Saturday 19 January 2013

Catalinbread Sagrado Poblano Picoso

I did this one ages ago and never posted it for some reason, so I may as well add it now. Info about the original:

Ah! the Catalinbread Sagrado Poblano Picoso! The Poblano Picoso has many of the great features as the Super Chili Picoso except that the Poblano is tuned for an extended frequency range. This has been one of my most frequently requested modification of the SCP for bass players.

Just because the Sagrado Poblano Picoso is tuned to better suit the range of bass instruments it does not mean it is limited to this application! With gobs of tone drenched boost, it can drive the input of any amp. The trade off for the extended frequency range is reduced headroom. So at it's highest settings you will find that Poblano is a bit more gritty than other 'clean boosts'. The added grit is complimentary to guitars and has the happy side effect of making solid state amps sound warmer. We decided that this was a great pedal when I plugged my P-Bass into the Poblano then into my band's 400W solid state bass amp and was instantly taken back to the first time I experienced the world's greatest bass amp the SVT. We decided to release it to the public as soon as we heard how well it sounded in a guitar rig.


I can't find a demo vid but here's the Super Chili Picoso which is the guitar version:





49 comments:

  1. What`s the red thing bridging gate and source?

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    1. It's the 9V1 zener. You can tell how long ago I did it, a diode with a 2 row span! :o) I may actually redo it with an added link to get rid of that.

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  2. Some sound clips here

    http://www.noiseon.com/effects/Catalinbread/SagradoPoblanoPicoso/default.aspx

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    1. No worries, The 9v1, does it have to be a 1N4738?.. eBay search just brings up 8v2's .. So would a standard 9v1 diode do?

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    2. That was off the schematic too, but you're right, it should be the 1N4739 or any other 9V1 zener. It may not make too much difference as it's just for static protection, but may as well use the voltage rating specified. In fact sod it, I'm going to redo it to get rid of the standing diode and make the correction to the diode number.

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    3. Haha.. I'll hold off for the re issue then mate ;o)

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    4. Hearing the Super Chili Picoso for guitar I wonder what the difference would be in this build. Can you clue me in?

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    5. Can't seem to find schematics to compare both versions.

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  3. Just built this but can't get sound through it, tried several BS170's since theyre not to trust. I'll go through it again tomorrow and see if i can find any errors. I so wanted to tag it and bring it to my bassplayer at the rehearsal tomorrow :(

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  4. Tag it, if the pot is shown from the back then the pot wires need reversed, wire from board to 1&2 3 to ground. Bs170 makes for a slightly gritty boost, 2n7000 (pinout has it facing the other way) makes for a much cleaner boost, might put both on a 3pdt switch.

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    1. Excellent, nice one mate. I'll update the layout

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  5. Haha, jeez, was way to stressed when i built it couse it was way past bedtime... I forgot the 10nf cap :D
    Strange it didn't work... :p
    Works great now, will try to fit it in a old 1590A case, a real challange since it's not really drilled for this board!

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  6. what about the switch clean and puk,... can add it just like on the video

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  7. Hey Mark, that 470 electrolytic... can you confirm that it is a 470u?

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  8. just built this one today and it sounds great. as some of you may know, this circuit is actually Jack Orman's AMZ mosfet booster. Jack specifies that you want to adjust the drain to be 4.5-5V at idle with no input by tweaking the 62K resistor. a 62K resistor with my BS170 was giving me a reading of 6.4V so I ended up removing it and socketing that resistor. a 43K resistor gave me a reading of 4.995V and it sounds even better now.

    I also tried Jack's dual position fat switch but didn't care for it so i'm leaving it out. all it does is lower the 9V voltage to the circuit using leds on a spdt on/off/on switch (I used blue ones as recommended).

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  9. now that the voltage is correct, i'm going to add a single position fat switch to it since lowering the 9V supply to 6.4V (the other 3.7V setting was a bit too gated sounding to me). but 6.4V does make it sound really good and clips it a little earlier.
    I also added a master volume to mine so I could run it up to max gain settings and have control of its overall output level.

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  10. Sorry, I haven't build an effect before and after reading how to wire the other part to the board I don't understand how to wire the pots.
    Can you help me?
    And for the LED I need to place a resistor before or it was already placed ?
    Sorry for my mediocre english

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  11. Where can I find the schematic for this pedal? I've been looking everywhere and come up with nothing. I really want to play around with this circuit a little before I put it on a board. Is there an easy way to take any of the layouts and breadboard them without the schematic?

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  12. as far as I can tell, it's the exact same circuit as Jack Orman's AMZ mosfet booster:

    http://www.muzique.com/schem/mosfet.htm

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    1. Cool. I know this pedal is designed off the AMZ mosfet booster, but for some reason I didn't think to just look at that schematic and match things up. Thanks.

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  13. This may be a silly question, but how does the boost pot control the volume? I know its not a voltage divider, so what is it doing that allows it to control the output? Is it controlling the voltage to ground from the mosfet?

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  14. Having trouble with this one. Without power I have a dry signal coming through, then silence when 9v is applied. I've switched out 3 BS170a with no luck

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  15. Sorry all...NEWBIE ALERT: BOOST 1 & 2 - does that mean the wire from the board (boost 1 & 2) bridges the connector 1 and 2 on the pot ? I know its a fundamental question but all this is new to me. Tremendously good fun though :-) Thanx in advance.

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    1. Many thanx. I know it seemed obvious but, well, you know...rather get it right than royally mucking it up. Thanx again :-)

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  16. Most excellent website! Many thanks. I have already built the Kalamazoo, EP Booster, Eternity Burst. For this project I want to add a volume controller. Would it just be a matter of replacing the 1M resistor with a pot connected to OUTPUT, right?

