"The Steel String Clean Drive faithfully recreates the tonality and feel of the iconic Dumble Steel String Singer amplifier in a stompbox format. Designed alongside a real Steel String Singer (#001), this 100% analog tone tool will do it all from Overdrive, to Fat Boost, to Compression, to EQ shaping and more. Get the unmistakable Crystal-Clear Overdrive and Fat Clean Tones from albums like "Texas Flood", "Venus Isle", and "Continuum" through any clean amp platform"
You can find Bugg's PCB and schematic here.
Nice layout! Will try on the breadboard...
ReplyDeleteThe advertising copy makes me laugh - "this 100% analog tone tool will do it all from Overdrive, to Fat Boost, to Compression, to EQ shaping and more...." = 2 x muamps plus a BMP tonepot
The advertising is just to explain the price tag($200)! :)
DeleteI said the same thing on the official vertex yt demo and it got deleted almost instantly.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSo, snarky comments aside, this sounds quite nice on the breadboard for low gain OD sounds. Maybe not $200 nice, but I'll probably build one.
ReplyDeleteMan, in a gear world full of bullshit artists, Mason at Vertex takes the cake. Perfect example of a pedal I would clone and sell the shit out of with no moral hang ups whatsoever. How he's still in the pedal biz after the BBE wah debacle, I'll never understand.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. People are weird man. However good this pedal is, I would never give support this guy staying in business.
DeleteAnd to think this is still a modded "free circuit"...
DeleteThanks man.
ReplyDeleteBeen slightly interested in this one for a few months and if it lives up to hype I might keep it as my new "always on" pedal.
Verified! Sounds pretty good. Signal is very clean. Wouldn't say it was anything special though.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gavin. I'll proceed since it's verified. Now, we just need the Ultraphonix layout.
DeleteCool! Thanks Gavin! Does it sound close to the video?
DeleteVery similar as far as listening to vids go. I've been playing this for a couple of hours now and i'm really enjoying it. It does have a really nice quality to it. I used SMD J201s, as always, which i think helps.
DeleteHi Gavin, how do you manage soldering smd transistor on a vero ?
DeleteThanks
I use the Jfet adapter boards from here, there the best in my opinion. http://www.diyguitarpedals.com.au/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=286
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi mate you have to solder them first to a daughterboard.
ReplyDelete(https://www.bitsbox.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=140_151_154&products_id=3144)
Paul @ DIY Guitar Pedals has a tutorial on his channel too.
Thanks for the info ! There's a lot oF pedals that uses J201 but the old J201 are becoming rare... It will be my next challenge !
DeleteI built it up last night, its very sensitive to which transistors are used. Pn4117a in q3 and q1 made it really crunchy and the lower vgs j201 I have sounded ok. I settled with a hot set of j201 in the q1 and q2 and went with 2n5485 set in the q3 and q4 .It still gets kinda crunchy with gain dimed out but its just loud and clean(ish) for most of the gain rotation.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if masons using this same layout for the ultra phonix and dynamic distortion .With a few component changes its a bsiab2 and we all know that shit gets rowdy. Just a thought
Arent mu amps supposed to be less sensitive to what jfets you use?
DeleteThe Ultraphonix sounds like a Zendrive to me, just sayin'...
DeleteHi guys! Nooob quesgion: Why the out comes from the volume pot? Doesn't It come from the 3pdt?
ReplyDeleteHi there. It's the output of the circuit. It goes to the 3pdt.
DeleteSee it like this: Your guitar signal goes from the input jack to the 3pdt. When the switch is off, it goes straight through the switch directly to the output jack. You bypass the whole circuit (therefore True Bypass).
When the switch is on, it takes a detour. Instead of going through the switch, your guitarsignal goes to the 3pdt, and then from the switch to the circuit. That is the IN on the circuitboard. It goes from the switch INto the circuit.
