Here's a collection of vero (stripboard) and tagboard guitar and bass effect layouts that we have put together covering many classic and popular effects in growing numbers. Many of these have been posted on freestompboxes.org, so check that site out for great discussions on building your own effect pedals. Enjoy the builds and please also visit us on Facebook and Twitter
Sweet! I have needed something like this for so long. I put a Piezo bridge pick-up in my 335 imitation which needs to be tamed. I am guessing the 100n in the input will be for the tone?
Yes the LED is for an Led positive side and then the negative side goes to your foot switch or to ground if not using a foot switch with this. Looks like the 1k resistor is for led brightness too. so that may need changed depending on what color led you use. If using a bright blue 30-33k is great on those otherwise they blind ya. On the UV ones sometime I run a 1-2k on those. They are not that bright.
Yeah, I was thinking that's pretty low for a CLR, I have a blue that I used a 3k3 and it will blind you! That's one reason I was asking if it was only an indicator.
This may be the answer for the U-Bass I built a while back. I used a bridge piezo but am lacking over all signal and need to kill the highs. This and a cap change on the tone pot may cure it.
Any reason you couldn't go right out of this board into a Sea Blue in the same box, and end up with a preamp with low/mid/hi controls? I guess I'd take full volume from here into the Sea Blue and use the Volume pot on the Sea Blue as the output volume control.
I believe you can tag this as verified. Built this morning for fun.... it makes my acoustic guitar loud. So, I guess it's doing it's job. No weird sounds or humming, and the Vol pot works as expected. Thanks for another great layout!
I've been looking for a way to make a homemade preamp for my double bass for a long time. Double bass preamps are expensive and I couldn't justify it for my second instrument.
I'd like to give this some tonal shaping. Could I hook the output straight into a baxandall tone stack or similar and then out from there?
Is this preamp suitable super low double bass frequencies as it is, or is it more suited to guitar? Or is it just for anything?
dave, ya may wanna double the values of the input and output caps to drop it down an octave for a double bass. 10u is probably ok for the output. i'd probably try like 220 or even 470n for the input... but the huge mass of the upright strings may overdrive it and make it fuzz. i don't own an upright anymore, gonna try it on my mandolin. ;)
Thanks for the reply. I was actually trying if it would amplify the bass of my DIY foot drum enough. But this layout might not be the right one than. Up to searching for something else!
hi! On the original schematic theres a - and + side of the piezo, but here there's just one hole. How can I solve this? :) thanks for the answering, I'm new here :)
I built this for use with a double bass. We have two cheap piezo pickups on the bridge running into the two channel mixer also found on this site. The single output from the mixer is fed into this preamp and then through the sea blue eq also on this site. I combined them all in one box. With volume controls on each input, I bypassed the volume control on the preamp and use the eq volume as a master on the output. I also added the mid control to the eq. No values were changed to adapt for bass and it sounds incredible. No distortion, no hum. This preamp also works great on a squareneck resonator with a goldtone abs condenser clip on mic.
Just gonna ask, I'm looking for an electrostatic preamp design for my upright, and can't seem to find anything online. Is it too complex to build one or is it just not used?
I'm thinking about building this for my electric-upright-bass-hybrid thingy. Will this have enough low end? I read people use an extra buffer to get the low end. My piezo experiences are pretty low. Haha. Can you help me out?
And what will happen when I use 250k or 500k for the volume pot instead? (
I've built this and should have read the comments first. I've installed 2 piezos into an electric, using a pushpull to swap the middle pickup out for the piezos.
I'm running this directly (no volume pot) into an LPB1 on vero using the trimmer to adjust the volume for the piezos to be equal to the regular pickups. I saw reading this that increasing the 220k would increase the gain - could that resistor be swapped out for a trimpot?
There's not a lot (any) bottom end. I tried a klon buffer into the LPB1 originally and it sounded horribly fuzzy in a very bad way.
Would a different (higher) input impedance help? How would we improve/fix that on this circuit?
I built it changing TL071 with a TL081. Only the second part of Stupidly Wonderful Tone Control 2 (that with Cap between pole 2 and 3) works well! Tried yesterday.
