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My coworkers wife works for a company that has connections with ATT Stadium in Dallas and was able to get tickets to the AC/DC concert there in April of next year for me, my fiancé, his wife, and him. Super awesome. Obviously I felt the need to show some serious gratitude as the tickets for us are basically free.
I decided to cook up this P2P wired Rangermaster style circuit, which I think will be a really neat gift for him. He always talks about the “classic treble boosters”, but can’t bring himself to spend the $$$ on a boutique “legume” themed booster.
I pretty much stuck to the classic schematic, no switch to change the frequency response or anything like that, just one big ol’ knob to dial it in. The only thing that is not true to the original is the power supply section. He already has a pedal board with an iso brick so there is charge pump in the pedal to make -9v your standard +9v DC supply.
Mojo bits: Matsushita 2SB Ge PNP transistor, Mallory and Midwec film caps, Sprague Atom electrolytic caps, “vintage” style carbon comp resistors.
Nice Brent
I’m partial to mojo components myself the Japanese germaniums are definitely my favourites they’re always consistant and seem to work great all the time
I’m sure he’ll love it
Haha yea the mojo stuff is great. I love the whole vintage and collector aspect, not that it really super matters in terms of outright tone (ok the transistors sorta do), I just find it helps me get in the mindset and vibe of the period for what I’m jamming.
Agree about the the Japanese Ge. I’ve got a decent stash of transistors of all kinds and the Matsushita, Adzam, Toshiba, Sanyo etc are my favorite, especially for a RM (subjectively speaking). Even the Japanese NPN germanium are real good, Sanyo SD series specifically. They usually arn’t leaky and the gain is usually right around what the “spec” supposedly is for that particular part number. Plus the lower gain buckets when biased just so are incredibly smooth and creamy. More “velvet” less “velcro” type fuzz.
Go for it Playsforfun! I was the same way at first with the whole P2P/turret board builds at first. I’ve only done p2p rangemasters and FuzzFaces for the record however.
Mine IS functional and DOES sound good, but it wouldn’t be hard to beat mine in term of a clean build. There are really talented people out there who make absolutely insane p2p builds. They sound good for sure, but the actual design and build goes far beyond functionality. they are truly works of art. I am not anywhere near that level! But thanks for the props!
The RM circuit is so simple and that helps, literally a handful of components. Actually populating the turret board with the parts is very strait forward and soldering it all up can get a little tricky but with any kind of soldering experience one can get the feel of it pretty quickly.
The only part that can get kind of hairy is wiring it all up. Unless you are very nimble it helps to have some “3rd” hand clips and other various tools I tend to waste a bunch of wire, but I like to have the extra slack to give me room to work.
With this particular one, I totally used vanity parts and maximized the mojo factor because its a gift for someone that I know will really appreciate the details, but if you just want to build a P2P RM or FF don’t worry to much about all that.
The cheap-o carbon film 1/2 or 1/4w resistors are great, and the electrolytic caps can be any axial type (doesn’t need be NOS). The only parts that I have ever seen make any kind of difference are the film caps. But again I’ve used all kinds and while there are subtle differences they all sound “good”.
Transistor selection also will affect things, but the valid choices you can pick from contain a lifetime of experimentation. Don’t get hung up on exact hfe or brand or even the exact bias voltage. In fact I have not once never used a multimeter to bias a P2P build. Your ears will tell you when it’s biased 😉
Make sure to test and audit the transistor to verify it’s not wildly out of spec for the circuit and has low leakage. A leaky transistor is just about the only thing you can use parts wise that will make it sound objectively worse than a non-leaky one. Most often on the RM I won’t even use a trimmer, I just experiment for a bit with a couple of resistor values and find one that sounds good with the transistor I choose. It’s very much the lazy version of the proper transistor auditing procedure.
It’s a great learning experience too. Helps transition your mindset in electronics from “painting by numbers”, to seeing, understanding and manipulating a schematic to the point that you can articulate what’s going on and then how to change it to do something else lol!
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