After all the magic happens into the circuit, your guitarsignal has to come back to the switch. That goes through the OUTPUT wire of the circuit. In this case it comes from the volume pot. After the signal's back in the switch, there is another wire from the switch to the output jack.
So the wires from the input and output jack always go to the switch. Your signal just takes a detour or not.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGoing by the schematic - is it really necessary to create two effectively independent +Vb's going to both the top muamp tranny's 1M resistors (R5 & R13)???
ReplyDeleteOf course not.
DeleteHow much overdrive can this pedal produce? Can it replace a tube screamer, or is it more or less a clean boost? I think of building a dual pedal, with the Vertex in front of a Friedman BE-OD
ReplyDeleteon my build it has pretty mild clipping on its own with the gain maxed its like a tubescreamer at 9 oclock. definitely more of a clean boost in my experience. maybe i built it wrong? anyone get more gain than me?
DeleteNope you're dead on. Its a clean boost. The q5 from the BSIAB really makes a difference as we see here without it makes more or less a clean ish boost even with controls dimed. I do like how the so called tone knob blends in bass. I'm keeping that for a future idea .
DeleteNo. The 10k source resistors on Q2 & Q4 keep the gain low.
DeleteGreat job, thanks for sharing, what type are the red capacitors?
ReplyDeleteUse what you want or have. The type isn't all that important.
DeleteRed image depicts a panasonic metal film caps. Those are quite nice caps :)
+m
Cool, thanks.
DeleteJust one quick question, the resistor labelled "CLR" what value is that one?
DeleteIn advance thanks
Erik
Current limiting resistor. Sets the brightness of your led. Lots of guys on here use 4k7 resistors.
DeleteGreat, thanks.
DeleteOne last question from the noob, I'm short of the 68nF polybox (between the 1u cap and 1M res), if I use a 47nF cap instead would that be disastrous?
DeleteThnaks
Erik
....or could I put a 22nF and a 47nF in series instead?
DeleteIn advance thanks
Erik
Sorry for the spam, just googled it, I'll be quiet now.
DeleteAlso verified! Built with generic j201s. Sounds nice! It'll be a great low gain overdrive Thanks for the layout!
ReplyDeleteLook for the Jack Orman AMZ dual booster. It 90% the same as the ssscleanboost. Sounds very very nice and subtle in front of a Tubeamp. In front of a ss amp it is just a boost.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey everybody,
ReplyDeleteI am new here. Built just my 3rd pedal, the Vertex Steel String. Now I am finished and have a strange problem: Pedal works, bypass is okay. But in action the pedal is very softly/quietly, I have to turn both volume and gain full for a usable level. Then I mentioned the Filter behaviour: turn completly to the left, there is no signal at all. Turn rightwards the signal gets louder and has more high frequencies, but sounds not nice. It seems to figure as a second volume knob. No more or less bass is adjustable.
I checked the board and cut all lines between the copper stripes with a knife. For the bypass and footswitch I used a pcb from Musikding, which is foolproof (everything is named very good). I carefully soldered the pots, so I have no idea where to search for the mistake. Anyone has an idea for this behaviour of the Filter pot?
Thanks very much, i love this site and the community here!
Morte
Supplement: The J201 I used are in the correct direction. Even if I crank up all knobs, I get no overdrive, just loud.
DeleteHi. Triple check your build. Knife the gaps again to make sure there are no shorts anywhere. Tiniest short or a bad trace cut could explain the filter pot behaviour. Reflow all solder joints in case of a bad joint. Measure voltages for the transistor pins. Triple check the 2n2 at filter connection. If that is shorted, it could explain the behaviour.
DeleteHow are your J201s? There have been a lot of cheap chinese fake JFETs flooding the markets since through hole ones were discontinued 8 years ago. If you got yours through ebay from asia, they are most likely fake and thus could be the reason for your behaviour.
Use an audio probe to check if there ia a heavily boosted signal at Q2 drain. If not, then you have an issue with the first muamp-JFET pair.
