Runoffgroove Peppermill experiences...

DarnWeight

Not wanting to divert the "DIY one transistor" thread as this is a slightly different proposition, so thought I'd start my own.  Has anyone any experience with the ROG Peppermill?  I was looking at making a low-gain OD/boost, and this one looks really simple with a low parts count.  Really after just a bit of burr/hair/grit on the clean signal, but would be nice to know how much it boosts the existing signal too...the few youtube demos I've seen tend to stick with a single setting, and it's not easy to gauge how much overall level is available.

GuyBoden

Yes, it looks like an interesting pedal. You'll have to bias the jfets, so you'll have some fun building it and learn a lot. I like to spend a while getting to know the schematic and layout diagram before I build anything.

This looks like a good vero board build for the Peppermill here:
http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/runoffgroove-peppermill.html

DarnWeight

Yeah, I've built a few things from kits, put together a few utility boxes, and tinkered a little, but I've just got a breadboard setup and was looking for something I could play around with that wasn't super complex.  This one looks pretty cool to me.

GuyBoden

DarnWeight said:

Yeah, I've built a few things from kits, put together a few utility boxes, and tinkered a little, but I've just got a breadboard setup and was looking for something I could play around with that wasn't super complex.  This one looks pretty cool to me.

Yes it looks like a good transparent pedal and breadboarding is the the best for modding and testing, I always make sure I have plenty of jumper leads when breadboarding. A multi meter is handy, so you can compare your voltages with the voltages published on ROG site.  It only needs very, very small movements of the trimmer pot to get 4.52v on a jfet drain.

GuyBoden

I built the ROG Peppermill circuit on my breadboard today, I used a 0.022uf output cap, because I had no 0.047uf.

It's an easy build, just a Mosfet circuit linking to a jfet circuit, but if you use a 2N7000 Mosfet, remember that the pins are SGD not DGS.

Here's how my Peppermill circuit sounds:

DarnWeight

Woah!  Quick work.  Liking the slight "rounding" it appears to be adding.  Is it capable of boosting the level much above unity?

GuyBoden

Here's a 24 bit version, with more clarity:

GuyBoden

DarnWeight said:

Woah!  Quick work.  Liking the slight "rounding" it appears to be adding.  Is it capable of boosting the level much above unity?

Yes, it definitely has enough boost to push an amp, the recording is straight into a recording preamp, no guitar amp, so hopefully the sound of the circuit can be heard. The 24bit version is better.