Hi there, thank you for sharing. i would like to ask if can i both use Piezo transducer and Condenser mic simultaneously (parallel or series) on the same input/circuit? cuz id like to retain the natural sound of my acoustic violin. thanks
Isn't the 2.2M input impedance too low for a piezo pickup? Piezo elements typically expect to see an impedance in the range of 10M. I can imagine that this will load the piezo pickup and make the instrument sound tinny.
Sweet! I have needed something like this for so long. I put a Piezo bridge pick-up in my 335 imitation which needs to be tamed. I am guessing the 100n in the input will be for the tone?
ReplyDeleteI've been looking for an acoustic preamp for a while. Thanks! Is the LED just an indicator?
ReplyDeleteLooks like power indicator to me
DeleteYes the LED is for an Led positive side and then the negative side goes to your foot switch or to ground if not using a foot switch with this. Looks like the 1k resistor is for led brightness too. so that may need changed depending on what color led you use. If using a bright blue 30-33k is great on those otherwise they blind ya. On the UV ones sometime I run a 1-2k on those. They are not that bright.
DeleteYeah, I was thinking that's pretty low for a CLR, I have a blue that I used a 3k3 and it will blind you! That's one reason I was asking if it was only an indicator.
Delete1K was used because that was in the schematic, I tend to use 2K2 to 4K7 most of the time.
DeleteThis may be the answer for the U-Bass I built a while back. I used a bridge piezo but am lacking over all signal and need to kill the highs. This and a cap change on the tone pot may cure it.
ReplyDeleteHow did this circuit work for the ukuelel bass you made. did it allow it to retain its Low end rumble?
DeleteThis would be great for my Cigar Box Guitar.
ReplyDeleteThat was my first thought upon seeing this layout!
Deleteis it basically a buffer with a volume control?
ReplyDeleteNo it's not a buffer it's a preamp gain stage. The gain isn't huge, 1+(220/100) and so 3.2x but gain all the same.
DeleteAny reason you couldn't go right out of this board into a Sea Blue in the same box, and end up with a preamp with low/mid/hi controls? I guess I'd take full volume from here into the Sea Blue and use the Volume pot on the Sea Blue as the output volume control.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing, that or the Anderton Super Tone control.
DeleteCould i use a TL072 instead of the TL071? :)
ReplyDeleteYou could, but not with this layout. This is setup for a single opamp and so you could use something like a LM741, LF351 or similar.
DeleteWould a LM358 work?
DeleteI believe you can tag this as verified. Built this morning for fun.... it makes my acoustic guitar loud. So, I guess it's doing it's job. No weird sounds or humming, and the Vol pot works as expected. Thanks for another great layout!
ReplyDeleteIf I wanted to take this at full volume into an EQ board in the same box, I would just bring Vol 1 to the EQ and forget about Vol 3, right?
DeleteExcellent, thanks for verifying. No, take the volume 3 wire to the EQ and forget about the volume 1 and 2 wires
DeleteI've been looking for a way to make a homemade preamp for my double bass for a long time. Double bass preamps are expensive and I couldn't justify it for my second instrument.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to give this some tonal shaping. Could I hook the output straight into a baxandall tone stack or similar and then out from there?
Is this preamp suitable super low double bass frequencies as it is, or is it more suited to guitar? Or is it just for anything?
dave,
Deleteya may wanna double the values of the input and output caps to drop it down an octave for a double bass. 10u is probably ok for the output. i'd probably try like 220 or even 470n for the input... but the huge mass of the upright strings may overdrive it and make it fuzz. i don't own an upright anymore, gonna try it on my mandolin. ;)
Dave, did you ever build this for your upright? If so, how'd it turn out and what values did you settle on? My buddy could use one of these...
DeleteHi,all
ReplyDeleteThanks for like my circuit.
You can use any IC-op-amp. But different sound.
I think TL-071 best and LF351, UA741 is Low sound quality cheaper.
