BYOC triboost questions

[waparker4]

I'm considering ordering a BYOC triboost and I had a few technical questions/reservations about it that I hoped I could get cleared away.

Schematic: http://buildyourownclone.com/boostinstructions.pdf

First, what I like about the design:
1. Having a rangemaster but also having a clean boost option.
2. 3 modes of rangemaster for treble boost or full range boost.
3. true bypass

I have a few questions about some details though.

1. The pedal seems to run each effect at maximum blast, and use a 100k volume pot on the output to control the output level. Whereas comparing this to the rangemaster schematic, the level pot was a 10k pot feeding the .01 mfd cap which went straight to output. For the mosfet circuit, the orman schematic shows a 5k gain pot which is missing from the byoc schematic (aka at full blast), and similarly no output level. What effect on the sound do these differences make?

2. Shouldn't the germanium circuit have at least a bias trim pot included? It is my understanding that these transistors vary and so have to be tuned in. Also that they are very sensitive to temperature changes.

3. Is there any change in volume between the three settings?

4. What's the sonic difference between the MOSFET boost and the silicon transistor boost?

I understand that there will be compromises when you put 3 different effects circuits in one enclosure. For clutter reasons, I would not want to have 3 drive knobs for each circuit instead of one overall level knob. Just wondering if anybody out there with triboost experience has noticed issues with the strategy of running each effect at max blast and controlling the master volume at the end of the circuit. And if so, how did you deal with those issues.

I play alot of bright sounding guitars with varying levels of output into a DRRI. On a given day I may pick up a strat with CS single coils, a tele with not quite overwound vintage style pups, an Agile ES 335 copy with bright sounding alnico pickups, a P90 LP, an old Teisco. I don't play with high gain, but my mental definition of clean goes pretty broadly into light OD; for instance I consider most of the guitar parts in the Spoon discography to be pretty clean. For that reason running each effect at maximum speed might be OK for me. Another reason might be that I'm not super picky with tone... I'm primarily interested in optimizing the circuit because it's Fun with Electronics.

I'm most interested in the Rangemaster part of the circuit, with the cap selector in the middle position or dark position, since everything in my signal chain is already bright, that said, I may consider an external bias pot for dialing in the germanium transistor.

Anybody build a triboost and play with the circuit some?

[waparker4]

Bump, or boost, or whatever

[ToadLC]

I'll bet you'd get a better result posting your questions at the BYOC forum.

http://www.buildyourownclone.com/board/

[Vizcaster]

The MOSFET boost on that pedal is a little fuller and bassier than the Silicon boost, but the MOSFET sometimes sounds muddier so I generally prefer the Silicon setting. My second choice is the Germanium setting if I want more tonal coloration as opposed to just kicking the amp harder.

If I would have to guess (and I shouldn't since I don't do my own circuit mods) the bias trimpot isn't a big deal on the Tri-Boost because you're not really getting a huge effect out of the transistor the way you do with a Fuzzface or BYOC ESV Fuzz (there, as far as I can tell, the trimpot allows you to simulate a dying battery, or to just find the sweet spot for the voltage going into the transistors, and I've found that it does affect the tone of the fuzz effect).

And, yeah, you've probably already got your answer from the byoc forum.