it in front of my Toneport, not sure how good that will sound but I'll give it a try. Of course then I open up my sloppy playing to ridicule...

I'm really loving this thing though - it's so dynamic it allows me to nail the sound way Blackmore plays "16th Century Greensleeves" on the Rainbow "Live in Germany 1976" album - starts of with Greensleeves gently finger picked (guitar volume rolled down to 5), then fade in the feedback (gradually rolling guitar volume up to 10) and slam into the heavy riff. Awesome stuff ;D.

Rob.

JoeyBones

Did you get all the parts from yebo electronics? How much did it work out to eventually?

ralley

Yep all parts from Yebo, approximate price would be:

Perf board - R7
Resistors - R7
Capacitors - R11.5
Diodes - R3
IC - R4
Pots - R24
Wire - R5
Case - R72
Switch - R32
Jacks - R7
DC Jack - R4

For a grand total of approximately R176.50 (plus about R18 shipping). Bear in mind though that this will leave you with lots of left over components, most come in packs of 10 and yet you only need 1-3 of most. It also doesn't include the components to build the LED indicator (a small circuit is required to drive the LED when using a DPDT switch and true bypass) - about R6 there I think. Also that doesn't include paint or labels (but they aren't mandatory).

It's heaps of fun to build and very satisfying to go the DIY route.

Rob.

ralley

Joey,
I gave recording the Tube Reamer a go through my Toneport. As suspected it sounded awful, lost all the dynamics and just sounded like a generic distortion. I suspect that this thing performs it's best when overdriving a nice valve amp, which after all is what it was designed for. So no sound clips for now.

Rob.

cain

I wouldnt say it was designed to overdrive a valve amp. A tube screamer is in essence a pedal that emulated a tubes overdriven tone and it does do a great job at this). On the other hand you will never get close to that sound when a tube driven amp isnt involved, you loose warmth etc. I have a real TS-808 and i would never ever sell it.