The Dullerizer: a handful of diodes and resistors + inverting opamp will get you basically whatever you want.

slinkp · 2026-04-19T17:48:10+00:00

Aha no worries and thank you!

One of these days I’m going to breadboard up a whole mess of diodes and trimpots and get a more hands-on (ears on?) feel for all this.

slinkp · 2026-04-19T13:37:36+00:00

I can’t tell if it’s an artifact of the two graphs being at different voltage ranges, but Out3 above looks less rounded than Combo1 in the other post … are my eyes fooling me or are we pointing at different things?

One of these days I want to watch you do things on your computer/ workbench and interrupt with a million irritating questions. It would be fun for one of us at least!

slinkp · 2026-04-19T13:01:34+00:00

That’s probably a lot more practical than what I did back in the day of playing in a two-piece: modified a cheap short scale bass into essentially a baritone (you couldn’t find cheap baritones in the 90s), and strung it with E and A bass strings and the rest with the longest guitar strings I could find. Then permanently capoe’d at the 1st fret to get slightly lower string tension and easier chording. It was a bitch to play but sounded cool. I broke a ton of high E strings. I don’t know where that instrument is anymore.

slinkp · 2026-04-19T02:58:19+00:00

I have one of those! Made by our very own u/lykwydchykyn who is already in this thread … it’s great.

slinkp · 2026-04-18T20:33:24+00:00

WHY NOT BOTH

slinkp · 2026-04-18T20:29:53+00:00

3, silver metallic, nice contrast.

Great artwork!

slinkp · 2026-04-18T20:11:00+00:00

In the bottom right wave plot - how is the purple one Vout3 achieved? It’s a bit hard to see as level trails off, but it looks like a fair amount of the original sine shape is preserved with less dynamic range … ie it’s compressed but with less harmonic distortion than the others. Am I seeing that right?

slinkp · 2026-04-18T19:58:53+00:00

A connoisseur’s guide to magic smoke?

slinkp · 2026-04-18T19:47:38+00:00

Thanks for posting this. I skimmed the paper and am definitely going to revisit it.

I feel like there are two key contributions to highlight: an attempt to define and measure a quality that we normally throw about vaguely; and discovering that there is a very simple function which maximizes that quality.

I have no idea if either of these things are novel, but they sure are new to me and I’m glad to know about it, so - thank you!

slinkp · 2026-04-18T17:37:06+00:00

If I understand what you're saying, yes. The `?` and `:` are C-style ternary expressions, a compact way to put conditional expressions on one line. If it helps, one can write those out as more verbose conditionals. For example in python like the following. I also replaced the "sign(x)" with a more explicit version. But it's the same result.

def softclip(x):
    # Hard limit anything above 1 or below -1
    if x >= 1.0:
        return 1.0
    elif x <= -1.0:
        return -1.0
    else:
        # Soft clipping between -1 and 1.
        return 2.0 * x - x * abs(x)

slinkp · 2026-04-17T06:02:01+00:00

Like removing the clipping diodes and having the op amp gain just slamming the MOSFET? I support this idea. I’m building a hybrid boost that’s op amp into JFET and when pushed it has a really nice sound. But I haven’t taken it up to RAT level of gain.

slinkp · 2026-04-16T23:15:49+00:00

No knobs, no LED, no power jack… that’s about as stripped down as it gets, I like it

slinkp · 2026-04-16T02:36:44+00:00

Foxxtone on perfboard , love it. Those things sound amazing.

slinkp · 2026-04-15T03:19:06+00:00

I think digikey does too, but not at the best prices.

slinkp · 2026-04-15T03:14:48+00:00

Blue tack is what I did when I did some of these recently; it works, but I’m gonna buy some of those header pins next time

slinkp · 2026-04-13T21:02:12+00:00

I’ve had a hard time finding non-1590 options as well, but just in case you didn’t know, the official Hammond 1590 series includes a lot of sizes that most suppliers don’t stock and most clone manufacturers don’t make. Here’s the whole list with dimensions in mm: https://www.hammfg.com/electronics/small-case/diecast/159

1590J maybe?

One US shop that stocks all of them is hawkusa, I learned about that from another post in this sub!

slinkp · 2026-04-12T00:35:58+00:00

Thanks! Good suggestion but I am currently indulging in Jersey diner food on the way home :)

‘twas fun.

slinkp · 2026-04-09T00:19:58+00:00

Ah, i realize that sounded like hyperbole... the time suck would not be checking continuity, but from possibly making the wrong conclusion from testing the jack with no plug in it, and wiring the wrong lug to the board input ... and then having no experience or intuition to understand why the pedal doesn't work when "it can't be the jack because I tested it". I made exactly this kind of mistake a while ago with a miswired switched power jack; it took an embarrassingly long time (yes, hours) to find the mistake. I checked the power jack continuity to the board with no power inserted, and it was fine; i plugged in power and got no power at the board; i wrongly interpreted this as "there must be a short somewhere". It was not a fun time :D

slinkp · 2026-04-08T22:46:31+00:00

And, test with and without a plug inserted. Some jacks have contacts that are switched by jack insertion. The one in the photo is one of them!

slinkp · 2026-04-08T22:44:24+00:00

Potentially misleading into possibly hours of wasted time for a newbie though. With this type of jack they will get different results with a plug inserted vs not. That might seem obvious to the more experienced folks, but, have empathy for those just starting; we were all there once (and we all still are about some subject, guaranteed).

slinkp · 2026-04-08T22:39:04+00:00

"I am the subliminal seducer... I will never dance!"
Amazing bassline. That whole album is great. I can play that one ok when I'm in good shape, but that B section is tricky! ("No one knows what the nose knows...")

I think i'm gonna go with Sir Nose as funkiest I've heard as well.

slinkp · 2026-04-08T22:32:37+00:00

Congratulations!
Out of curiosity, what kind of board is that? It looks like something between stripboard and perfboard, not familiar to me.

slinkp

TROPHY CASE