Hope some of these will help...
+m
Thanks! I will do the things you told. I got my J201s from uk electronic in germany, so they shouldn't be fakes. ;)
DeleteSo, I got it!
DeleteAfter going through the whole thing I finally found out: the lugs 1 and 2 of the filter pot were sticking together because of the pressure of the board above it. Did't see it because of all the wires ... ;)) Now I repaired it and have a nice sounding little cream machine here. Not much gain, but lot of volume reserve. I like it! Thanks for help, miro!
I am having the same issue, the filter pot turns down the gain, and i am not getting very much volume or gain from this pedal. It is a very very light overdrive at unity gain with the pots maxed. Someone said there is an error, and the 22n cap should be a 2n2 according to the schematic. Will try that and see if it helps.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteOne more question: During error search I tried to measure the 2M2 resistor on the left. DMM showed only "000" in the 2000k area. Other resistors are just normally with their values if measured. Tried it different times, but no other reaction. Is it possible that the resistor is broken? Is this a influence to the sound of the pedal? Because it works now ... Should I swap it?
ReplyDeleteThat resistor should have no influence on the sound of the pedal.
DeleteYour DMM can not "see" the right value, because it is out of range. 2M2 is higher than 2000k, so the DMM will display all zero's or no number at all. Try a higher scale. kr Frans
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteGot the PCB from PedalPCB and build it. Plugged in and wanted the magic to start. Not! In front of my Fender princeton tube preamp it is just a boost. Nothing more, nothing less. Mile's away from what I hear on You tube. Nothing special, only big low end loss. Gonna experiment with the circuit, cause I want to hear the same as in the vids. Made an active Baxandall tone control and that did the magic!
ReplyDeleteUpdate: When you look at the schematic in the link above, I changed the BigMuff tonestack to get in 12o'clock position the same curve as in the Fender tonestack. (see the Duncan tonestack calculator) And now I have a good sound! I lost some output power but I do not care. I have good low and high end now. I have changed the following parts, C11 to 3n9F, C12 to 10nF, R15 to 100k, R16 the same 22k and the pot to 500kB. Now I can dial in the sounds that I hear in the video clips. In the clip above he is playing with an amp that is already in slight overdrive.
ReplyDeleteGetting ready to build the pedalpcb version as well, so I'm looking forward to try out your tweaks Frans. One question though; doesn't the active Baxandall tone control encompass more than substituting the C11, C12 and R15, and the pot to 500K?
DeleteHoi Erik, a active baxandall tonestack is much better than this. In fact I completely removed the muff tonestack and that was a big suprise! I connected the neg. side of C10 directly to R17 (buggs schematic six string stinger). Between C10 and R17 I made a lowpass filter from the 100k in serie with a 47nF cap to earth. Perfect. The output power is a lot more. For some nice sizzle I put a switch with a 18k res and two antiparallel 914 diode's to earth. Perfect again. My complain of this pedal was the loss of bass. So I changed C5 and C9 to 1uF. And back is the bass. And now I am hearing a lot of what I hear in the yt demo's of the Vertex SSS. This is coming at the end of the pedal chain with a very little overdrive and leave it on. Further have I build a part of the XoticBBPreamp, the baxandall tonestack, in a pedal and that is the first pedal in the chain. Works really great.
DeleteIn mine baxandall pedal I changed the caps and res. to get a perfect sound. I used the same values as in the Duncan tonestack calculator. This really opens the sound of my Strat. I use a tube Fender Princeton preamp and the combination with this toneshaper is fabulous!
