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Hi all. Im Brent, from Colorado, and just got into guitar pedal building. I have a bunch of electronics DIY experience, but mostly from the Synth/Eurorack universe so a lot of the this is newish to me!
First post here and I think it’s a pretty simple question I need confirmation on. Did a forum search and didn’t see an answer, apologies if this has been covered.
I have a Tone TwEQ board and would like to incorporate it in to a distortion type board. I am currently working on an Emexar (MXR specs) and was thinking of using the Tone TwEQ to add an active EQ section to the circuit. My thinking is that you would wire in the EQ after the hard clipping section, going from C6 to the VOL pot just before output. Conversely is it possible to put the EQ before the hard clipping? What effect would it have on the circuit (I assume if before the hard clipping you will basically be hitting the diodes “harder”) and does it matter much?
I know that on other distortion pedals that have a tone pot you would just replace the pot with the connections to the EQ, but the Distortion + lacks a tone section so I really just want to understand what the best practice for a mod like this would be!
Im not sure if this matters at all, but on my Emexar build I am using the asymmetrical clipping set-up and I did the bass mod changing C2 and C4 to 100nf caps
Thanks in advance for any advice or insights. I am having a ton of fun with guitar pedal building. My first GuitarPCB pedal was the PURP and I love it. I have a certain rather expensive “legume themed” Rangemaster style treble booster and my PURP honestly sounds a little better to my ears.
The ToneTweq instructions will help to show you where to connect. You can connect the ToneTweq to the Lug 3 solder pad of the volume control of the Exemar, or to the “out” solder pad of the Exemar I believe. Connecting to the Lug 3 solder pad elimates the Exemar volume control and connecting to the “out” solder pad gives you 2 volume controls, but you have to be careful about turning up the Exemar volume.
I am in the middle of building the same thing, but am wiring the “Out” solder pad of the Exemar to a DPDT switch so I can bypass the ToneTweq if I want to. I am about 75% done building the pedal. I need to wire everything up and then I will be finished.
Thanks for the response that helps out a lot! Im glad you pointed out the difference between wiring to the lug 3 pad vs out pad. I hadn’t really thought about that. My initial thought was to simply replace the EQ vol pot with an internal trimmer so I still have the possibility of adjusting later, but now that you brought up this wiring idea which eliminates the Emexar vol all together actually makes more sense. I was worried about having two vol controls and overloading the ToneEQ into some unpleasant distortion, so this solves that problem. I do also like you idea of putting the ToneEq on another footswitch to bypass completely if I want.
It seems like my plan to take the input of the Tone EQ and connect it to where C6 is after hard clipping is the only way go. Im not sure that placing the ToneEQ anywhere else in the circuit makes any sense after thinking about this some more. I also decided that I am going to undo the bass mod I did and put back the stock values for C2 and C4 and instead use a buff n blend footswitch board so I can simply clean blend as much low end back in as I want.
Appreciate the insight on your similar build.
I have to admit that this is actually sort of DIY “rehab” for me.
For years I got REALLY into Eurorack/Synths. That in itself is a dangerous rabbit hole. My damn friend introduced me to a few Eurorack DIY projects and that became a problem real quick. Eurorack btw is not a cheap hobby and even building your own synths and stuff is still really expensive because of all of the crazy parts (many of which are also obsolete and $$$$$).
It got to the point that I was completely ignoring playing guitar and keyboard which are my first loves in music. Synth projects are crazy complex and for the most part requite a tons of time and intense focus which I inherently do not have (emphasis on the focus part)
Finally I said enough and pretty much sold off all of my Eurorack stuff and have gotten back to my real passions.
Pedal building is relaxing, rewarding, lets you be extremely creative and doesn’t demand that you go back to school and get an engineering degree just to understand what the heck is going on in the circuit.
Now I am actually enjoying DIY again, not stressing my brain out, taking all of miy time, or draining my bank account at light speed.
Great hobby indeed and the people Ive met in these pedal communities are far cooler and more helpful than the online synth squad people.
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