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Sunday, 22 February 2015

Blue Wizard Overdrive / Distortion Stripboard Veroboard Layout


This is the Blue Wizard - part of my "wizard" design series (Green Wizard HERE) - this is a very harmonic rich overdrive/distortion that uses 2 BC182L transistors (cause I have a load of them) - this is the same transistor used in the Brian May treble booster HERE

it has a bias pot onboard and I find it's best to adjust it till it sounds good to you.

anyway - below is a quick sound sample - the 1st bit is the gain all the way up and the 2nd bit is the gain half way up.




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16 comments:

  1. boratto23 February 2015 at 16:37

    sounds amazing

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  2. Anonymous7 March 2015 at 02:33

    This circuit design really sounds good. Well done!

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  3. Unknown8 March 2015 at 05:20

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Unknown8 March 2015 at 20:54

    Paul - I got around to building this one this evening. It is one awesome circuit and LOUD too! I see this finding a perm home on my pedal board. I wanted to build the Green Wizard but since I am no fan of Ebay, finding the parts has been, well... Anyways - Thanks for the work you do!

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    1. DrStevenson8 March 2015 at 21:56

      you can get the parts from other places like mouser and stuff - eBay is just where you can find parts cheapest (alot of the time)

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  5. Anonymous10 March 2015 at 23:51

    Pardon my ignorance, but would there be a way to add a volume/level control to this without changing the sound?

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    1. Unknown11 March 2015 at 02:05

      Yeah - its pretty easy - you'll need to experiment with pot values but this is pretty much it...

      Volume pot lug 1: Connect to to ground
      Volume pot lug 2: This is your NEW output
      Volume pot lug 3: Take the output wire from the circuit and connect it here

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  6. Anonymous11 March 2015 at 02:54

    Thanks!

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  7. Tkrain20 March 2015 at 02:55

    It looks like the BC182L is pretty close to a 2n3904 (which I have a ton of ). Will those work in the circuit? (I know, the pinout is reversed between the BC182 and 2N3904)

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    1. DrStevenson20 March 2015 at 07:54

      the 2n3904 will work but it has a much lower gain - a closer substitute would be the 2N5088
      but it's worth a shot with the 2N3904 - you never know, you might love it

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  8. υποδούρειος λίππος4 April 2015 at 15:21

    nice sounding overdrive!
    i did mine with 2N2219 (to-39 is more suitable for leg twisting).
    i got one question: would it make sense to socket the input cap? do different caps have an impact to the over-driven sounds?

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  9. Anonymous5 April 2015 at 10:39

    Hi!, what software are you using to design your stripboard layouts?
    Thank in advance, and congratulations for this goos stuff.
    Marcos

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    1. DrStevenson5 April 2015 at 11:33

      thanks dude - there's a link to the software I use on the "tips and troubleshooting" page

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  10. iuciuc17 July 2018 at 03:05

    Im not very good at this, hence the (maybe) stupid question. But what is the orientation of the capacitors? as in where do i place the + or the - side..

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    1. υποδούρειος λίππος23 July 2018 at 09:30

      for every electrolytic capacitor on the cirquit C2, C7, C4 , minus(-) side points to the bottom of the veroboard.

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  11. Pete17 October 2021 at 20:56

    Hi. Slightly confused. How to I wire up the pot. Is 1 and 2 to ground ? Where does three go to E

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