Tone Source

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Tone Source (improved overdrive) [[Image

Pedal description

Effect closely based on Lovetone's Brown Source. Quoting Doug, "...I vehemently disagree with the comment that the Brown Source has a "fake bland" sound. Like many "old school" style effects, it depends on the amp you are using with it and how it is set up. Think of the Brown Source like a Rangemaster. If the amp has the goods, the Rangemaster helps it give it up. The Brown Source works the same way, and has more tonal options and flexibility than the Rangemaster. No, they are not the same thing and don't do the same things. But they should be used the same way, hence the comparison. If your amp has a little dirt, or can overdrive easily, the Brown Source can sound pretty nice and add a lot of harmonic detail to the amp sound. If it's a pristine clean amp with gobs of headroom, the Brown Source probably won't sound that interesting.

It is a quirky "design", is probably more complex than it should be, and I don't necessarily consider it a good design from an electronics standpoint. But it is what it is and if you like to twiddle knobs there are a lot of fun sounds you can find with it." "The first 3 positions of the tone selector control the amount of bass IF the tone control is turned up to the treble side. If the tone control is turned down to 50% or less, the tone selector will not have a noticeable effect in those positions. I suspect the tone selector was intended as a way of allowing you to get more treble without thinning out the sound. The tone control is a basic Big Muff Pi tone control topology, and as you turn "up" the level of treble, the bass turns "down". I would guess the switch was implemented as a way of compensating for the loss of bass. So with a darker amp I find the tone selector more useful, as I tend to run the tone control turned up to the treble side more in this situation. With a brighter amp, I tend to run the tone control with less treble. In this case the tone selector does not do much, but it doesn't need to as there is plenty of bass response when the tone control is turned down anyway. (The BMP tone control also turns the bass "up" as you turn the treble "down".)

In the Brown Source, the 4th switch position is "off" and it bypasses the tone control network to provide more overall gain. I didn't find this particularly interesting for my purposes. I had accidentally stumbled across a simple mod that, with a bridge pickup, produces a mid scoop sound similar to a Gibson or Tele with both pickups turned on and in-phase. I call it the "twank" setting and it is a lot of fun to play with. It adds more tonal dimension and flexibility to the pedal than the "off" setting IMO, so I implemented that instead of the bypass. It is a lot of fun to rotate the switch while you are playing, the first 3 positions give you variations on what I would call a "Marshall" sound - then you hit number 4 and all the sudden sound like Keith Richards and you want to start playing Stones riffs. (I'm not a big Stones fan, but I just thought it was fun... )"

Technical info

Quoting Doug, "Soundwise, that's probably the main difference. ["twank" position instead of "off"]

I simplified the circuit somewhat too and cleaned up some stuff I felt was unnecessary: I dumped the input buffer and converted the gain stage to non-inverting with a reasonable Zin. I also deleted the output low pass filter as the Fc was > 20khz anyway (IIRC)."

Controls

None available yet!

Schematics

• [1] - Tone Source schematic.

Layouts

• [2] - Stripboard layout, by Ulysses.

Project Files

None available yet!

Sound samples

• Tone Source samples - At John Lyon's page.

Modifications

None available yet!

Building info

None available yet!

Latest news

None available yet!

Links

• Go back to the main Lovetone page

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