So why circuit boards, I always hear that point to point wiring is so much better? I think the person that said this, probably has never designed a circuit board in his or her life. I have been designing circuit boards since the late 70’s. Back then you used red and blue tape to describe the top and bottom layers. Today with Altium, I can do circuit boards in a couple hours that have only rounded traces and fitted ground planes to reduce noise. This creates a duplication method that is better than point to point wiring.
Nitrous Booster with 3 frequency ranges
Nitrous seemed like a good name for this pedal for 2 reasons. One since the site name is guitar-engines.com it seemed fitting to make the pedals oriented towards engine stuff. Plus Nitrous as we all know is Laughing Gas.
Being from the Audio realm we typically say if it’s worth doing something it’s worth over doing it. :) So thinking of the audience I am offering two versions of this pedal. Both pedals are really the best parts available in the world. Both versions use Mial polystyrene input caps for the standard Rangemaster filter and the 1/2 frequency (switch Right). A custom Precision Component volume control is used for the output. Full bypass switching and standard negative center 9V 2.1mm connector. An input isolation power filter with a common mode choke and two capacitors lowers the 9V noise before the circuit. There is not a connector inside for a 9V battery. Please use only 9V supplies for this pedal.
TurboCharged adds over the top components like V-Cap ToneCaps for the output coupling capacitor, Shinko Tantulum resistors, Mullard NOS OC140 & 950 NPN germanium transistors, Black Gate HiQ BGN capacitors and Mundorf MCapEvo Silver/Gold & oil for low frequencies capacitors (Left Switch).
The Standard version uses Kiwame Carbon film resistors, Mial polystyrene output, 2SD352 NOS germanium transistors, WIma MKP10 low frequency coupling (Left Switch) and Black Gate standard capacitors.
If you have never heard of Black Gate capacitors look them up on eBay ($$$).
The three way switch determines the high pass frequency. In the center switch position you get the Rangemaster (~2500Hz) sound. With the switch to the right you drop that frequency down to ~800Hz and switching the switch to the left you go almost full range at ~150Hz. These detail the 3 capacitors seen below on the circuit board. Use these setting to bring your guitar to a place in the mix which best suites the song you’re playing.
Red NPN NOS transistor on the standard is the 2SD352 and on the TurboCharged is the Mullard OC140 or Mullard 950.
Purple is the Wima Film Capacitor and the CMC choke for power supply isolation and noise immunity.
Blue is the custom Precision Components 10K volume control.
Green is the input coupling capacitors and the 3 way switch 2x Mial and Mundorf MEvo Gold/Silver in Oil (Wima MKP10 on standard).
Orange is the output capacitor in this case the V-Cap 0.015uF ToneCap. Standard is a 0.01uF NOS Mial Capacitor.
Note the light purple resistors (R2) and (R6, just north of the blue pot) Shinko Tantulum on the TurboCharged.
Neutrik mono TS connectors.
To the right of the 20 turn pot for biasing you can see (C5) Black Gate BGN HiQ bypass capacitor.
The PCB’s are laid out with Aultium and use only rounded traces and have board shielding directives to make the design very quiet.