Sunday 24 September 2017

BJFE Sparkling Yellow Overdrive V2

Not much info on this. From what I've read from the BJFE forum is that the 3 knob Sparkling Yellow Overdrive was a short BJFE Customshop run that's supposed to have that old school early American tones, think Fender Tweed, Blonde, and Brownface.

Video of the 3 Knob


Video of Bearfoot version of the 4 Knob (Closest Video I could find)



Original 3 Knob Limited Run



4 Knob Production Version With M Knob



16 comments:

  1. Well it works! I had to swap the distortion leads from 2 and 3 to one and two, but otherwise it all seems good. I guessed and used a 2N5457 - it works.

    I might try to make the tone control more effective - it's a bright pedal and the tone doesn't do a lot. Also needs a bit more low end. There is a lot of gain on tap here. So a few simple mods and it could be a great OD.

    Thanks for the layout!

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    1. cheers man. can't believe i forgot to put in the FET in the notes. you were right that it's a 2N5457. i made the changes to the layout, and added the note for the transistor.

      it makes sense that this is a bright pedal since the amps it's supposed to be reminiscent of are all bright sounding amps. take a look at the dyna red distortion and mods done to it. this is the same topography, just has some different values.

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    2. Yeah I can see the similarity. I wish someone would work out the schematic to the Strawberry overdrive that Bjorn designed for One Control - I suspect it's not far from this.

      I'm looking forward to building the 4-knob Sparkling Yellow. I think it will be a better pedal than this one, but I just like building 'em. :-)

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    3. haven't seen a schematic for it. if i do i'll gladly take a look at it. side note, i'm pretty sure that the distortion control should be like it is in the dyna red distortion, so i just made the change and updated the layout.

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  2. Hello! Best regards from Chile! Do you have a schematic for this? Thanks!

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    1. we do not post schematics, and tbh i've had it sitting in my folder for layouts to be created for a long time now so i don't even remember where and when i found it. i would check the usual sources like DIYSB and FSB.

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  3. Hey Zach - the 4-knob version works a treat! The M knob is a lot like a "nature" knob on other BJFs. CW it gets thinner, CCW it gets thicker and bassier. I big improvement over the 3-knob version.

    But still the treble pot doesn't do very much. Yes at zero it muffles the signal a bit but really it's not very effective. And I wonder how I could increase the mids a bit more?

    Cheers mate! Good stuff!

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    1. great man, that's exactly what it is, seems like bearfoot calls it "M" knob while BJFE calls it "Nature". honestly, it's exactly the same treble setup, cap & pot value, as the dyna red distortion. i haven't built either so i can't say for sure how much it changes the amount of treble. you can try to change the 47nF cap that attaches to treble 2and see how it affects the control.

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    2. I just revisited this pedal and built myself another. After reading what I wrote I realise that it might have sounded like I was doubting your work - that's not what I meant at all! I am not surprised that the treble pot does so little because I have owned some BJF designed pedals where it is a mystery to me what a knob is supposed to do! Sometimes they do very little indeed.

      I think I'll start by swapping the pot to an audio taper because all the action is in the first 1/10th of the turn.

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  4. Hi,
    The only schematic I have found is at FSB, and two things are bugging me:
    - the schematic does not include the pair of diodes to ground, after the 1uF cap,
    - and the 3k resistor connected to the 1uF cap to ground, in the bottom left corner, should be connected, at its other end, to pin 2 of the IC, just like the 1K resistor into the 220nF cap to ground; the other 3K resistor should only lead to Distortion 1
    Incidentally, I have just spotted that the 4 knob version is 22 columns wide, not 21 as shown in the layout, but that's not a major point. ^^
    Have I got the wrong schematic, or does the layout need to be amended?

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    1. good catches. the schematic i have is similar to that one. i used another similar bjfe pedal as a template when making it and didn't realize i needed to remove those extra diodes. fixed both layouts. cheers man.

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    2. Not at all: thank YOU, Zach, for the effort you put in those layouts! :)

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  5. Well what do you know? Replacing the Treble pot with an audio taper made enough difference as to make it useful. Really recommend an A50K for Treble.

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  6. Is there a schematic that can really be regarded as verified? Especially of version 1?

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  7. May i use CA3130 instead 3130EZ ?

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