The worst part is actually "yes, I have" to the aforementioned thought. It could work. Coffee + booze + pills is more readily accessible?

Anyhoo, today I'm more than fine. See other thread.

Poasted in the drum forum instead when I realized it was a long bit about... drums.

My gf who happens to be a christian does not approve of the reason why I have a zombie kitty avatar

Your girlfriend does not approve of the lulz.

Pics of gf.

Tonight was the first time I've been to a pub that had good music on the jukebox - ATDI, RATM, Mastodon to name but a few

My gf refers to all of you as my internet friends. Though some now have names, like Snaxie is the "gothy guy" or the "font guy" because of whatever font he uses for the Garda stuff (fucking design nerds), chris is the "pedal guy from boston". She actually knows Cameron and Geoff by name via facebook, and Joey because I have been talking about buying his cab.

She gets a kick out of me posting here.

I have no other place to post awesome shit like this other than here, so here you are, gentlemen;

You know what sucks? When you start to design something only to learn partway through, that someone else has already basically designed it.

Not as bad as actually finishing the thing before you learn of the pre-existing specimen, but even still.

What were you tinkering with?

Basically an AC30 in pedlol form. But like, not an amp sim style jibjab, rather like an opamp distortion that behaved like an AC30.

Or, as i just learned, basically, the Carl Martin AC-Tone.

The bastards.

Still sounds like a cool idea. Opamp distortions seem really interesting.

How does that work exactly?
In terms of it operating like an AC30 does.

Basically, the screwy part tone circuit of the circuit, i would keep roughly the same as the amp, but other than that, it would be a matter of figuring out what the amp stages are doing, as far as amplification, clipping, and especially tone shaping, and reproducing enough of that so that the thing works right. So that it distorts at the right part of the gain knob, and so that it explodes with the right amount of applied force on the strings. Just setting gain and clipping thresholds so that it does it right.

Like, the clipping in the first couple of stages isn't as big of a deal to me as the clipping in the phase inverter is, because that is a big part of the explodey-ness. The amount of bass and treble that is allowed to pass from stage one to stage two, from stage two to stage three, etc, IS important, because to me it is a those characteristics that make a Vox not sound like a Marshall or a tweed bassman, or something else that has a similar circuit as far as how many tubes and the arrangement of them.

Basically, it started when i just built one of these a couple days ago: http://www.olcircuits.com/olc_englishchannel.html (but not from their stuff, just from scratch)

And even though it basically IS an AC30 circuit(like literally they just swapped out the tubes for JFETS and left everything else alone) it doesn't really sound like one, because the way it clips is screwy.

So i was going to build something with gainstages that i consider to clip nicely instead, but to retain the frequency behaviors of the Vox. I figured i could do the whole thing with a single quad op amp, running a high dual voltage for maximum output stage headroom(needed in a pedal though not really in an amp).

Had about half of it drawn out before i thought "hmm, i wonder what else is out there that i might have missed" and went looking at some of the other supposed "vox in a box" circuits like the menatone TBIAC, the lovepedal death of a vox, the wampler cranked ac, and a couple others. I was feeling pretty good until i got to the video comparing the wampler to the Carl Martin, and that thing just sounded "right". Sure enough, hunt down the schematic: quad opamp, 12v dual power supply, voiced like a vox, but not too many actual AC30 bits really in it.

Basically, what i started to draw up was be only slightly different, and with have a full vox TB tonestack in addition to the cut control. But listening to the AC-Tone clips, i don't even know that the tone controls would even be all that useful. I pretty much leave mine set the way they are essentially hardwired in the Carl Martin pedal anyhow.

Oh well. So now i am going to build an AC-Tone instead? Probably make it so it can switch into the CM Plexitone, which is almost the same circuits just with different clippers and voicing. Would only take a couple toggle switches to go between the two.

tl/dr: Tedious Nerd Shit.

The AC/Plexi pedal could be a hit though. It's like the best of brits in a box. A Brit-Box.

Yeah, that sounds like a badass pedal for sure.

Brit-Zophrenia!

I wouldn't build it though, too much like the Carl Martin boxes. I am not totally done with the concept yet, but i would have to figure something new/interesting out on it.

So i will probably build the AC-Tone/Plexitone derivative and see if it is as good in practice as it seems in theory(and clips) and then decide what to do from there. If it is good, fuck it, i will just be happy to have a solution so easily as to not have to design it myself.

Really, i was just doing this one for myself, rather than for some future product sort of thing. Sort of an in-between of the lo-fi solution of the timmy into the crate POS, and the hi-fi solution of my real (and loud) amp.

I fucking love that Timmy by the way. I used it as an OD the other day and forgot how much it can push an amp.

Edit: I also barely ever turn it off, which makes me think I might need higher output pickups for the toanes I want.

I wonder how well one of those would play along with the EHX 22 and 44 watt power-amp-in-a-pedal dealies.
That'd be a sweet, portable rig.