Momename
http://www.eleccircuit.com
Thank you for sharing your circuit :o)
Deletehay iviark cant i request layout woody acoustic simulator or Mooer Audio Acoustikar
ReplyDeletethank before
hi, if the volume is just the same than the IC is probably the problem, right? I'm using a LM741 since I don't have anything else in stock.
ReplyDeleteThe gain is 3.2x no matter what IC you use, and it should work perfectly well with an LM741. It isn't a big boost but it should be noticeable
DeleteThanks for the reply. I was actually trying if it would amplify the bass of my DIY foot drum enough. But this layout might not be the right one than. Up to searching for something else!
DeleteIncrease the 220K resistor. That will increase the gain and so may give you the boost you want.
Deletecool, gonna try that!
DeleteWould this work with the tonemender eq?
ReplyDeletehi! On the original schematic theres a - and + side of the piezo, but here there's just one hole. How can I solve this? :) thanks for the answering, I'm new here :)
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know what the input impedance is on this circuit, and/or how to calculate it?
ReplyDeleteI built this for use with a double bass. We have two cheap piezo pickups on the bridge running into the two channel mixer also found on this site. The single output from the mixer is fed into this preamp and then through the sea blue eq also on this site. I combined them all in one box. With volume controls on each input, I bypassed the volume control on the preamp and use the eq volume as a master on the output. I also added the mid control to the eq. No values were changed to adapt for bass and it sounds incredible. No distortion, no hum. This preamp also works great on a squareneck resonator with a goldtone abs condenser clip on mic.
ReplyDeleteDoes THIS schematic give you enough low end for upright bass?
DeleteJust gonna ask, I'm looking for an electrostatic preamp design for my upright, and can't seem to find anything online. Is it too complex to build one or is it just not used?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking about building this for my electric-upright-bass-hybrid thingy.
ReplyDeleteWill this have enough low end?
I read people use an extra buffer to get the low end.
My piezo experiences are pretty low. Haha.
Can you help me out?
And what will happen when I use 250k or 500k for the volume pot instead? (
I've built this and should have read the comments first. I've installed 2 piezos into an electric, using a pushpull to swap the middle pickup out for the piezos.
DeleteI'm running this directly (no volume pot) into an LPB1 on vero using the trimmer to adjust the volume for the piezos to be equal to the regular pickups. I saw reading this that increasing the 220k would increase the gain - could that resistor be swapped out for a trimpot?
There's not a lot (any) bottom end. I tried a klon buffer into the LPB1 originally and it sounded horribly fuzzy in a very bad way.
Would a different (higher) input impedance help? How would we improve/fix that on this circuit?
http://www.scotthelmke.com/Mint-box-buffer.html
Can I replace "Electric Guitar Input" instead "Piezo Input" ?
ReplyDeleteIf yes, How can I do it ?
Thank you in advance.
This looks great. Is it easy to add a Tone Control? Perhaps the Stupidly Wonderful Tone Control 2??
ReplyDeleteThanks
I built it changing TL071 with a TL081. Only the second part of Stupidly Wonderful Tone Control 2 (that with Cap between pole 2 and 3) works well! Tried yesterday.
DeleteWorks excellent with electret microphone. Needs 10k resistor between +9 and input.
ReplyDeletebuilt this so many times. never fails to amaze me :P thx
ReplyDeleteHi there, thank you for sharing. i would like to ask if can i both use Piezo transducer and Condenser mic simultaneously (parallel or series) on the same input/circuit? cuz id like to retain the natural sound of my acoustic violin. thanks
ReplyDeleteHola sirve para el piezoelectrico de cuarzo. Los que van debajo del hueso del puente?
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to add a tone pot/treble bleed pot similar. looking to use for onboard in a solid body electric uke.
ReplyDeletecould I use a NE5534 instead of tl071?
ReplyDeletethank you
Isn't the 2.2M input impedance too low for a piezo pickup? Piezo elements typically expect to see an impedance in the range of 10M. I can imagine that this will load the piezo pickup and make the instrument sound tinny.
ReplyDeleteHow would one modify the circuit to be used with a ±5 V supply voltage?
ReplyDelete