Geranium Transistor

Got some new PCBs in! First up is my octave up, which sounds pretty great with some fuzz. Also great, but not in this video: octave in one loop of my Split-Band Effects Loop, mixing in some uneffected signal on the other loop, into the fuzz. I'll probably do a demo of that soon.

As ever, something always has to go wrong when ordering PCBs, but fortunately it was surmountable - I forgot to flip a PNP transistor's orientation, so initially one half of the rectified signal was about half the amplitude of the other (I'm surprised it worked at all?). I used surface mount, so unfortunately I couldn't just turn the transistor around, but fortunately the pinout does work for an NPN, which I had. Changing one resistor for biasing was the only other thing needed. If I get to the point of ordering more boards I may make this change the default; it sounds the same and costs a little less.

So maybe this thing wants me to start a garage rock band and play Sonics covers? No diodes at first, diodes added in the second half.

Because nothing ever stays simple, the Green Ringer I breadboarded has become a bit more than that:
- added a resonant low pass filter to emulate a rolled-back tone k**b (which smoothes the octave up in a nicer fashion than a non-resonant filter)
- added a boost to the output to make up for volume losses from the smoothing filter (except the buffering I added actually reduces losses from the normal input, so even without it it's louder with just the filter, making this clean gain)
- decided, what the hell, let's add some feedback diodes on that boost because heck it sounds really good so let's put that on a switch

So it feels like a bit more than just a Green Ringer now? I'm not sure if I'd say it's my design but basically everything's a derivation of something. It's not a matter of ethics for me so much as ... pride, maybe? I don't want to do the same old things; when I build them my intention is to learn, maybe make a thing for myself. At what point it moves past that is ambiguous.

Mostly I am difficult, because I know no other way.