DeleteLast update, I did rebuild the tone stack to the original. There was still a difference with the demo's. I have seen them all and discovered that the beautiful sound does not come from the pedal!! When you listen to Linda Taylor demo you will hear that when the volume with the pedal is the same as without the pedal, there is almost no coloring of the sound. When the volume and gain are at 12'o clock the magic starts. I tried it with the original values on my tube amp and yes, the first tubestage in the amp is pushed into saturation. That is the magic that we hear! That is also the reason that it will not work in front of a SS amp. In every demo on YT you can hear the volume jump when they kick in the pedal. You can get some overdrive from the circuit but the main overdrive is the tube in your amp. So nothing special here, every fet-booster will deliver heavenly tone with a tubeamp. Rock'on.
DeleteThanks Frans. So first of all I'm playing through my pc/Revalver 4, but I still think the ability to shape the tone applies. So your baxandall tonestack, the values you used are not those from the Xotic BB Preamp? But those shown in the Duncan tonestack calculator, correct? And is that all you have in that pedal? I will definitely make another of the without the bigmuff tonestack and a LP filter added. Also, I read a review on the PedalPCB homepage of the SSS, and he pointed to the fact that matching the jfet's (~80mA) gave the best tone.
DeleteHoi Erik, in my toneshaper I used the same values as in the duncan calc program. The bb preamp values are perfect for a overdrive or distortion cause than you do not need the bigger range of the duncan values. I think on high volume the BB values will be better. But you can tweak the duncan values enough to get the good sound even on high volume. The pedal is made with a single chip with two opamp stages. Stage 1 for high Z input and amplification, stage two is for the active baxandall tone stack. This has become a great pedal and I have it in the last place in my chain.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteBuilt this today ; it sounds pretty good -- some might light it as a blue box or a boost... Could not get the Filter pot to work (no tonal difference, did not seem to do anything) .. Used all J201s with a 2n5457 in the Q1 position, and changed some 10ks to 7.5k ; might come back to this later and socket the transistors / fix the filter pot issue.
ReplyDeleteKyle, did you get the filter to work? Mine has exactly the same problem.
DeleteHi everybody! I'm new here. Has anyone tried to build this pedal using another transistor than the J201? MPF102 maybe? I know MPF102 gain is lower than J201, but, would it work? Can someone help me?
ReplyDeleteLeo, from what I can read from googlenet, the mpf102 is a N-channel JFET transistor like the J201, so you should be able to use the mpf102. How they differ soundwise I don't know, but I have a bag of mpf102's, so I'll try and swap them in my sss.
ReplyDeleteOk so I tried and swap the J201's for BF102's in my sss, and I've a short sound clip from each. It should be noted that I've tried to match the J201's but not the BF102's with which the sss sound a bit harsher to my ear. But it should be easy to mod the tone for your liking.
ReplyDeletehttps://soundcloud.com/erik-holm-nielsen/j201-vol10-gain6-filter10-1
https://soundcloud.com/erik-holm-nielsen/bf102-vol10-gain6-filter10
Wow Erik, that sounds great. Great job. How can?? I can not get that fat tone you have. What kind of amp are you using? Did you do mods on the pedal? I put the pedal away because I did not get this sound. Maybe I will try further.
DeleteHey Frans, yes I modded it inspired by your initial big muff tonestack tweak recommendation. I've installed a switch at C11 to give 10nF or 22nF and a switch at C12 to give 47nF or 2n2F. Also I installed a B100K pot instead of R15, as I couldn't decide whether having a 100k instead of a 10k had any positive effect. And lasty I swapped the filter 100k pot for a 500k.
ReplyDeleteI'm playing through my pc using a soundcard, so there's no magic there, just a lot of tweaking in Peavey Revalver 4. I hope you'll your sss pumped up as well :)
I was playing yesterday through my Fender Frontman 15 and indeed I was able to create these sounds with the modded Steel slinger. So it is a nice boost to give a little hair on the sound. Although I like my BBToneshaper more. lol
DeleteErik, you did a great value mod on the BM tonestack. With C11 on 10n and C12 on 22n you can dial with the R15 pot from flat to Fender scooped characteristic! Very nice!