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  17. Can I move the 47p across Rows 1 & 2 rather than stretched across Rows 1 & 8 or does it need to be kept close to the transistor?

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    1. Yes you can do that no problem. I only stretched it across because I've got some axial ceramics in that value and I like the look of it stretched across the board like the resistors and diode

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  18. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  19. I built this one last night for a bass player friend of mine and while tight it fit fine in a 1590A. I built it to the spec shown and it was my first build using a mini/micro pcb mount threaded shaft pot. I looked up the pinout and got it exactly backwards from the diagram I found and put 2&3 together instead of 1&2 for the boost so there was a slight hum and of course the knob worked in reverse. In spite of the hum I was very happy with hour it sounded. I tested using my Les Paul through my kid's Line6 solid state amp and it was very clean up until the last little bit of turn and a nice grit came into play. BIG boost to the signal. Very happy and tonight I go home and re-wire the pot and I hope that takes care of my slight hum. Also, while I've built a couple of other projects here (MXR Dist Plus and DOD 250) I didn't use stripboard as I didnt' have any. I reworked the DOD circuit to fit a Radio Shack 276-159B and the Dist + I just etched the original mile long trace board. I like the stripboard as you can hold it up to the light and see if your solder is jumping tracks, plus I find it less prone to jumping which I gather is due to the large area of copper.

    Anyway I will build another one of these for myself and my guitar. Nice!

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  20. So the hum was coming from using the wall wart. I used my 9v to power jack in adapter I made and the hum disappeared.

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  21. Final comments: The wall wart caused me to make a huminator circuit which ended the hum. However if I had used the OneSpot wart to begin with I could have saved a little time. That said, I made the circuit smaller than the layout showed and still fit it easily in the 1590a so in the end I was happy I did it. Nice to have a pedal with built in anti hum. In fact I may modify the above layout to include the anti hum circuit and do my LED mod so that the LED is completely soldered to the board. Love this pedal it really sounds great. Pic links below

    http://tinyurl.com/lsn8uy7

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  22. Hi All!
    I think I might be doing something wrong. Something specific to boost pedals.

    I've built several pedals thus far, all from plans on this site.
    The overdrive pedals (I did a Black Cat OD-1 and a EHX Germ OD) work great! In fact, the OD-1 is the best sounding pedal I've had a chance to play.

    The One Knob Fuzz is also awesome.

    However, I've attempted three boost pedals and get the same thing each time: Low output (a.k.a. No Boost!). They all act like an attenuator that starts well below unity.


    The pedals that didn't work for me:
    Dragonfly Sparkle Boost
    Illumist JFET Boost
    and now this one, the Catalinbread Sagrado Poblano Picoso

    If anyone else is running into these difficulties and has figured out what it is thats causing the problem, I'd really appreciate the word on whatever it is I'm missing.

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    1. Hey all. Replying to my own thread.
      I've figured out my mistake: I misread the polarity marks on some of my caps. Yup. Had the polarity backwards.

      Fixed the caps and now everything works great!

      Way cool site, btw.
      Props to the admins.

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  23. I have an acoustic simulator pedal by Mooer which sounds incredible. However, on the unity gain and above side of the coin Mooer screwed the pooch. I'm going to remove the Acoustikar circuit from the tiny box and join it with this Poblano circuit but I don't necessarily need variable out on the boost. Just want to set it as high as I can without losing the clean signal.

    So.....should the fixed resistor go from boost 1&2 to ground? If I choose to use a 5K trim pot I guess I'd make another small board to house the trim pot then use the 1...2...3...legs as listed in the diagram above eh?

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    1. Yeah do the trimpot thing, it'll be easier to set/fix if you change your mind. Otherwise you might have to trial and error it.. I mean you coouuuuuld measure the resistance of the boost pot already on there and match a resistor to that... but eeeh!

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    2. That's what I was going to do...just measure the pot at about the normal place I keep it but I figured I might run into a circumstance where I may need to adjust it.

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  24. Built this circuit twice. The first time I got a wicked crackle any time I touched the 9v wire. I tried a bunch of fixes but eventually figured I had a cold joint so I built it again from scratch and ... same problem. If this was being used with battery power only, it probably wouldn't be a problem, but with the adaptor, it is problematic. If anyone knows a fix, I am all ears, but sadly I think this good-sounding circuit is going to go into my do-not-box pile.

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  25. there must be something wrong with your build(s). mine works perfectly with a 9V battery or a 9V power supply.

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  26. If this is based on the AMZ Mosfet booster shouldn't the input cap be 1n, not 10n??

    http://www.muzique.com/schem/mosfet.htm

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  27. Hey, how do I install this on my bass guitar? And how can I omit the volume pot?

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  28. hello,

    I just made a comment that was too lengthy, so I deleted it..

    ANYWAY,

    I had some leg distance problems with the layout...
    I got stuck cause my tiny 47pF wouldn't span so wide...
    also, I had managed to purchase "lying" (axial) caps for the 470uF and the 10uF... and I hoped that the board, in the end, would be relatively flat... which wasn't the case...

    so I redesigned it... (unlike you, I'm no pro, in fact, I've downloaded DIYLC some few days ago only)

    and of course, I wanted to post it here, but I can't upload files..
    so I did it at the guitar-fx-layouts @ nabble.com site...
    and once I was making a post of this, I thought I'd just sum up the links and info about this preamp...

    I hope I did a good thing :)

    http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabble.com/Catalinbread-Sagrado-Poblano-Picoso-vero-layout-summarizing-page-19-td47202.html

    thank you, Mark

    PS:
    I can't wait to hear it! :)

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  29. whoops, the ending of this post looks silly:

    "thank you, Mark" looks like I was Mark, too :)
    what I meant:

    thank you, Mark!

    Peter (<-- me)

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