OLCircuits English Channel Ordered...

[Will Chen]

Been wanting to build a kit pedal for a little while now and decided to give the OLCircuits English Channel a shot. Anyone build one before? The limited info I could find on it was positive. I hope to also build Wampler's Cranked AC in a couple months...

[ibodog]

Good luck with that. I tried to order something from them last spring and when nothing showed up they said it must have been "lost in the mail" and gave me my money back...

[RomanS]

Originally Posted by ibodog

Good luck with that. I tried to order something from them last spring and when nothing showed up they said it must have been "lost in the mail" and gave me my money back...

I ordered a PCB for the Professor Tweed a few months ago, and received it very quickly, without any problems!

[Will Chen]

Looks like there's a 2 week lead time. Can't wait!

Originally Posted by RomanS

I ordered a PCB for the Professor Tweed a few months ago, and received it very quickly, without any problems!

Have you built it? How does it sound?

[RomanS]

Yep, I have completed that Prof. Tweed - and it sounds very "amp-like", indeed, a really nice low-gain OD (you can also get clean tones a bit); I modded mine a bit for slightly more gain and bottom end than the stock version.
One thing, though: it is relatively low output - even with the volume dimed mine doesn't get a whole lot louder than unity gain, so I run a clean booster behind it...

[Uma Floresta]

Originally Posted by RomanS

Yep, I have completed that Prof. Tweed - and it sounds very "amp-like", indeed, a really nice low-gain OD (you can also get clean tones a bit); I modded mine a bit for slightly more gain and bottom end than the stock version.
One thing, though: it is relatively low output - even with the volume dimed mine doesn't get a whole lot louder than unity gain, so I run a clean booster behind it...

I concur - great tweed amp-like tones - I also added a bit more bass/gain to mine, as stock it was a little shrill using just the bridge pickup. Mine has plenty of output though. It might depend on which JFETs you're using, though.

[RomanS]

Originally Posted by Uma Floresta

I concur - great tweed amp-like tones - I also added a bit more bass/gain to mine, as stock it was a little shrill using just the bridge pickup. Mine has plenty of output though. It might depend on which JFETs you're using, though.

Uma,
yep, it was your mods that I found somewhere in some other forum that I used on mine, too (ended up with slightly different cap values, though) - if you do any googling on the Professor Tweed, "Uma Floresta" usually comes up among the first search results...
I guess I should try different JFETs to see whether I get more volume from mine.

[Uma Floresta]

Originally Posted by RomanS

Uma,
yep, it was your mods that I found somewhere in some other forum that I used on mine, too (ended up with slightly different cap values, though) - if you do any googling on the Professor Tweed, "Uma Floresta" usually comes up among the first search results...
I guess I should try different JFETs to see whether I get more volume from mine.

Ah... yes, I suppose I'm one of the pedal's biggest fanboys. :D I'm actually just using all MPF102s, but one of them is atypically loud. They vary a lot. I recall that 2N5457s sounded good too.

[sbolt]

I have also built the English Channel. While it is chimey, it won't bring you into Brian May blizzard of nails territory I am afraid, at least mine doesn't. As the gain gets high the distortion gets kind of rough.

Unless....Uma has a mod for this pedal also??

[Uma Floresta]

Originally Posted by sbolt

I have also built the English Channel. While it is chimey, it won't bring you into Brian May blizzard of nails territory I am afraid, at least mine doesn't. As the gain gets high the distortion gets kind of rough.

Unless....Uma has a mod for this pedal also??

I don't unfortunately. I've never tried that one.

[Will Chen]

Originally Posted by sbolt

I have also built the English Channel. While it is chimey, it won't bring you into Brian May blizzard of nails territory I am afraid, at least mine doesn't. As the gain gets high the distortion gets kind of rough.

Unless....Uma has a mod for this pedal also??

Actually, I'm looking for a more moderate Vox chimey overdrive rather than the Brian May balls to the wall sound. Got my fingers crossed!

[Will Chen]

I finally built this sucker.

The downloaded instructions were fairly detailed however some of the pictures were clearly from a previous version of the circuit board. Also, the mini pots to bias the jfets (had to take a trip to Radio Shack) and the brackets to mount the jfets (had to solder them directly to the board) were missing.

The build took me approx 16 hours. It should have gone much faster however on the initial build, signal wasn't passing correctly even when bypassed. I checked the board 3 or 4 times before I convinced myself the problem was elsewhere so I removed the bypass and it still didn't work. Then I removed the entire circuit and simply wired the input to the output and it still didn't work! I replaced the provided stereo jacks with some mono jacks and also replaced the 3PDT with a DPDT and wired a simpler true bypass and she sang!

How does it sound? Very nice. Certainly delivers in adding a Vox like tone to my arsenal and worked well with all 3 of my current amps: Peavey Bandit, Tech 21 TM 60, and Vox AC4TV. It is a high gain fairly compressed pedal when cranked but lowering the gain really nails the light to moderate overdriven AC30 tone. I like it way better with single coils than humbuckers, YMMV. Still trying to get used to the controls but so far I'm very happy with it.

[Will Chen]

Just an update...the dead jacks were a mistake on my part. It's a specific design, forget the name (cliff jack?), with a live and dead side and I had them oriented incorrectly.

[11 Gauge]

Originally Posted by Will Chen

How does it sound? Very nice. Certainly delivers in adding a Vox like tone to my arsenal and worked well with all 3 of my current amps: Peavey Bandit, Tech 21 TM 60, and Vox AC4TV. It is a high gain fairly compressed pedal when cranked but lowering the gain really nails the light to moderate overdriven AC30 tone.

runoffgroove.com really makes some great pedal projects. It's cool to know that someone is offering kits of them.

IMO, their "amp sim" designs are the ones to beat. The Thor is the most incredible plexi in a box that I've heard to date, hands down. And their Fetzer Valve project expands the use of jFET's to just about ANY tube amp circuit that there is. You could go nuts building all of those pedals - the Supreaux, the Matchbox, even some of the booster/OD projects that they have that are FET based. I LOVE their Peppermill project - excellent sounding pedal! And lotsa folks seem to be really happy with their Umble builds, as well.

[czech-one-2]

+ 1 on the THOR!
Not only a great 'marshall in a box',but also some incredible low gain bluesy tones in there too,and ample volume. It doesnt stack with other dirt boxes as well as some pedals,and seems to prefer my strats bridge pickup,but its becoming my main overdrive into a clean SS amp.Still using my ts9 for the neck pickup though.