Electra Ranger

This is a fun circuit which is very simple and good sounding. It is a direct derivative of the Lovepedal Woodrow, which is an Electra Distortion with a few value changes.

The layout for the Woodrow was posted a few days back on Mark's layouts blog and, as every simple, low parts and good sounding circuit, pretty much had to be built.

I love pedals that are simple and have never been a big fans of 5+ knobbers that offer endless combinations, but I felt it would have been nice to give the Woodrow something extra, and opted for an input cap blend control, which basically control the amount of input capacitance and hence the amount of bass that comes into the pedal.

The input caps values I opted for are 4n7 (for that Rangemaster, trebley feel) and 2u2 (which should make it very bass friendly, too). The higher value cap is blended in parallel to the lower value one by a potentiometer which I call Range.

I adapted Mark's layout to accommodate the extra cap and potentiometer and here is what I cam up with:

It's probably not the most compact way of doing it, but I preferred to stick with Mark's original layout as much as I could and didn't feel the need to made a simple and small layout even smaller.

The result is a very nice sounding overdrive, with more than enough volume to push the front of your amp. A gain control can be added, too, as shown on Mark's blog entry.

So there you have it, a slightly modded Electra Distortion with a Range control aka the Electra Ranger.

I socketed the transistor and clipping diodes to try a few different combinations and quickly recorded the results. It is fair to mention that I adjusted the volume of the clips in order to make them all as loud as each other as the germanium diodes (1N34A and OA91) resulted in less output while the LEDs gave a higher output. Unity was under 12 o'clock in all cases anyway, so far from being a quiet pedal. The range control is set halfway all the way through. Path is Fender Jazzmaster (bridge pickup) > Electra Ranger > Vox AC4, recorded straight with an SM57.

Here's the quick test/components shootout:

After a little playing around I think my favorite combination is the 2N5089 with Germaniums (differences between the 1N34A and OA91 are very subtle but having to choose I'd probably go for the latter). I will record a few more clips with that combination in place and play around with the range control at different amp volumes, so do check back. Good tones to be had!

Alex