DeleteI saw this earlier last year and it was in my bucket list. I ordered a whack of J201’s so obviously it got pushed up the list. This is my first build for 2019 and I just put it together today. Nice layout and I love that the circuit is all parts I had on hand (once the J201’s had arrived).
ReplyDeleteThis thing sounds awesome! I’m on a Preamp kick and this is a great one. It adds the magic but it’s unique in that it doesn’t sound artificial. Yes, you can make it gnarly with a bunch of gain but that’s not where it shines. It shines in the subtle filter settings. It really sounds great.
Thanks Alex!
Hello guys.
ReplyDeleteI have exactly the same problem as Kyle. Filterpot is not really working. Everything else sounds pretty fine.
Any sugestions? Not really planning for heavy modifications.
Hey fellow! same problem here, solved when I decreased the 22n filter cap, but I don't remember de value. Try that. Cheers
DeleteThere's a mistake in this layout. The 22nF cap should be 2.2nF, following the schematic we can find in the link in the description.
Deletesame boat as the others with the tone control. works fine other wise. i tried a 1meg in the filter and noticed the taper changes half way through but each way its full which indicates a grounding issue. however ive traced and recut and run a blade down the middle of the tracks many times i can seem to fix it. tried reflowing solder joints to and its just not happening
ReplyDeleteHello Guys! I mounted the pedal following the PedalPCB scheme. At first it didn't work, replace the J201 with a 2N5457 and the sound came out. Obviously the J201s were fake, or poor Chinese crap. I can't find j201 smd where I live. But the sound was not as cool as in YT, the volume of the pedal was at a ridiculous level. The filter tb seems to do nothing and the sound is very high. I will try to apply the mods suggested here on this forum and then I'll come back to comment. I think that if you can understand the polarization dynamics of the jfet's it is possible to adapt this circuit to any type of jfet (mpf102 / bf245a / 2N5457 ...). Has anyone tried to modify the values of the plarisation resistors of the Jfets?
ReplyDeleteJust built that,
ReplyDeleteSounds fantastic!
But it goes actually from a clean boost to a full oversdrive, at least at my build.
I got some original j201 from Banzai.
It's not sounding close to the demos on YT but still a killer build!
Thanks!
Amigo usted q sabe de los planos del vertex booter el q es gris
DeleteAlgien tiene los planos del booter de vertex el que es gris
ReplyDeleteI've built a pair of these and one of them is popping when bypassed/engaged. Noob question, but does this circuit include a pulldown resistor? If not, how can I add one? Or could the issue be related to the transistors?
ReplyDeleteWell, actually it has a pulldown resistor in the input, it's the 2.2M next the 10nF.
DeleteCheck the value and the position in both your board.
What off-board wiring are you using?
Guy's what value need to use for CLR resistor..thnks
ReplyDeleteDepends on the ledcolor you choose. I normally use a 4,7k resistor for the CLR
DeleteHi Alex, please correct the vero, there is a mistake due to a former false schematic on PedalPCB I think. Like Elijah-Baley wrote above, C11 and C12 have to be interchanged --> 2u2 has to be 22u and 22u has to be 2u2, in row 1 to 3 and 3 to 4 on the right side. I built the pedal some years ago and wondered, why it sounded quite nice and fat, but the Filter/Tone knob had no real function. Now I did the swapping between the two capacitors an WOW - big change in sound! Now I can dial in really different tones. Now the thing make sense. Nice! (On PedalPCB's site they made a revision with the correct schematic in 2021). Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRIP stock of 10k resistors
ReplyDeleteBuilt one. Great!!!
ReplyDeleteReplacing both of the source degeneration resistor (10k) to smaller value definelty increases gain. Both to 7.5K sounded awful (too fuzzy and harsh); 8.2k for the first one and 10k for the second one works nice for me. Quite compressed at high-gain position, very clean and spanky at low-gain. (even 0 is usable for super-clean tones)